Why white supremacists wish to ban books...

Get the Point!

Modern day white supremacy in Florida does not always come attached with a KKK robe, a Confederate Battle Flag, or a Nazi Swastika symbol, rather, it can come in the form of your white neighbor, office colleague, or friend who files book complaints that typically target Black writers, women writers, and those writers who go beyond the homogenous Catholic or White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) artistic aesthetic! 

Recently, Amanda Gorman, the brilliant young poet who was featured at the Biden/Harris inauguration in 2021, had her book of poetry banned at a Miami-Dade elementary school after a parent filed the following baseless complaint:

Miss Gorman, true to her classy form, noted a tragic irony:

Comedian Wanda Sykes, a Hampton University graduate who is active in the LGBTQ civil rights movement, added her own profane yet  profound take on the legislative attacks against Trans people and children in public schools with her own words:

Unless you have been in a deep, Rip Van Winkle like sleep over the past year, then you know that all across the State of Florida, groups ranging from the so-called "Moms for Liberty" to the Republican Party of Florida, led by current governor and presidential aspirant Ron DeSantis, are attacking local school boards with a plan to limit the value of a true liberal arts education, which traditionally has been to teach students to think critically about myriad subjects—even those subjects that force them out of their comfort zone. 

Partial listing of books that have been banned in one or several of Florida's 67 counties…

I cringe each time that I hear DeSantis, the wanna-be Fascist, talking about how little white children shouldn't have to be offended because some teacher is teaching about the deplorable acts of their white ancestors towards Blacks, Native Americans, and Asian immigrants from the 18th until well into the 20th Century. 

On May 28, 1963—60 years ago today—civil rights workers in Jackson, Mississippi were attacked as they sat in at a Woolworth's lunch counter downtown. DeSantis, Trump, and the majority of the Republican Party do not wish for these pictures and facts to be taught to their kids and grandkids…you already know the reason why…

Well Hell, Mr. DeSantis, off the top of my head, I can think of a number of topics that offended me when I was a child because I already knew better from listening to Charles and Vivian Hobbs, such as the lies that:

*Christopher Columbus "discovered" America;

*Thomas Jefferson's lofty declaration that "all men are created equal," which was written from his Monticello Plantation while 300 enslaved Blacks toiled in the tobacco and cotton fields outside his office window (and in his bed chambers);

*That Black people were 3/5ths of a whole white person per the U.S. Constitution;

*That "Manifest Destiny" held that whites had been "ordained by God" to dominate North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific;

*That Blacks lacked the intelligence to serve in the armed forces and govern, despite the reality that Blacks fought in every major American war and when the Civil War ended and Reconstruction began, later served as governors, senators, mayors, and civic leaders—with distinction!

Notice the glaring lack of diversity any time that DeSantis and his fellow Fascists seek to subvert knowledge…

And yet, as we Black children learned myriad lies and "alternate facts" back in my day as a base of knowledge, those lies were rounded out for many of us with the truth at home, in Sunday school, during mentoring programs, or upon matriculating at one of over 100 Historically Black Colleges and Universities where professors, people who had grown up during the Jim Crow era like our parents and all of their friends, kept it 100 percent real in their lectures!

But DeSantis and his ilk want it one way—their way—and I, along with many other Americans who refuse to be bullied by their bigoted tactics, will continue to punch back by loudly expressing that we need more thinkers in a nation that is rapidly being overcome by ignorance! 

To that end, in Florida and other states that are dealing with attacks on books, history, and other formal forms of learning, I implore my readers to stay dialed into their local school board meetings with a passion! By so doing, we can ensure that our leaders, principals, teachers, and support staff have all of the community support that they need to push back against the narrow minded machinations of the blissfully ignorant book banners in our midst.