OPINION
During
the Holocaust, Jews learned valuable skills
which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal
benefit. Because of the genocidal treatment of European
Jews between 1941 and 1945, they learned frugality, creativity and collective enterprising.
Furthermore, it must be understood that some acts of violence during German-occupied Europe, were perpetrated
against and by Jews.
Did that
paragraph shock you, make you angry? Did it sicken you?
Good.
It should.
Now What?
Replace
the words “holocaust” and “Jews” with “slavery”
and “Blacks” and you might empathize with the shock and frustration of
many infuriated over the new set of standards recently approved by the Florida
Board of Education.
The
new African American Studies curriculum standards include instruction on the
"personal benefit" of slavery for Black people.” This means Florida
public school students will now be taught about the advantages of various
duties and trades performed by slaves, such as agricultural work, tailoring
and blacksmithing.
The
fact that Blacks (like Jewish people) were creative, enterprising survivalists long before
slavery is overshadowed by this backwards effort to sanitize American history.
In addition, in accordance with the state's new academic standards, students will be instructed on "acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans."
The new rule specifically applies to the 1920 Ocoee,
Florida massacre, where a white-led mob attacked and killed 30 to 35 Black
residents and burned Black-owned businesses to the ground.
Students
will learn how uppity, assaulted or even enterprising Blacks somehow
contributed to race riots in Florida and, theoretically, throughout the nation
during the early 1900s.
These educational additions are the result of politically- inspired legislation signed in 2022 by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Proponents claim they simply want to
prevent the teaching of anything that makes people feel "shamed because of
their race."
****
What’s happening in Florida is the opposite of what happened in Germany after it was defeated in 1945.
After the end of WWII, Allied forces felt Germans needed to be re-educated
in democratic values. Therefore, through the
process of “denazification”
German society was to be cleansed of all Nazi ideology and influence in “society, culture, press, economy,
judiciary, and politics.”
The Allied Control Council issued Directive no. 24 mandating that all schoolbooks that supported the destructive tenets of Nazism, Fascism or German militarism be eliminated. It required schools, universities, and public libraries, as well as booksellers and publishers, to immediately remove such works from their shelves.
****
Of course, there were no efforts to eliminate the tenants
of white supremacy in public schools,
universities or libraries after slavery was abolished in the United
States. Long before Jewish people were demonized in Nazi propaganda, America’s
religious, political and educational scholars upheld slavery on religious,
moral and economic grounds.
It seems politicians like DeSantis want to revise the old-timey, white
supremacist, religious rhetoric that taught slavery was a mandate from God.
The Biblical story of Noah and his son, Ham, was re-manufactured into “The
Curse of Ham.” Slave-owners leaned on the tale of Ham and his descendants (reincarnated
as “Africans”) who were bound to servitude forever and ever.
Then in the early 19th Century, there were
political figures like political theorist and the 7th Vice President of the
United States, John C. Calhoun who wrote:
“Never before has the black race of Central Africa,
from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized
and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually... It came
to us in a low, degraded, and savage condition, and, in the course of a few
generations, it has grown up under the fostering care of our institutions.”
Note Calhoun’s dehumanizing use of the word “it” for
Africans.
In fact, everything taught in public schools after slavery was
presented through the vantage point of “American” (white) values. That mandate
continued well into the 1960s when most
Blacks, as well as other minority groups, were educated in wholly segregated public
schools that excluded Black history and culture.
Black history education became mainstream during the “Say
it loud; I’m Black and I’m Proud,” turbulent ‘60s civil rights era. A newly
integrated America inspired Black leaders, politicians, educators, students and others to boldly demand
historical and cultural representation in classrooms throughout the nation.
****
And now, just 60 or so years after that educational
“revolution,” right-leaning politicians like DeSantis and their hordes of
like-minded followers are intent on reverting back to a time when whitewashed
education was the norm.
To
push back against Critical Race Theory (which isn’t even taught in public
schools), DeSantis signed the "Stop WOKE Act" into law. Critics,
including the ACLU argue that efforts such as those enacted in Florida are just
blatant attempts to erase Black history and culture from the nation’s
classrooms and American culture.
“Truths we once
considered hard but self-evident are now being erased before our eyes,” the
ACLU posted on its website in February.
“Sadly, more and more, this history is
being challenged and even erased in our culture and, right now, in our schools,
through tactics like curriculum restrictions and book bans,” the statement
continued.
According to the organization, “30
state legislatures across the country have introduced bills to limit the
discussion of racial history in a wave prompted by the emergence of critical
race theory as a subject of political fearmongering. But that’s just the
beginning, over 300 books by predominantly Black authors discussing race,
gender, and sexuality, were also banned in the last year alone.”
I invite you to go back and reread the
first paragraph of this commentary. Imagine school curriculums designed to
alleviate German “shame” because of actions perpetrated against European Jews. Try
to conceive the arrogance of a people who committed crimes against humanity
demanding that their victims learn how they, too, were culpable in those
atrocities. Imagine books written by Jewish authors who discussed the holocaust banned in
public schools and libraries.
Are you incensed?
Good!
Now What?
Sylvester
Brown, Jr. is a St. Louis, MO-based writer, journalist and
author. He is the former publisher of Take Five Magazine, former Metro
Columnist with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and current Deaconess Fellow writer
with the St. Louis American Newspaper.
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