It is a moment to defend “woke.” If Ron DeSantis wants to use the term derisively, he is free to do so. He, and others like him, (who are far more dangerous than Trump at the moment) should not be free to bully the Advanced Placement committee into weakening past recognition a curriculum that is vital to the youth of the entire nation. However, neither do the people charged with preparing our young people for college have the right to let themselves be bullied. As much as I abhor the way that DeSantis thinks, the blame for this failed curriculum falls squarely on the shoulders of the people who created it. I am not willing to believe that they were not allowing themselves to be pressured by DeSantis and the like. Even if it is true, as they say, that changes to the curriculum were completed before the Florida Department of Education refused to offer the course; it is clear that the changes were made to appease the movement that DeSantis represents.
And that movement is one of the most dangerous that America has ever faced. DeSanis had the gall to ask if the African American studies course taught, “Black Panther ideology”. This is a blatant insult to African-Americans. DeSantis seems to think that members of the African American community who want students of all colors to understand African-American history better are instead a “woke mob” out to brainwash white children into self-shame. His conspiracy theories border on the delusional; he has fear-mongered his way to political power.
Meanwhile, in reality, many Americans of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds simply want high school students to have an opportunity to really delve into the history of how African Americans have shaped this country. And to learn about the good and the bad. If we don’t teach this history, we risk back-tracking on the gains the civil rights movement of my father’s generation made. If an instructor believes studying Black history means understanding the role of Black power in the political developments of the civil rights era, that instructor should be supported.
Nobody is attempting to brainwash Florida’s children. We, the “woke mob,” want them to understand their history so as not to repeat it, and African-American history is their nation’s history no matter what color they are. It says a lot that one of the items removed from the curriculum was Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow. The premise of this book is that history is repeating itself. That, in part because we do not take seriously enough our understanding of Black history, we are now making the same mistakes that were made at the end of Reconstruction–that now, as then, a huge step forward is becoming progress rolled back. Anything that we can do as a society to stop the erosion of progress from happening is a worthy endeavor. This curriculum is a missed opportunity to help in that worthy endeavor.
Progressive Without Apology 