History's Judgement

If you don't know the tragic story of Emmett Till, you can click here to read something I posted about him a few years back. It is the kind of history that Ron DeSantis doesn't want Florida students to know about, as I noted in a recent post.

Fortunately, Joe Biden's administration is making it harder to forget the ugliness of American racism.

President Biden on Tuesday will establish a national monument honoring Emmett Till, the Black teenager who was abducted and killed by white supremacists in 1955, and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, who helped galvanize the civil rights movement by bravely displaying her child’s brutalized body for the world to see.

The Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument will span three protected sites in Illinois, where Emmett was born 82 years ago, and in Mississippi, where he was killed at the age of 14 after being accused of whistling at a white woman.

The monument stands as a sharp rebuke to those who would have Americans forget or ignore their innate racism. 

Since Mr. Biden took office, more than 40 states have introduced or passed laws or taken other measures to restrict how issues of race and racism are taught, according to Education Week.  

Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, referenced Florida’s new standards on Monday, saying the Till monument was arriving “at an important moment.”

“Let’s not forget what we’ve seen these past several months, as we’ve witnessed extreme officials in Florida and across the country lie about American history — the most recent example shamefully, shamefully promoting a lie that enslaved people actually benefited from slavery,” she said. “It’s inaccurate, insulting. It’s hurtful and prevents an honest account of our nation’s history.”

This isn't the first time the White House has invoked the memory of Till's horrific murder. 

During a White House screening of the movie “Till” in February, Mr. Biden told the crowd that he chose the movie because “history matters.”

“To remember history is to shine a light on the good, the bad, the truth and who we are as a nation,” he said at the screening. “And our history shows that while darkness and denialism hide very much, they erase nothing. They can’t erase the past, and they shouldn’t.”

He also said that signing the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, which made lynching a federal hate crime, in March 2022, was “one of the great honors of my career.” 

Despite what some would have people believe, history matters, and it renders judgements. To revise and pervert that history, as so many in the U.S. seem intent on doing, is yet another stark illustration of the ongoing systemic racism that continues to cripple and diminish that nation in the eyes of the world. 

If you would like to know more about the monument and Emmett Till's fate, go to the 17:50 minute mark of the following:

 

UPDATED: Who Needs Reparations?

According to the 'new' history to be taught in Florida, it may be African Americans who owe white America reparations, given the 'benefits' that slavery conferred upon them.

Sound ludicrous? Not in Ron DeSantis's world.

Florida’s public schools will now teach students that some Black people benefited from slavery because it taught them useful skills, part of new African American history standards approved Wednesday that were blasted by a state teachers' union as a “step backward.”

The Florida State Board of Education’s new standards includes controversial language about how “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit,” according to a 216-page document about the state’s 2023 standards in social studies, posted by the Florida Department of Education.

I can't help but wonder if working endless days under a hot sun with no pay might have been one of those skills. Or perhaps the liberal application of the lash was an extended character-building exercise meted out generously by selfless plantation masters? Revisionist history offers a myriad of possibilities.

And lest we forget, the race massacres were apparently a two-way street:

Other language that has drawn the ire of some educators and education advocates includes teaching about how Black people were also perpetrators of violence during race massacres.

 That language says, “Instruction includes acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans but is not limited to 1906 Atlanta Race Riot, 1919 Washington, D.C. Race Riot, 1920 Ocoee Massacre, 1921 Tulsa Massacre and the 1923 Rosewood Massacre.”

 The Florida Education Association, a statewide teachers’ union representing about 150,000 teachers, called the new standards “a disservice to Florida’s students and are a big step backward for a state that has required teaching African American history since 1994.”

The union said it is troubling that at the high school level, the standards conflate the 1920 Ocoee Massacre, when at least 30 African Americans were killed for attempting to vote, with “acts of violence perpetrated by African Americans.” And in middle school, the standards require students be taught slavery was beneficial to African Americans because it helped them develop skills, the union said.

Ron DeSantis, the architect of these changes that prove everything Orwell warned us about, is frequently quoted as saying "Florida is where woke goes to die." Anyone with even a modicum of critical intelligence, I'm certain, would prefer to be 'woke' rather than imprisoned in a dystopian dreamscape fueled by the distortions of Florida's Ministry of Truth. 

UPDATE: Can Ron DeSantis explain how being enslaved was beneficial to Celia?

In 1850, a fourteen-year-old girl in Missouri named Celia was purchased by enslaver, Robert Newsom. Over the course of five years, he repeatedly raped her. On June 23, 1855 while pregnant with her second child, Celia defended herself against more abuse, resulting in the death of her enslaver and rapist. During Celia’s trial, Newsom’s grandson William Powell testified. Powell testified that Celia had complained that Newsom repeatedly demanded sex and that she had approached other Newsom family members in a vain attempt to stop the rapes.  Powell also admitted that Celia told him that her attack on Newsom came from desperation and that she only intended to injure, not kill. Celia was found guilty. An appeal was filed. The Missouri Supreme Court ultimately ruled against her appeal. On December 21, 1855 at 2:30 P.M., the state of Missouri murdered Celia on the gallows. Are we going to teach children this history? Or are we going to continue to whitewash history because it makes some people uncomfortable?

H/t Calés McGinnis 

 

Things Ron DeSantis Doesn't Want People To Know

JAMES BALDWIN addresses the University Of Cambridge during his epochal debate with William F. Buckley in 1965.

Oratory and content of the very highest order. To listen is to learn.

H/t Michael Warburton

Keeping both Black and white people ignorant of their history is the main strategy of the Florida governor. God help the Americans if he becomes their president.

UPDATED: Complementary Videos

I think the readers of this blog will have no problem understanding why the second video naturally follows the first one:

NowThis

@nowthisnews

'He wants to create a kind of passive, ignorant population' — Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat is sending out a warning about FL Gov. Ron DeSantis, comparing him to authoritarian leaders of the past

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Scott Galloway

@profgalloway

Message of the year: How do you spot an idiot? Look for the person who is cruel. The kindest person in the room is often the smartest.

@GovPritzker

Unfortunately, given the breadth and depth of idiocy that characterizes our species, there will be those who take deep umbrage at Governor Pritzer's observations.
UPDATE: Here's what happens when the philosophy of someone like De Santis is chosen over that of Pritzer:

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Ahmar Khan

@AhmarSKhan

James Chow was in the UWaterloo gender studies class, where a professor and two students were stabbed in a hate-related attack. This is the most detailed explanation and recounting of events from any witness so far — it’s a must listen. The events are terrifying.