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Waveney Ann Moore: Is it the children we’re protecting? 

Waveney Ann Moore

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Once upon a time, in a former British colony far, far away, a book for primary schools included the story and an illustration of a Black child being scrubbed by several white people determined to get the black off. They had never seen a Black person. The child caught a cold and died. 

My 92-year-old mother, a retired teacher, remembers this story well. Though it wasn’t a book that was assigned to me, I still recall the illustration and the sadness I felt.  

Decades later, my daughter would confide that she was uncomfortable reading To Kill a Mockingbird, which was assigned in high school. These days, she advocates for diverse books at her children’s schools, books that include Black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian and other often overlooked groups, not as perennial victims, but as achievers doing extraordinary things and as just plain, everyday people. 

I thought of all this as book banning sweeps the nation and Florida’s “Individual Freedom” bill is just weeks from enactment. The bill, in part, ostensibly seeks to protect the state’s children from being indoctrinated and made to feel guilty about unpleasant bits of the nation’s proven history. That would include, I assume, a record of bondage, heinous treatment of human beings, hate and discrimination that reverberate to this day.  

Here are a few highlights of the bill: 

It makes unlawful “subjecting” any public school student or employee “to training or instruction, that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such individual to believe” that “a person, by virtue of his or her race, color, national origin, or sex is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.” 

While it authorizes age-appropriate discussion and instruction of “sexism, slavery, racial oppression, racial segregation, and racial discrimination … that instruction and curricula may not be used to indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view inconsistent with the principles of individual freedom or state academic standards.” 

Of note is that instruction cannot make “a person, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin,” believe that they bear “personal responsibility for and must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress because of actions, in which the person played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, national origin, or sex.” 

State Sen. Darryl Rouson expressed disappointment in the bill.  

“It creates a chilling factor for those who wish to teach the truth about American history, which contains Black history. One of the stories I talked about in my debate of the bill was, how do you teach about the largest slave revolt in the history of the United States, which occurred in Louisiana at the Whitney Plantation, where two to 300 slaves revolted because they were hungry for freedom? Two whites were killed, but over 95 slaves were killed and dozens of slaves were beheaded and their heads placed on poles on the roadside as a warning to other slaves seeking freedom,” he said. 

“How do you teach that without some students feeling uncomfortable, when it’s a truth in American history? We look at motivations for why legislation is filed and oftentimes that portends future impact. I don’t think the motivation was right in the drafting and filing of this bill.” 

It’s true that the bill does not forbid the teaching of African-American history, but I wonder what happens when a parent decides to challenge any area of those teachings because they cause their child to “feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress.” Will the bill encourage parents to object to class visits to the Woodson African American Museum of Florida in St. Petersburg’s historic Black district? Or even to the Florida Holocaust Museum in downtown St. Petersburg? Might they try to protect their children from feeling uncomfortable about unpleasant bits of history? 

Who can fault teachers if they hesitate to freely discuss topics such as the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, or the cruelty of government boarding schools in the lives of Native Americans? 

“I’m disappointed that we don’t trust our teachers,” Rouson said. “I was raised by two educators who challenged us to think critically and form our own opinions based on truth teaching, based on creative presentation of history by professional instructors. To me, this bill means that education has become more tainted.” 

That may be so, but surely this is a signal for Black parents and other parents of color, religious minorities and allies to redouble their efforts to teach their children this country’s history without equivocation. It may be time to stop at the lynching memorial marker near Tropicana Field, visit the Woodson Museum off 22nd Street S, and while in the historic neighborhood, walk the African American Heritage Trail. Then make your way to the Holocaust Museum. 

The controversial bill, Rouson said, gives the Woodson and Holocaust museums “an elevated and highlighted purpose.” 

There’s more that can be done to combat efforts to minimize the history of a large swath of the nation’s people. Buy or borrow books that tell the stories of your own and other communities and discuss them with your children. Talk to family members about their experiences during segregation, with racism or anti-Semitism and struggles as immigrants. Share your successes. Broadcast your stories at holiday gatherings, family reunions and on social media. Congregations should play a part, too. They’ve historically also functioned as cultural hubs where communities teach and maintain their languages, traditions and history. 

As politicians devise ways to protect children from being made to feel uncomfortable or guilty about their country’s history, they seem oblivious to the fact that not everything can be fixed with a law. 

What to do about those students who mimic the unkind behavior of their parents and other adults around them – teasing about a classmate’s hair, skin color, unfashionable clothes, disability, sexuality, poor neighborhood that’s “not safe,” what they eat and believe, and even the way they speak?  

Who is responsible for setting the right example? 

We all want to protect the children we love, but we can’t shelter them from everything. Often that’s how they learn valuable lessons of kindness and tolerance. 

Let’s embrace parental responsibility and give our children the shield of knowledge by teaching them their history and the history of others, thoughtfulness to embrace humankind’s diversity and the character to persevere against all odds. 

  

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5 Comments

5 Comments

  1. Avatar

    Donna Kostreva

    April 23, 2022at5:14 pm

    Should you have objections to this bill, perhaps you have not taken the time required to carefully read the thirty page document which should have been posted for the edification of the reading public.

    https://m.flsenate.gov/session/bill/2022/7/billtext/e2/pdf

  2. Avatar

    Danny E White

    April 23, 2022at4:38 pm

    This bill is one of several recent examples of the DeSantis administration’s overreach. Pay attention to the optics that include the presence of children who are highly unlikely to know why they are applauding the signing of complex legislation. This bill, in my opinion, is clearly rooted in white supremacist ideology. The saving grace is that the bill applies to schools, not churches or civic groups. The truth about America’s greatest sin cannot and must not be deleted from our collective consciousness. The truth about many unpleasant events and circumstances throughout life have a tendency to evoke a myriad of emotions; we are all human after all. I ‘feel bad’ about this unnecessary legislation because it serves to invalidate the truth about ancestors who persevered through abject bondage so that one day a Black child could run for President of the United States if they were so inclined.

  3. Avatar

    Kathryn Rawson

    April 23, 2022at4:03 pm

    Waveney Ann,

    Once again, you have hit upon a very timely topic. Thanks for giving us both your and Senator Rouson’s perspectives. I agree with Georgia Earp, that we are so fortunate that we are able to read Waveney Ann’s perspectives in the Catalyst.

  4. Avatar

    Georgia Earp

    April 23, 2022at3:12 pm

    I am so glad that Waveney Ann Moore is writing for the Catalyst. I appreciate her perspective and the issues she covers. I am also grateful that Darryl Rouson is my Senator. He is articulate, empathetic and an effective legislator.

  5. Avatar

    Shirley Hayes

    April 22, 2022at9:30 pm

    Thank you Senator Rouson, very well stated. The community including the churches need to teach true American history if the schools are forbidden to teach it.

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