FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 2023
Our planet's brutal past: As we first explained on Monday, Kevin Drum said it was no big deal. We agreed with him on that point.
The task force which had composed the state of Florida's new (barebones) K-12 course of study had included a minor (and accurate) point. That minor point read exactly like this:
Benchmark clarifications:
Clarification 1: Instruction includes how [enslaved people] developed skills which in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.
We don't know why bureaucratic turns of phrase (like "benchmark clarification") seem to be so alluring to task forces of this type.
That said, this particular "benchmark clarification" is perfectly accurate. To ponder one elaborate historical example, you can just click here.
At any rate, its inclusion in the course of study just wasn't that big a deal. According to the New York Times, two members of the task force explained its inclusion this way:
MERVOSH (7/29/23): The Department of Education, which did not respond to questions about the process, previously released a statement from Dr. Allen and Dr. Presley Rice defending the description of enslaved people using skills for their “personal benefit” as an accurate portrayal of the resiliency shown by enslaved individuals, some of whom excelled in trades like shoemaking and fishing.
Just as Drum said, it wasn't that big a deal. That said, tribunes of our own blue tribe crowded onto cable news channels to perform a tightly scripted sense of outrage concerning this minor point.
Concerning these tightly scripted tribunes, we remembered few of them ever expressing any interest in issues confronting black kids (or their parents) today. For example, what's happening in the Mississippi public schools concerning the interests of black kids?
On MSNBC, no such discussion has taken place. At this locus of alleged blue tribe virtue, it's plain that nobody cares.
Sadly, our world is full of performative virtue, virtue performed in bad faith. That's true within our own blue tribe as well as within the red.
We agreed with Drum about that one minor point. As we noted yesterday, we tend to disagree with his larger assessment concerning "the real problem with Florida’s school standards for slavery."
Drum thinks this (barebones) course of study didn't detail the horrors of American slavery to a sufficient degree. Drawing on our past involvement with the good and decent black fifth-graders of the Baltimore City Public Schools, we had a different set of thoughts about this new presentation.
What would we emphasize in a public school course of study? Here are a few basic thoughts:
It wasn't invented here: Starting in the middle school grades, the Florida course of study introduces an important point—the practice of human enslavement wasn't invented here.
Also, the practice of human enslavement wasn't unique to our shores. We've often seen Professor Gates outline such facts in his various PBS programs.
Gates even describes the way enslavement and subjugation was practiced within different African kingdoms. Here's the bureaucratically complexified way this basic point first appears in the Florida course of study:
6-8 African American History Strand
SS.68.AA.1 Understand the causes, courses and consequences of the slave trade in the colonies.
SS.68.AA.1.1 Identify Afro-Eurasian trade routes and methods prior to the development of the Atlantic slave trade
Benchmark Clarifications:
Clarification 1: Instruction includes how slavery was utilized in Asian, European and African cultures.
Clarification 2: Instruction includes the similarities and differences between serfdom and slavery.
Clarification 3: Instruction includes the use of maps to identify trade routes.
For political as well as historical reasons, we think it's important for kids to be told that human enslavement wasn't some unique Amerikan invention. In our view, our own tribe's occasional impulse to "Demonize America First" makes it especially important to lay down this basic understanding.
The evolution of values: Long ago and far away, in the year 1977, a Baltimore fifth- or sixth-grader asked the following question as part of a class discussion after we'd all watched Roots:
Why would anyone ever have been willing to treat other people that way?
We're lucky to be living in a time when people know that such conduct is wrong, we said (or words to that effect.) We think kids should be instructed in the evolution of values—an evolution which has led to our current imperfect state.
The concept of so-called race: There's only one "race"—the human race! This idea was quite widespread in 1977, when Roots aired for the first time.
Kids should be taught about the way the concept of race was made a part of American enslavement. They should also be taught that there's no such thing as "race," except within our feeble and fallible human brains.
Also, kids should be taught that there's nothing good or bad about anyone's skin, as long as it's holding that person's bones in. Children, don't be stupid! Your skin is a very important organ, and everyone's skin is good.
Everyone here is your friend: Our ancestors made a terrible moral mistake when they practiced enslavement. Various people around the world engaged in similar immoral conduct, all down through the annals of time.
