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DeSantis, Scourge Of Wokeness

It's on! Florida governor announces plan to defund DEI and CRT bureaucracies at state universities
Screen Shot 2023-01-31 at 9.35.22 PM

I can hardly believe that a leading Republican politician actually has backbone in the fight against wokeness. But Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is the real deal. Fresh news out of the Sunshine State:

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a series of proposals for Florida’s public universities at the State College of Florida on Tuesday.

One aspect of the proposal would eliminate all Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and Critical Race Theory (CRT) “bureaucracies” at public universities.

DeSantis said his administration will propose core course requirements that are “focused on giving them the foundation so they can think for themselves” and will be grounded in “actual philosophy that has shaped western civilization.”

“We don’t want students to go through, at taxpayer expense, and graduate with a degree in zombie studies,” he said. “And so this is gonna make a difference.”

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Watch the video of his announcement here.

It's happening. It's actually happening. The Bad Guys are going to scream bloody murder, but finally -- finally -- we have a political leader who is taking a hard stand against these woke commissars. DEI bureaucracies at American universities have exploded in recent years, in part because the woke cartel has intimidated state legislators and others by calling them bigots who don't care about "marginalized" students if they resist. Are these bureaucracies actually making campuses better, or are they making schools more conformist by instituting programs and policies that reinforce a sense of grievance, and intimidate dissenters into silence? Would the ton of money spent on these apparatchiks' salaries be better spent hiring more teachers, or raising the salaries of professors? Finally, DeSantis's move is going to force these militants to justify their existence.

Expect more garbage like this New York Times op-ed slandering DeSantis's ban on the AP African American History course. The author fumes:

An unrelenting assault on truth and freedom of expression in the form of laws that censor and suppress the viewpoints, histories and experiences of historically marginalized groups, especially Black and L.G.B.T.Q. communities, is underway throughout the country, most clearly in Florida. The state’s Department of Education recently rejected a pilot Advanced Placement African American studies course from being offered in Florida’s public high schools.

Under Gov. Ron DeSantis’s “Stop WOKE” law — which would limit students and teachers from learning and talking about issues related to race and gender — Florida is at the forefront of a nationwide campaign to silence Black voices and erase the full and accurate history and contemporary experiences of Black people.

Bullsh*t. I'll tell you why in a second. One more quote from the essay:

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It’s no coincidence that these attacks are targeting not just historically marginalized people but also our very experiences of intersectionality. Mr. DeSantis recently rubbished the inclusion of “queer theory” in the A.P. African American studies course that was rejected, seeming to deny the need for future generations to learn about the contributions of queer Black American icons like Pauli Murray, Bayard Rustin, Audre Lorde and James Baldwin. Florida’s H.B. 1557, more widely known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, also limits conversations about sexual orientation and gender identity in Florida classrooms and, like “Stop WOKE,” makes clear that the State of Florida seeks to suppress and target people’s identities.

Why is it BS? Because DeSantis clearly said the other day, when he announced his ban on the course, that he is not going to allow the AP course to propagandize Florida students for tendentious, highly ideological reads on black history, under the guise of teaching about black history (which he fully supports). The lie here is that if you don't give these ideological culture warriors everything they want, then you must be a BIGOT. In fact, DeSantis is doing his job: making sure that the public school students of Florida aren't forced to read neo-Marxist propaganda as history.

By now you know that this is how the woke behave. In a previous post about a controversy at a Florida Baptist church, I cited the accusations made by a member of the public who told the church that their decision to make affirming basic Biblical orthodoxy about gender and sexuality (as opposed to the woke re-definition) a condition of membership in the church. Not a condition of walking in the door and attending the church, but of formally joining the fellowship. According to this lesbian ranter, the church setting conditions of membership in the church is BIGOTRY. This woman, "Katie," did not stick around to see how the pastor she accused in the town hall meeting answered her. She didn't want an answer. She didn't want dialogue. She wanted to intimidate and silence. See how this works?

