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:

 

The American Taliban

One of the main joys of this part of my life is helping to look after our granddaughter, who is now 18 months old and very, very bright and engaged in the world around her. Sometimes, in order to 'coax' her to eat, we play some children's programming available on YouTube. Like the many books she has, the programs involve a diversity of characters, both White and non-White, both straight and gay, which I think is a tremendous way of teaching about the world's diversity.

Education has real power.

Unfortunately, in Ron DeSantis' world, diversity is perceived as inimical to young minds, and many jurisdictions in Florida are pursuing with real gusto his directives against materials that will enlighten young minds and ultimately help develop critical-thinking skills.

The following is from TizzyEnt (aka Michael McWhorter) whom I follow on Twitter. He makes a daily practice of calling out injustice and racism, and most of his material is quite compelling. See for yourself in the following.

It is doubtful that many people in Florida see themselves as the American Taliban, but I will be happy to hear from those who would challenge that assertion.

The Next President?

Many think the swamp in Florida will yield up one of its fondest denizens, Gov. Ron DeSantis, as a contender for the GOP presidential nomination. The following reveals much about the heart of darkness that defines him:

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.

A Hidden History

Ideally, history teaches us about the past, enabling us to gain perspective on what came before and learn lessons so that we don't make the same mistakes over and over again, ad infinitum. While recent history underscores the fact that we are not apt students, even the small chance of taking instruction from the past is not possible when some history is purposely hidden, obscured, or minimized. 

That is precisely what happened with the race massacres that occurred in the United States starting around 1916 and culminating in the Tulsa Massacre of 1921. I have to admit that I only learned of the latter when viewing HBO's Watchmen, which begins with that event.

I just finished watching Rise Again: Tulsa and The Red Summer, a National Geographic documentary that, in my view, should be required viewing in high schools throughout the U.S. as part of their history courses. In it, students would learn not only about the Tulsa Massacre but also the myriad ones that preceded it in places as diverse as Washington D.C., Elaine Arkansas, and New York City. It is precisely this kind of access to knowledge that Ron DeSantis in Florida is trying to make illegal.

Here is the trailer for the film, which I cannot recommend highly enough.