Changing Black Education
Photo by Susan Q Yin
Florida’s State Board of Education has approved new standards for the teaching of African American history in schools. This is a new standard that millions of children and young adults will receive until it is hopefully reversed.
Governor DeSantis and the Florida legislature have been busy. The onslaught of laws passed restricting how topics such as race, gender and sexuality can be taught in the state has been both dizzying and concerning. This even includes curriculum taught at the collegiate level. Florida has already banned Advanced Placement African American History from the state. Part of the goal, besides the bigotry, is to change the narrative of history and that is simply unacceptable. Our faults as a nation are not without evil deeds and shameful moments. Do we sweep them under the rug or face our darkest moments so that we may remember and vow to never repeat them? This is not about being “woke”, it is one of the things that history is supposed to teach us. Inevitably, all things come to pass again. But will we be ready to recognize those moments and not let them happen?
It was once said to me that part of the problem for African Americans in this country is that they have lost so much in the way of their personal histories. Being captured as slaves and brought to this country has robbed them of their cultural past. Many theorize that the first people on this planet originated on the African continent. But people who are descendant from slaves have lost this ability to reach back into their pasts and cherish what came before them. Their history only goes back some 400 plus years, for the first slaves, when it should be thousands of years. The profound loss of that identity cannot be put into words.
The Washington Post states, “But for Americans descended from enslaved Africans, the roots of their ancestry are often a mystery. Family trees go dark after five or six generations, a reminder that 150 years ago, Black people weren’t considered people.”
Now we see Florida doing its best to erase even more of that history. If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to see it, did it really fall? Or worse, we know it fell but if we do not put it in the books because fear and ignorance have passed laws preventing us from doing that. Then no one will ever know about it. This quote from Genesis Robinson, Political Director for the advocacy group, Equal Ground, tells it best. She said, “When you couple these standards, with the environment, the hostility toward daring to talk about certain subjects, it creates an environment where there’s going to be a complete removal of these conversations and of these lessons in the classroom because nobody wants to run afoul of all of the laws or policies that have been put in place.”
DeSantis seems to still be lagging in the polls in his presidential bid. While we would like to hear more about policies and solutions he has to ongoing problems in America, he continues to push Black people and members of the LGBTQ+ community into smaller and smaller boxes. Hopefully the rest of America is telling him that his actions are not okay.