Ron DeSantis sees how this works. And he's had enough. Unlike other senior Republican politicians, who talk smack about wokeness, but don't do much to fight it, DeSantis is taking on a hellacious fight. It's a fight worth having. Good for him! May the Florida governor's example encourage other GOP governors and legislators to find their courage. Make no mistake, Ron DeSantis is making himself the Republican to watch headed into the 2024 presidential contest.

UPDATE: Well now!:

One of Governor Ron DeSantis’ most vocal critics supports the state’s decision to reject the College Board’s AP African American Studies course for high schoolers. When asked his thoughts on the recent controversy, Leon County Commissioner Bill Proctor [who is black -- RD] blasted the course as “trash,” according to Tallahassee Reports.

“There is grave concern about the tone and the tenor of leadership’s voice from the highest spaces in our state being hostile to teaching of African American history. Well frankly I’m against the College Board’s curriculum,” Proctor said.

“I think it’s trash. It’s not African American history. It is ideology,” he continued. “I’ve taught African American history, I’ve structured syllabuses for African American history. I am African American history. And talking about ‘queer’ and ‘feminism’ and all of that for the struggle for freedom and equality and justice has not been no tension with queerness and feminist thought at all.”

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Fran Macadam
Fran Macadam
On our Reservations, American Indians are being propagandized to believe that our identity is bound up with Woke fantasies of transgenderism as historical "2 spirits". The truth is that indigenous societies depending on close interaction with nature to survive, were intolerant of perverse behavior that had consequences to group survival. These perversions are counter to the hard lessons necessary to survival.
schedule 1 year ago
    MPC
    MPC
    Eventually the wokies will realize that the most 'tolerant' (ie the most obsessed with normalizing weird stuff that hurts group survival, as you said) societies on earth are also the whitest societies on earth, and they'll become de facto white supremacists, just watch. White people = more progressive and enlightened = superior.

    Also a "white Turk" "black Turk" split like that in Turkey. You, me, and anyone else who doesn't live inside the progressive upper middle/managerial class value matrix, regardless of skin tone, are "black Turks".

    They already hate particularly vocal nonwoke, nonwhite people but those people are just saying what everyone else is thinking. All non-Western races and religions are pretty unwoke. Social liberalism is an extremist fringe view in global humanity.
    schedule 1 year ago
Bogdán Emil
Bogdán Emil
He is a sympathetic character, and would make a fine president. 2024 is going to be a hell of a Republican primary and an even bigger general election. Trump vs DeSantis vs Scott, and then, the end of the Biden era, most likely. However, Biden has a lot of power behind him. Witness what happened in Pennsylvania with Fetterman.
schedule 1 year ago
    Theodore Iacobuzio
    Theodore Iacobuzio
    Please remember that the RNC recently reelected Ronna McDoofus (Mitt Romney's niece) as its chair, and evidently continues to believe the party's going to win elections whining about election fraud. Never underestimate the ability of the GOP in the immortal words of Barack Obama, to eff things up.
    schedule 1 year ago
      Daniel Hochberg
      Daniel Hochberg
      No kidding. Could we stop making ourselves look like fools whining about imaginary election fraud (which if there was any, was nowhere near enough in numbers to change election outcome) and stupid conspiracy theories about COVID restrictions being some plot to accustom the populace to control, etc. Whether or not you agree about the necessity for COVID countermeasures such as lockdowns, vaccines, the obvious intent of these measures was to slow down the spread of this severe malady.

