Being on the right side of history is a popular desire these days, and many opportunities are afforded by Black History Month. It offers progressives and companies the chance to stand with the Black community in expressing pride in their multitude of achievements that many people are unaware of. If you doubt those achievements, a quick online search will enlighten you.
Unfortunately, many companies citing solidarity with Black people and an abhorrence of racism do so as a kind of corporate virtue-signaling, while their true character is to be found elsewhere.
Such is the case in Ron DeSantis's Florida, where the governor's corporate contributors reveal a startling hypocrisy. And that hypocrisy envelops many national brands, all quite recognizable.
Amazon, AT&T, Coca-Cola, Comcast, DoorDash, General Motors and Walmart have all made public statements in celebration of Black History Month. Google posted online on 1 February: “Learn how Google is recognizing and celebrating Black voices, joy and success this Black History Month.”
But the Center for Political Accountability found that each of these companies donated significant sums of money to political groups that prominently supported DeSantis.
Another egregious offender, at least before relations with DeSantis went south, is Disney.
... early in the election cycle ... Disney contributed $50,000 to his re-election campaign and $125,000 to the Republican party of Florida, which supported his campaign and inauguration.
The list goes on, and you need only read the Guardian article to get more names.
What makes this so shameful? As I have written previously, DeSantis is on a campaign to control what Florida's children read and learn about Black history.
Earlier this month, the second-term governor announced plans to block state colleges from having programs on diversity, equity and inclusion as well as critical race theory, or CRT, which examines the ways in which racism was embedded into American law and other modern institutions, maintaining the dominance of white people.
The DeSantis administration also blocked a new advanced placement course on African American studies from being taught in high schools, saying it violates state law and is historically inaccurate. In the new framework, topics including Black Lives Matter, reparations and queer theory are not part of the exam.
And last year, DeSantis signed the “Stop Woke Act” that restricts certain race-based conversations and analysis in schools and businesses. The law bars instruction that defines people as necessarily oppressed or privileged based on their race.
A US state shelved m book – yet all I was doing was trying to help people live their lives
Fox Fisher
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The governor has imposed sweeping restrictions on books in public schools, forcing some teachers to remove books from their libraries or use paper to cover up their shelves. They face felony charges if unsanctioned books are present in their classrooms.
ThThe pattern of repression is clear, and it is spreading.
At least 25 states have considered legislation or other steps to limit how race can be taught, according to an analysis by Education Week. Eight states have banned or limited the teaching of critical race theory or similar concepts through laws or administrative actions.
All of which reminds us of the true nature of the corporate imperative: to make money, to pursue its fiduciary obligations to shareholders, and to lie with ease when it benefits them.
At least we still have journalists willing and able to provide a transparency that many would be more than happy to obscure.
In my post about homelessness the other day, I wrote, In Toronto, a motion that would have kept warming centres open from November to April was defeated, despite shelter space being at a premium.
Homelessness is not going away, and many citizens are acutely aware of that fact and the immorality of Toronto's decision.
A shameful shelter vote, Feb. 10
I am sad and appalled by Council’s heartless and immoral vote against 24/7 warming centres this winter. There can be no justification for voting against providing warmth for people seeking shelter from the cold.
People need warm, safe places to be instead of stairwells, bridges, parks, ttc buses and subways, libraries, etc. The approximately $400,000 per month warming centres would cost, is a drop in the bucket compared to other city expenses that are not vital to prevent suffering and save lives.
The basic purpose of government is to provide essential services for the safety and security of its citizens. As Edward Keenan opines, when there’s money for police and the World Cup, how can 100 people a day be turned away from shelter?
I am angry that the Mayor and Council have failed their core responsibility.
Dawn Michael, Toronto
The heartless decision of the mayor and some councillors not to see keeping warming centres as their first priority shames all Torontonians.
Brydon Gombay, Toronto
One need only walk a few city blocks or ride the TTC to be confronted with the human suffering and despair of individuals who are unhoused.
It is heartbreaking to witness people bedded down on our sidewalks and to know that our elected representatives believe that the citizens of this city are OK with this callous disregard for human life.
