By Dr. Harold A. Black
blackh@knoxfocus.com
haroldblackphd.com
The sharp knives are out for Ron DeSantis who infuriated the leftist mob when he said that Florida was the state where woke goes to die. But DeSantis doesn’t care. He obviously feels that attacking “woke” is a key to his political future. He has proclaimed “We will never surrender to the woke mob.” When Disney was pushing the leftist agenda, DeSantis had them stripped of their self-governing status in their theme park in Orlando.
DeSantis’ latest salvo against the left created a furor when he would not allow the AP course in black history to be added the school curricula in Florida. He was promptly branded as a racist. The intent of the media onslaught is to get blacks firmly against him and it has worked. Two close friends of mine repeated the narrative that DeSantis was trying to erase black history. This saddened me because it showed that even very smart people are intellectually lazy. I provided them with other evidence and they both have changed their minds. No matter, because where he now appears, there is a protest organized against him calling him anti-black. He was attacked by the usual suspects including the White House, the Vice President, the teachers’ unions, the View and the liberal press.
However he opposed the teaching of woke black history rather than the teaching of black history. None defended why critical race theory, advocating for the abolition of prisons, queer black studies, black feminism and a laudatory section on the Marxist anti-family Black Lives Matter were essential parts of black history. I bet that even the discredited warped view of the 1619 project was included. Headlines read “What is behind DeSantis push to erase black history?” Another accused him of altering black history. This was especially curious since the AP course was the one altering black history.
The governor’s office released a statement saying the proposed course is a “vehicle for a political agenda” that leaves far too much room for “ideological material” to make its way into the curriculum. Of course this was true. There was no mention of black conservatives and the AP course was revised to include some of them like Ben Carson, Thomas Sowell, Condoleezza Rice and Clarence Thomas. Yet more revision is needed to honesty tell the remarkable story of blacks in American history.
Black American history is American history. It is a rich, diverse, compelling story of courage, resistance, emancipation, resilience and triumph over daunting odds. When the slaves were freed, most had no possessions and little if any education. Many did not even have a last name. Yet through hard work, faith and inner strength they and their proud descendants were able to navigate through the barriers imposed by the Jim Crow south and the more subtle discrimination present in the north. What about the early black legislators, inventors, educators, scholars and entrepreneurs that are missing from woke black history? It is though the left wants to portray blacks as hapless victims rather than telling the true story of dealing with and overcoming adversity.
Governor DeSantis rejected the AP course on Black History on the grounds that the course did not relate this history but instead injected a biased, political interpretation of the American Black experience. The AP course was an exercise in promoting a political agenda rather than an accurate telling of our history. I wonder if the AP course told of the abolitionist movement that existed prior to the founding of the country and of black historical figures who defended the Constitution such as Frederick Douglass. It should also be noted that contrary to the claims that Gov DeSantis is trying to erase black history, that the governor annually awards winners of Black History Month student contests in Florida. These are not the actions of a racist. I applaud Gov. DeSantis and his Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr for having the courage to reject the biased historical perspective of the AP course and to insist on educating our children rather than indoctrinating them.