      I spend a lot of time lately, more than I ought to actually, on the Quora discussion platform which is pretty interesting but skews heavily liberal, and while I defend the actions of conservatives and Republicans there as best I can, people on our "side" need to stop doing things that are indefensible and make us appear stupid or corrupt. Stop the nonsense about election fraud, COVID theories, and dump Trump who is just too over-the-top immature and idiotic.
      schedule 1 year ago
Bernie
Bernie
Expect many more slanders about DeSantis from the New York Times because it fears he will be the Republican nominee. Why? Because he probably has the best chance of beating Biden or any other progressive Democratic nominee. On this one issue, I think the Times is correct. The Republicans need a candidate who can actually WIN the Presidency.
schedule 1 year ago
MPC
MPC
This idea that people don't want black history taught is a lie. I grew up in Georgia, and we got all sorts of books/short stories/movies with a lot of details, usually from a black perspective, about life in the Jim Crow South while in school. Eye opening stuff.

I had several black teachers over the years, often in the subjects where we would get this material. I remember asking a question to one teacher about a happening in a book, using a term that the black author herself used regularly and in an inoffensive way. A proto-proto-woke white girl in class took offense to it, and that teacher gently shut her down and answered my question. That remains one of the most memorable events from my time in school. That woke white girl no doubt today is some HR commissar, media fraud, or God forbid, teacher propagandizing curious kids with her woke moralizing (google check - it looks like "woke Soros-type NGO money launderer" is the right answer).

As for DeSantis, competence, and desire to skillfully exercise power (something the US right is not good at) says all that needs to be said. He has a level head, and doesn't bluster, but exercises the actual force of law. He'd benefit from paying more attention to left wing economics, but for the US right simply being willing to bully huge corporations (who the "left" laughably defend) and state-linked institutions is quite a sea change. Trump doesn't have the skillset to do what DeSantis does, and he talks too much. We don't need to "storm the capitol". We need to purge the bureaucracies and seize the various levers of institutional power and create a regime for the normies.
schedule 1 year ago
    MPC
    MPC
    In general progressives are hypocrites - it's not worth engaging people with no consistency, and an allergy to seeing their own hand in front of them when its inconvenient for them to do so. Ever since Covid came on the scene it has been a constant string of hypocrisy. They have no principles at all, just empty pretenses used to amass more power for themselves. Treat them not with outrage ("how could educated intelligent people say such cruel things?!") but with disdain ("these people are cultist zombies who can't be reasoned with").

    The right in general needs to get over progressive moralizing, hand-wringing about the feelings of a powerful caste, and treat them as deranged fanatics who have gotten power hungry and need to be put down.
    schedule 1 year ago
    Theodore Iacobuzio
    Theodore Iacobuzio
    How about we start by teaching, you know, the facts (like what was the Missouri Compromise, and why was Kansas bloody) before hitting the trail to Gender Gulch? When when when are black people going to begin to wake up to the truth that they're being used, and have been used for 60 years?
    schedule 1 year ago
Theodore Iacobuzio
Theodore Iacobuzio
Dougherty at NR links to a Commentary thing (https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/is-desantis-helping-trump/?utm_source=recirc-%5BSCREENSIZE%5D&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=right-rail&utm_content=corner&utm_term=second) with Mark Halperin pushing the line that DeSantis is "boring" and so helps Trump. Common sense would tell you that people are suffering from Trump fatigue and the numbers show it. Here is a perfectly legitimate and legal exercise of power (one that required, you know, work on DeSantis's part) as opposed to thrashing around at the podium with a water bottle like a nut. Sure. You know who's really boring? Ronna McDaniel. You know who's not? George Santos.
schedule 1 year ago
    JON FRAZIER
    JON FRAZIER
    If DeSantis is boring that's a point in his favor. Happy the nation with boring politics. Leave the drama to Netflix.
    schedule 1 year ago
John Phillips
John Phillips
Fact is, most blacks abhor non-heterosexual people of all types. You would never know that based on our so-called news and commentary crowd, but anyone who has direct contact with significant numbers of "regular" black people knows this to be true.
schedule 1 year ago
    JON FRAZIER
    JON FRAZIER
    Per the Pew Center (2021 poll) even among black people SSM now has majority support (though less than among white people)
    schedule 1 year ago