We think kids should be told the following:
Everyone in this classroom is your friend. Especially when it comes to matters of race, we must never make the kinds of moral mistakes our ancestors did, long ago.
We've had many "greatest generations." It's our kids' turn to stand up and shine.
Our society is riddled with social difficulties derived from our ancestors' moral mistake. Our final view would be this:
Kids should be encouraged to look ahead—to look for the improvements we can seek the future.
At present, our blue tribe tends to emphasize the horrors of the past. We don't think that somewhat performative tribal impulse is especially helpful.
Blue cable was crawling with faux last week. Our tribe is full of performative virtue.
We can't see this about ourselves. The Others quite frequently can.
Calling slavery a "moral mistake" makes it seem like something individuals did, not something built into the structure of colonial economics and society. We as a nation take the blame for slavery, not simply individuals making "mistakes". That said, within the overall context, some people behaved worse than others.
ReplyDeleteSomerby’s suggestion that we refer to moral mistakes implies that slavery would have been ok if owners treated their slaves well and taught them skills. Some people believe that, so it is important to be clear that even well-treated slaves were oppressed because they were not free in fundamental ways.
DeletePerhaps adults are queasy about this because children will notice that they are not free?
Slaves were likened to children as a justification for their enslavement, historically speaking.
DeleteIt’s repugnant the way right wingers like Somerby and Drum attempt to minimize US slavery with comments like “human enslavement wasn't some unique Amerikan invention”, which is ahistorical and inaccurate.
DeleteThe slavery in the Americas was a unique invention (by Christians), that type of racist chattel slavery had not existed before.
Racism was invented in the Americas, it was foundational to the success of the region, and it continues in virulent form to this very day.
Race is a social construct, and more importantly, it is a function of racism; race exists only because racism exists.
As long as racism continues to function and be determinative to the quality of life in our society, it’s important to categorize and point out those “races” that are being oppressed and those that are doing the oppression.
The new standards are a big deal, those two task force members, about which Somerby fails to mention that these two people are right wing extremists that were not part of the normal working group that develops these standards, but were an unexpected addition to the task force, loudly defended their contribution to the standards - themselves making it impossible to ignore; however, as it turns out, these two are not just right wingers promoting racism, they are also completely incompetent, as their defense was historically inaccurate, citing individuals who were not slaves. The chutzpah! To quote the incomparable Brand X “Not good enough - see me!”
Even certain Republicans were appalled and strongly spoke out against the absurd new standards. Who were these brave right wingers that had the courage to call out racism? Oh, they were the tiny cohort of Republicans that happen to be Black - even a former Somerby fav, SC Senator Tim Scott.
Somerby and Drum are unrepentant racists, it’s not clear why they continually feel the need to rub our noses in it. We know, guys!
"At present, our blue tribe tends to emphasize the horrors of the past. We don't think that somewhat performative tribal impulse is especially helpful."
ReplyDeleteThis is NOT true. We are trying to eradicate racism and bigotry in the present because those attitudes and beliefs are still hurting people. That means not pretending that the past didn't happen as it did. It also means that we must make clear that these are wrong beliefs, just as children should be taught that racism that justified slavery in the past was WRONG, not just a mistake of some kind.
Bob’s embrace of the phrase “performative virtue” is obnoxious on several levels. It’s a steal from current right wing mud slinging ( they call it “virtue signaling”) and it’s an invitation to endless neurotic speculation. Does Bob or the average right winger always know when he is being kind because that is his nature, or is he just showing off? It’s likely Bob would never classify his own kind acts as “performative.”
ReplyDeleteThe accusation of “virtue signaling” is always likely to originate from a spoilsport who does like his own selfishness pointed out to him.
The fact that slavery was not a North American phenomenon seems underlined here to avoid confronting another historic fact: the US was sadly behind the curve in getting rid of it. Espically true of the American South.
ReplyDeleteThe Others consider liberal caring to be performative because they don’t care and cannot conceive of anyone else genuinely caring about black people (black history, black reading scores) so it must be performative.
