Florida's Pro-Slavery Teachings Inaccurate and Rudy Giuliani Admits He Lied about Election
Jim Jordan, RFK Jr., and Musk Ignore Logic, GOP Wants to Kill Gun Violence Research, Van Morrison Sings
The Price of Liberty is Eternal Vigilance—Through Critical Thinking
Not many people realize that the Statue of Liberty has broken chains at her feet. Originally, the chains were going to be placed in her hand, but the tablet eventually replaced that idea. When the Statue’s unveiling celebration took place on October 28, 1886, women’s groups protested the self-congratulatory nature of the day, given that women were not allowed to vote. Making matters worse, of the 2,500 guests, only two women were allowed to be present. Wives and other women watched from a nearby boat. The symbol of freedom is a woman, but the actual women were not free.
The Statue is the result of Édouard de Laboulaye, a French political activist and French sculptor Auguste Bartholdi. They both wanted to promote abolitionist ideals, so the chains were meant to show true liberty cannot be achieved when enslaving others.
Chains are symbols. Yes, they have been literal in the past, but today those chains are metaphoric. We still enslave when we take away or suppress rights, such as women’s rights over their own bodies, voters’ rights to equal access to vote, and a system of education that teaches children how to think critically so they can make independent choices. Give them facts, give them conflicting ideas, and give them the skills to determine the truth. The inability to think logically is a form of bondage. The refusal to think logically is proof of already being bound.
Think about that as you read today’s articles about attempts to lie, distort, and manipulate that would make Lady Liberty weep in shame.
Black Folks Who Were Touted by Florida as Benefiting From Slavery Weren’t Enslaved (The Daily Beast)
SUMMARY: A report by the Tampa Bay Times has exposed just how flawed Florida’s new education policy about teaching slavery—that it somehow may have benefited some Black people—really is, with nearly half of the examples provided by the state having never been enslaved at all. The Times reports that the state listed 16 names when pressed to provide proof of how slavery may have benefitted Black people, but the examples were shoddy at best. A museum dedicated to Lewis Latimer, a man touted by Florida education officials as an example, says he was born to free, self-liberated parents in 1848 before he went on to be an inventor that worked on the development of the telephone. The Museum of the American Revolution described James Forten, another example cited by the state, as a Black entrepreneur born to free parents. Henry Blair, Paul Cuffe and John Chavis were other examples provided by Florida, despite them being born free.
MY TAKE: The original story I wrote about last week was bad enough, but this new information that the examples used to prove their illogical and racist point reveals how contemptuous of education the Florida Board of Education is.
This seems like a good time to dissect just why the Republican national campaign chose to ignore and even rewrite history is detrimental to basic critical thinking skills in schools. Moms for Liberty and GOP politicians have justified changing curriculum and even firing teachers under the dubious argument that “Woke lessons make White students feel guilty.”
Any critical thinking teacher would point out that that sentence is not an argument but a statement of fact. Some children reportedly have said they feel guilty after learning about America’s racist past and the effects on current society. I’ll come back to that in a moment.
To turn that statement into an argument, they have to first define the vague words “woke lessons.” They actually mean to say, “Lessons about the Tulsa and Rosewood massacres, the horrors of slavery, the injustice of lynchings, murders of civil rights activists, voter suppression, and how those examples of systemic racism still survive to negatively affect Blacks today can make White students feel guilty.”
Now that we have defined “woke lessons” more specifically, to make it an argument, the arguer must not just state that “White students feel guilty” but tell us that doing so is a bad thing. They’d have to add something like “Lessons about the Tulsa and Rosewood massacres, the horrors of slavery, the injustice of lynchings, murders of civil rights activists, voter suppression, and how those examples of systemic racism still survive to negatively affect Blacks today can make White students feel guilty which has a devastating effect on their self-worth.”
That is an argument, which the Florida Board of Education would know if they actually understood how basic essay writing works. You need a clear thesis.
The next step, of course, would be to offer evidence that supports the argument. They’d have to prove (1) that a significant number of White students experienced guilt and (2) this guilt caused significant damage to those students. (I know “significant” is also vague, but this is an article, not a doctoral thesis.)
I couldn’t find any polls or studies that determined how many White students complained of guilt. There is only anecdotal evidence (the worst form of evidence) of parents saying their child felt guilt (or shame). That raises three problems: the number of students complaining so far is small, we can’t be sure they actually felt guilt (because we only have the parents’ word), and that the level of guilt they did feel, if any, caused any damage. For example, feeling guilty can develop empathy, which leads to less conflict and animosity among people. That’s demonstrably a good thing. Studies are available to prove this (“The Surprising Emotion That Can Make You A Better Person”). According to one expert, “Guilt is likely to steer us in a corrective direction if it's well placed.”
So, those pushing censorship and misinformation in the classroom offer no clear argument and no evidence of damage, yet continue to dismantle public education from kindergarten through college based on a faulty premise.
Here’s another disturbing fact that makes their behavior worse: 80% of parents in the U.S. are satisfied with their children’s education (“Politicians and pundits say parents are furious with schools. Polls say otherwise.”). This percentage that has held steady throughout the past several years, even through COVID. How is it, then, that a tiny minority is able to hijack so many other kids’ education?
Conservatives cite another number to make their point: This same Gallup poll revealed that only 42% of American adults are happy with the country’s public schools, a percentage that has decreased several points since 2019. But that figure includes all adults, not just parents, and it doesn’t indicate the reasons for discontent. Conservatives want to imply that the dissatisfaction is because of woke lessons. But it could be the opposite. I’m currently unhappy about children’s education in this country because of all the GOP laws dumbing-down lessons and the realization that the officials in charge (in Florida and Oklahoma, for example) are irrational parasites feeding off the school systems.
People make mistakes. The next step after a mistake has been revealed is to acknowledge and correct it, not stubbornly embrace it as truth. To not correct a mistake emphasizes that, to them, promoting the lie is more important than teaching the truth. This is why DeSantis has defended his school board’s mistakes while at the same time distancing himself from their actions (“Ron DeSantis Defends New Florida Curriculum to Teach Slavery’s ‘Benefit,’ Says ‘Scholars’ Are Behind It”).
When told about the errors, DeSantis said he had nothing to do with the policy (which is clearly a lie since the Florida Board of Education was obviously instituting policies he personally applied in other schools). Then he added that “scholars” put together the standards, which he said were “rooted in whatever is factual.” DeSantis was trying to wrap himself in the Cloak of Invisibility but instead slipped on the Hoodie of Absurdity. Calling them “scholars” doesn’t hold up when they’ve made such egregious factual errors that resulted in even worse conclusions. So, not really “scholars” and not rooted in the “factual.”
Another failing grade for DeSantis—and for all the parents fighting for their children to have a diluted education that harms their futures.