The complex issues that lead to homelessness are certainly not resolved by warming shelters, but leaving people exposed to the cruel elements of our Toronto winters is just wrong.
Barbara McMorrow, Toronto
The refusal of Toronto city council to ensure there are warming places 27/7 in the winter is a new low, done while the police budget is goosed upwards.
But maybe we can lower the bar to something the slim majority of council might support: opening up the city hall parking garage as a shelter.
I’m sure it isn’t all that well used, especially on the lower levels, and at least it’s warmer than outside. It’s already owned by the city, and there’s a lot of security around already. Yes, if it were completely repurposed, it might present a problem for some of the drivers at city hall, but Line 1 subway is minutes away. and there’s the Bay Street bus and the Queen streetcar.
Hamish Wilson, Toronto
There are clearly no simple answers to the growing dimensions of homelessness, but at least the above, and I am certain many thousands more, are unwilling to accept a patently untenable status quo.
It is incumbent upon all of us to speak for those who have no voice.
I have been thinking a lot about the homeless for quite awhile now. It is a problem difficult to ignore given the proliferation of people 'living rough,' attested to by the increasingly common tent encampments that are frequently rather gleefully taken down with alacrity by city officials. Are there alternatives? In Toronto, a motion that would have kept warming centres open from November to April was defeated, despite shelter space being at a premium.
Unquestionably, it is to our collective shame that people are living without a semblance of dignity, dignity they could achieve if we made it a real political issue.
The poor have no political voice, largely because they don't vote and have no power. Leverage only occurs further up the social scale. But it it would seem far past time that people realize, if not for altruistic reasons, then at least for selfish ones, that the problem of homelessness is everyone's problem.
Consider the recent, seemingly unprovoked, attacks on people in the street, on the streetcar and in the subway, often in broad daylight. Obviously, those perpetrating the attacks are largely mentally ill, a condition frequently exacerbated, if not caused, by homelessness.
You can do it for yourself, or you can do it for the collective good. And yes, that would require a reallocation of government resources and/or tax increases for the the well-to-do, something that has become the third rail in politics.
The homeless have a face. Thanks to ESN Parkdale for the following:
Richard was evicted from Lakeshore and Jameson yesterday. His tent and belongings were trashed in front of him, by a large mechanical claw and a group of
While I have posted now a few times on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's campaign to keep people in abysmal ignorance. there always seems to be something more to say on the topic. My friend Gary alerted me to a new article in The Guardian about the fervent Floridian's campaign to lay waste to young minds, keep them in profound ignorance about American history, and feed red meat to his acolytes.
Last year he signed the Don’t Say Gay bill, a nasty little law that bans classroom discussion of sexuality or gender identity issues – effectively forcing children and teachers alike to stay silent about their families and lives, under the threat of lawsuits.
Since then, the Florida governor has repeated the playbook in increasingly ambitious fashion. Last April, DeSantis signed the exhaustingly titled “Stop Woke Act,” which restricts lessons on racial inequality in public schools. The bill prohibits the teaching of material that could cause a student to “feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress,” due to US racial history ...
Indeed, DeSantis seems intent on obstructing anything that might foster greater awareness and critical thinking.
In mid-January, DeSantis’ Department of Education issued new guidance to educators, saying that all books that have not been approved by a state compliance censor – euphemistically termed a “school media specialist” – should be concealed or removed from classrooms. Because the law deems some books “pornographic” or “obscene,” it also creates the possibility that teachers who provide books that feature LGBT content to students could be given third-degree felony charges.
Last month, DeSantis announced that he would ban the AP African American studies course, saying that the course, which had initially included readings on Black feminism, the Black queer experience, and the Black Lives Matter movement, violated his Stop Woke Act, and was “pushing an agenda on our kids.”
Sadly, the College Board cowardly acquiesced in this effort to quell inquiry, and now DeSantis has set his sights even higher.