ReplyDeleteHere is Peter Greene's take on the FL standards, among other points he has made elsewhere:
ReplyDeletehttps://curmudgucation.substack.com/p/floridas-black-history-standards?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1116865&post_id=135711973&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
"The line in Florida's Black History standards about how enslaved people picked up some useful job skills during their enslavement has rightfully drawn a great deal of scorn and criticism (even from some Black conservatives). But it's just a piece of the larger argument made by the standards. As Michael Harriot points out in The Grio, there are plenty of other pieces of the standards that minimize slavery, including this idea:
Floridians will not learn about segregation and Jim Crow when they reach the eighth grade. Even then, those government-backed regulations are only taught as a policy that Black people overcame, not something that still impacts the country today.
This is a recurring theme in right-tilted approaches to the history of race and enslavement and racism in the US-- why keep talking about how oppressive people and systems were and are, when we can instead focus on the triumphs of those Blacks who rose above it? It's in projects like Trump/Hillsdale's 1776 curriculum, and it's in the defense of the standards offered by Black standards committee member William Allen and Frances Presley Rice (who may have done a disproportionate amount of the deciding for the committee). Here's an excerpt from their joint statement:
Any attempt to reduce slaves to just victims of oppression fails to recognize their strength, courage and resiliency during a difficult time in American history. Florida students deserve to learn how slaves took advantage of whatever circumstances they were in to benefit themselves and the community of African descendants.
Let's not talk about the "difficult time,' or what caused it or who was oppressive or enslaving Black persons. Let's not talk about the patterns and institutions involved with an eye toward spotting similar patterns of racism today.
Let's take the history of race in this country and frame it as a Feel Good story about how (some) people used grit and hard work and personal responsibility to overcome a bunch of obstacles that we are definitely NOT going to talk about, because that might make us feel bad, and feeling bad is, of course, the exact opposite of what a Feel Good story is supposed to do.
Florida's Black History standards are an attempt to reduce a complex and complicated story filled with both great triumph and tremendous evil, to boil it down to something that would fit on a Hallmark card. The standards are a lie of omission based on the presumption that children somehow can't handle the whole truth (or, perhaps, that certain adults don't want to).
...
We should certainly celebrate the heroism and hard work of the people who accomplish these things, but you don't really celebrate the heroism of people who overcome big odds without fully understanding what they were up against. Nor do you make progress when you insist that racist people and racists systems are just like the weather--sometimes inconvenient, but outside of anyone's control. Good feelings based on denial of reality never last, and it's hard to navigate a world that you don't actually see. "
Slavery was not unique to America, but the concept of racism WAS invented here and used to justify slavery long past the time when both slavery and racism should have been abolished.
ReplyDeleteNotice how Somerby never mentions racism. Not even in his proposed explanation to children. Jim Crow was about racism, not slavery, although initial laws were implemented to keep newly freed slaves from finding other jobs than the ones they performed for their masters before being emancipated. They were not allow to travel, not allowed to seek other kinds of jobs, not allowed to be unemployed (vagrant), and thus had to accept whatever meagre pay they were offered by their previous masters, as a matter of law with the alternative being jail. Welcome to freedom, former black slaves! These very restrictive laws inspired so many black people to migrate to Northern cities like Chicago and Detroit where there were not Jim Crow laws requiring black people to work for their previous masters for ridiculously low pay. School children need to hear about this so that they will understand why so many black people like in large cities, and why there were black ghettos created in major cities that became "urban" areas and the inner city and defacto segregation. They also need to learn about the sundown laws in small towns (nationwide, not just in the South) that kept black people from settling there as they tried to find work after the abolishment of slavery. Children need to hear about the black physician who was shot just for trying to buy a house for his family in a Detroit suburb (see Wilkerson's book "Caste"). Otherwise, they will think that black people had no initiative or willingness to learn new skills, no motivation to leave the plantations, no desire to become self-supporting but were lazy and only wanted government handouts -- much as bigots still believe today, only partly because they don't understand the limits and obstacles confronting black people after slavery. But Somerby doesn't find that important to teach today's children, white and black. Neither does FL.
