Thou Shall Not Speak of It!

 

The above-left chart is used in formal Florida governmental guidelines to teachers as to what is permitted to be discussed in classrooms following new anti-CRT statutes imposing liabilities on public school teachers who violate its precepts. The presentation notes that “only 4%” of the above slave traffic carried into the United States or its predecessor colonies, emphasizing that most slaves were born here. Under half a million slaves were ripped from Africa and “settled” in the thirteen colonies. The second chart shows the distribution of slaves in the 13 colonies just before the Revolutionary War. Some call the import of slaves “immigration.” So that makes it OK? By 1790, an estimated 18% of the population of the United States were slaves. An early US Census, conducted in 1860, found that there were 4 million slaves here.

The years that followed the Civil War produced Reconstruction, the Jim Crow Era, the KKK, “separate but equal,” hangings and lynchings, poll taxes and literacy “tests” imposed only on Blacks, real estate racial covenants and restrictions, redlining and massive discrimination against people of color that continues into to the present day… er, not recognized by most states with anti-CRT laws. The justification: don’t make our children feel guilty over “past” racial sins. The notion of Black “them and not us” expands to include recognizing racial discrimination of any sort. Fuel that also justifies the rising tide of White supremacy. These laws are typically touted as how “patriotic” American parents want their children to be taught, effectively reinforcing “parental rights” in controlling public education. Yet over 70% of parents with actual students in public schools want educators to set the curricula, not politicians or people without children.

In the world of gender identity, anti-CRT statutes generally incorporate the evangelical perception that anything other than our bio-identity at birth is false. Books and lessons of gender identity tolerance, the confusion faced by children with different biological tendencies and features, any suggestions of normalcy in LGBTQ identity or books with homosexual parenting are subject to censorship and removal from school and public libraries. Anything that provides otherwise is often described as part of a non-existent but increasingly acceptable notion that LGBTQ teachers are “grooming” children into their world of “sexual deviance and depravity,” one of the core beliefs of QAnon conspiracy theorists.

While not rising to the notorious Nazi book burning, mostly an attempt to purge all things Jewish in the 1930s/40s, America’s own Puritan heritage has led to past governmental censorship, particularly associated with Boston, Massachusetts. “‘Banned in Boston’ is a phrase that was employed from the late 19th century through the mid-20th century, to describe a literary work, song, motion picture, or play which had been prohibited from distribution or exhibition in Boston, Massachusetts. During this period, Boston officials had wide authority to ban works featuring ‘objectionable’ content, and often banned works with sexual content or foul language. This even extended to the $5 bill from the 1896 ‘Educational’ series of banknotes featuring allegorical figures that were partially nude.” Unfortunately for the censors, “Banned in Boston” became a marketing tool use to sell offending materials elsewhere across the nation. Simply, it backfired. The books even carried “banned in Boston” labels!

Today’s Republican-declared “culture war” – pitting religious extremists and White nationalists against public schools’ efforts to deal with real world racial, ethnic, religious and gender strife all around them – is pretty much a dangerous, highly divisive and fabricated issue. It’s a solution for a problem that does not exist. Using direct censorship (often implemented by public school districts under state direction), books and lesson plans that address such issues are simply banned from public schools and often public libraries in states with anti-CRT (“critical race theory”) laws. To care and teach tolerance is now “woke,” a derisive term generally used to describe Democrats against discrimination.

Thus, these red state schools cannot legally support and teach tolerance, address discrimination, or aid children in gender crises, as teachers fear very real recriminations and adhere to the plan. To make matters worse, PAGA enforcement (“private attorney general acts” allowing individual parents to sue individual schools and teachers for what is a built-in bounty-reward) sends shivers of fear down the back of underpaid teachers trying to rebuild a failing educational system after the COVID lockdowns.

As of this writing, 36 states have had serious efforts to ban or reduce the teaching of real world racial, gender, religious and ethnic discrimination – often including a severe restriction on teaching the historical origins… like slavery or the Holocaust. 17 states have actually expanded teaching against discrimination (and yes, there is some contradictory overlap). 15 states – including Texas and Florida – have passed anti-CRT laws… all GOP-dominated, with bills pending in several more, and all under the fabricated notion of protecting parental rights to control what is taught to their children.

The United States joins countries like Japan that have erased substantial ugly incidents from their past, at least in textbooks and lesson plans. Modern Japan: No Nanking massacre, no forced prostitution of Korean women and no other major WWII atrocities. But then there’s “never again” Germany. A child cannot graduate from a public high school there without a very graphic visit to a concentration camp… and the textbooks do not hide or justify the Holocaust. There is no wave of “never again” sentiments here in the United States. What exactly do we want our children to believe, to value and to practice? Should the right to be free from discrimination depend on which state you live in?

I’m Peter Dekom, and right-wing autocracy cannot exist in a society the values each and every member of that society as they really are and really wish to be.