Last week, the governor announced a sweeping agenda to overhaul the state’s public universities, aiming to make their curricula more conservative by eliminating tenure protections for progressive faculty and requiring courses on “Western Civilization.” He’s started with the New College of Florida, a small liberal arts honors college with an artsy reputation. There, DeSantis installed a new board made up of Christian college administrators, Republican think-tank denizens, and the right-wing online influencer Christopher Rufo. The board promptly fired the college president, and has set about reshaping the mission and instruction of the college in DeSantis’ image.
De Santis's motives in all of this crass obstructionism is transparent.
Schools are spaces where lots of voters – and crucially, lots of the white, conservative voters that DeSantis needs to mobilize – feel they have a stake. It’s easy to get people riled up and panicked about kids, easy to pray on people’s protectiveness towards their children as a way to exploit their anxieties about the future, about a changing culture, about lost innocence. And frankly, it’s easy to get people to be mad at teachers...
And if that weren't bad enough, there is a more sinister interpretation to what he is doing.
... there is a more foundational reason why DeSantis and the far right are attacking education: it is the means by which our young people are made into citizens. Schools and universities are laboratories of aspiration, places where young people cultivate their own capacities, expose themselves to the experiences and worldviews of others, and learn what will be required of them to live responsible, tolerant lives in a pluralist society.
It is in school where they learn that social hierarchies do not necessarily correspond to personal merit; it is in school where they discover the mistakes of the past, and where they gain the tools not to repeat them. No wonder the DeSantis right, with it’s fear of critique and devotion to regressive modes of domination, seems to hostile to letting kids learn: education is how kids grow up to be the kinds of adults they can’t control.
Education has traditionally been viewed as a tool of liberation from ignorance, of social progress and increased opportunity for all. DeSantis has badly perverted it, lustily cheered on by those who would like to believe that the status quo of the 1950's (or perhaps even further back) worked just fine for everyone who mattered.
The above attests to the destructive, corrosive effects of not confronting one's wrongdoing. The wrongdoing does not go away, but continues to fester beneath the surface, often with severe consequences.
It seems the perfect metaphor to apply to America's reluctance, and in many cases, refusal, to confront its racism.
As I recently wrote, Florida, under its governor, Ron DeSantis, seems particularly loathe to address that past, judging by the restrictions on what books and what curriculum can be taught. The main criterion for acceptability seems to be material that will keep young people in ignorance about what many of their fellow Americans have dealt with in the past and continue to confront today.
As a result of all of this, the College Board, the organization responsible for AP courses, has changed content and made optional some parts of its African American Studies. It denies that it was influenced by DeSantis's recent proclamations.
The NYT begs to differ. When the revised course was revealed at a glitzy Washington party, it was clear the board had succumbed to political pressure.
The College Board purged the names of many Black writers and scholars associated with critical race theory, the queer experience and Black feminism. It ushered out some politically fraught topics, like Black Lives Matter, from the formal curriculum.
And it added something new: “Black conservatism” is now offered as an idea for a research project.
NYT Editorial Board member, Mara Gay, elaborated on the College Board's timidity:
They downgraded the study of Black Lives Matter, of reparations, of queer life and of incarceration. They removed prominent writers like Ta-Nehisi Coates and bell hooks, who have helped so many people understand the relationship between race, class and feminism.
It is no coincidence that the Black writers under assault, like Mr. Coates and Ms. hooks, have been militant in refusing to allow America to forget. “The time to remember is now,” Ms. hooks wrote. “The time to speak a counter hegemonic race talk that is filled with the passion of remembrance and resistance is now. All our words are needed.”
Awareness of Black history is a threat to the groups promoting racism, because
[i]t humanizes the enslaved and their descendants. It lays bare the terrible cost of white supremacy, not only to Black Americans, but to the nation. It opens the door for exactly the reckoning that makes interracial coalitions possible, giving life to democracy and pluralism and stripping would-be tyrants of their power.
The problem is that looking directly at this history is a prospect that terrifies many white Americans.
Canada, hardly a country awaiting canonization, at least has had the rectitude to move toward truth and reconciliation as it attempts to confront and atone for its racism toward the Indigenous.
Not so in the United States, which brings to mind an old proverb, reputedly of Russian origin, that says, Better a bitter truth than a sweet lie.
Clearly, it is a notion with which many, many Americans vehemently disagree.
