Ripped From The Headlines?

There are days while I scroll through Twitter that I come upon a headline that seems to be ripped from a satirical source, such as The Onion or The Beaverton. Today was one such day.

RON DESANTIS’S NEW CIVICS INITIATIVE INVOLVES TEACHING KIDS SLAVERY IN AMERICA WASN’T THAT BAD

Sadly, the source for this headline is Vanity Fair, and is yet another potent reminder of the steady, seemingly inexorable, decline of the United States, where lies are truth and truth are lies.

Lest young people come to see their country in a less than favourable light (i.e., as the rest of the world sees them), the Florida governor is acting with resolve and dispatch, leaving teachers attending Florida Department of Education conferences this summer stunned.

Tatiana Ahlbum, a 12th-grade government and economics teacher at Fort Lauderdale High, said it was stressed that the majority of enslaved people in America had been born into slavery, that the colonies bought fewer enslaved people from the transatlantic slave trade than has been previously portrayed, and that less than 4% of enslaved people worldwide lived in America, without noting that that percentage still constituted millions of people. 

Meanwhile, another slide reportedly quoted George Washington and Thomas Jefferson as saying they wanted to get rid of slavery, while crucially leaving out the fact that both men enslaved people, with the latter owning more than 600 in his lifetime and also famously raping at least one of them. Ahlbum added that few of the facts presented included cited sources. “We were not told which documents stated this or how to find them, just that they existed,” she said.

And that church and state separation thingy? 

The founding fathers didn‘t actually mean that. Incredibly, several slides reportedly stated that this is a major “misconception.” During a breakout session, presenters reportedly mentioned, more than once, “the influence Jesus Christ and the Bible had on the country’s foundation.” Richard Judd, a Nova High School social studies teacher, told the Times, “There was this Christian nationalism philosophy that was just baked into everything that was there.” He added that “ending school prayer was compared to upholding segregation.”

But perhaps DeSantis's heart is in the right place, He just doesn't want people to feel bad about themselves. 

The news of these conferences, which are voluntary, comes months after DeSantis signed a bill banning public schools and private businesses from making white people feel bad during lessons or training about discrimination.

Florida has traditionally been seen as the place old people go to die. It would seem that description can now be aptly applied to young minds as well.