Today, I am wondering whether Somerby will hear about the rejection of the AP Psychology course by FL and connect this with the attack on the AP African American Studies course, to see a pattern of right wing interference with education. Why are they against the AP Psychology course? Because it talks about gender identity and sexual orientation in the context of developmental psychology. Also, because they don't want children to hear about social and emotional learning as part of their education. Psychology has been studying and recommending changes in parenting techniques since the rise of behaviorism and the study of learning (behavior change) in the early 30s. Psychologists now understand how to raise children without beating them, scaring them into obedience with religious and superstitious threats, and without belittling and guilting them into compliance with adult wishes. Right wingers don't want to hear about that. It might cause them to have to change how they raise their kids. And Somerby is the last one to interfere, even when parents are abusive, from what he has been saying about parental choice.
ReplyDeleteLiberals care about these things because the right wing approach is bad for kids and interferes with teachers who generally know what they are doing in the classroom. Evidence of this has been steady decreases in delinquent child behavior (Drum attributes this to removal of lead from the environment, but it is confounded with major changes in child rearing and teaching methods) coupled with increases in pro-social child behavior. In other words, decreased smoking and drug use, decreased teen pregnancy, decreased attempts at suicide and acting out in class, decreased drop-out rates, increased test scores and increased college completion. All good things that suggest schools (and parents in general) have been improving their ways of helping kids. That has changed briefly with covid, but teen distress has also increased with the increased polarization related to politics, the rise of right wing discipline, violence and gun ownership on the right, the attacks on incorporation of social work and psychological interventions in the schools (previously routine but now unfunded and decreasing especially in lower income schools). So we now have school shootings by disturbed young people with abusive and neglectful parents, who cannot cope with their kids in any way but to buy them guns. The right wing wants to blame the internet but the data doesn't support that interpretation. Even teens who are actively trying to enact gun control are being targeted and taunted by elected right wing politicians such as Marjorie Taylor Greene and her ilk.
All politicians try to demonize their adversaries, but the ability of the current left is particularly awesome. IMO the most common failings of many politicians are stupidity, ignorance, and laziness. Yet, two of the smartest, most knowledgeable, hardworking Republicans, DeSantis and Cruz, have been effectively painted as demons. DeSantis removed from the first three grades, books he considers to be too sexually advanced for these young children. For the reasonable act, he has been effectively portrayed as someone who bans books willy-nilly.
ReplyDeleteCruz's case is even more striking. He is demonized for nothing.
Are you suggesting that Cruz has been working from Cancun? Cruz puts out three podcasts per week. When does he do his senate work?
DeleteDeSantis didn’t personally remove those books with his own grubby hands. He didn’t even decide which books were bad. He has been out of state so much lately that FL has an absentee governor. Do you have any idea why he hasn’t paid back his student loans yet, with $1.1 million in book royalties?
Cruz is universally disliked, even by his friends. One reason I think he is a demon is because he helped Trump carry out his insurrection. In a just world, Trump’s congressional co-conspirators would be on trial too. Democrats have good reasons for calling out these assholes, and none of it is made-up, the way right wingers make up stories about child-trafficking to tarnish Democrats as lizard people.
Thom Hartmann at Alternet re the insurrection:
Delete"Ted Cruz took to the floor of the Senate and called for a 10 day “emergency audit” of the election, which could have provided Trump with enough time to roll out his military declaration and seize complete control of the nation. Co-conspirators or useful idiots?"
The slit their throat DeSantis cult removed 42% of math texts from public schools, many for including word problems that encouraged empathy. Their approved publisher was a right wing republican donor from Texas. They required removing over a million titles from the Duval County school system for review. DeSantis certainly didn't do the math here, later complaining about how long it was taking to review over a million books. Meanwhile teachers were threatened with 3rd degree felony charges for teaching from such books. The sexual indoctrination of K-3 grade students was a huge problem for meatball to wage war against. LOL. But DIC finds this behavior acceptable of course. DeSantis has demonized himself without any help from liberals. Greater than 70% of Floridians polled negative about his two major legislations on gun law and abortion. His own state legislators came out publicly and early for Trump. Name one instance in which Clinton, Obama or Biden demonized their adversaries. As usual DIC is full of shit. This might stop if her could extract his head fromRupert Murdoch's rectum.
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