I've often wondered what Yale University thinks of some of its graduates, especially Ron DeSantis, Stewart Rhodes, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh. What a destructive group!
I bet they all held their noses and absorbed as little as possible of any liberal ideas. They all no doubt saw an Ivy League degree as a necessary stepping stone to their professional success.
I think they are all proof that an Ivy League degree is not evidence of an education, just of spending four years sleeping thru class. Keep in mind that the default grade at Harvard (reported by multiple sources) is an A-. Hard to get in, impossible to flunk out.
I keep reading that DeSantis graduated magna, so I'm sure he spent lots of time shut in his room, memorizing shit for exams. he frequently boasts that he was "careful" to avoid the "indoctrination" at Yale.
before it got all "liberal" in the late '60s, Yale was the main supplier of CIA agents. and it was THOSE guys who behaved so badly.
Yale may be a lot of things, but a hotbed of liberalism would not be on the list. That said, everyone should watch Timothy Snyder's Yale course on Ukraine. Every lecture he makes some snarky comment about Yale students, who they are and what they believe.
yes, Snyder's course is a significant benefit for anyone who wants to know what's involved in Ukraine. as for the Chris Hedges et al...fuck 'em at this point.
I frankly could hardly give less of a fuck about this Sy Hersh Nordstream pipeline thing. but hey, that's just me.
actually, there are LOTS of excellent Yale courses online, and many of them are what most of us would consider liberal. David Blight's Civil War course is especially excellent.
as for Yale itself, I have no idea. the two guys in my HS class who went there weren't exactly firebrands, but that was still the mid-'60s.
It seems like the US is experiencing white backlash similar to Jim Crow at the turn of the 2Oth Century. It took 40 years after the Civil War to really get Jim Crow entrenched. Now, more than 40 years after the 1960s, we are seeing efforts the white right wing to suppress hard won equality by women and minorities. It's the KKK all over again without the hood.
I see that to. Obama the great divisive figure. According to grievance insane maggots.
When you compare Obama as a family man, a Christian, his enjoyment of life, his love of dogs and children, his academic record to Donny loser, it blows the hell out of white supremacy. Yet there was a doubling down of stupidity.
Great summary of what modern and current day conservative tactics are on a wide array of issues and topics. I sum it up and conclude all of this is directly from the playbook of fascism where the goal is to eliminate freedom and replace it with lock step indoctrination of a one size fits all society and the shape and size of the society will be imposed by a minority.
So my bottom line is what the new conservative movement is attempting to do is stamp out freedom in every aspect of that word. Just how much more anti American can you get considering our history, the principles of our founding and the now going on three hundred year struggle to build the fabled more perfect Union.
They do not just want to take us back. They are charting a very dark and dangerous path away from our history. It has been tried elsewhere and always leads to a very bad end even for the masters who try to impose it where and when they have attained the power to do it.
Mr. Turscott's point is absolutely vital. The Republicans are afraid of the truth. One thing that probably scared the Hell out of them was the widespread participation of young people and especially of "rainbow of colors" in the demonstrations in response to the George Floyd murder. The racists were LOSING the support of many (majority? -- we can hope!) of white youth --- They want to make sure that "pipeline" of young people who are horrified by racism --- both individual such as the murderous cop who killed George Floyd but also the institutional --- and are determined to do something about it is shut off. The way to shut it off is to bring up a new generation of ignorant brainwashed white folks. Our job is to make sure they fail. Thank you for a most enlightening issue of your newsletter. (Michael Meeropol --- 80 year old retired economic professor! --- my father Abel Meeropol wrote STRANGE FRUIT)
"The way to shut it ["the pipeline of young people horrified by racism"] off is to bring up a new generation of ignorant brainwashed white folks. Our job is to make sure they fail." YES!!
] really has tried to turn himself into sort of a local Mussolini in Fla. What w/ the book banning, the brutal tactics, & … the suggestion that bloggers have to register w/ the state … This is fascism & authoritarianism”
George Orwell had this to say about totalitarian systems: "...
: For some years past I have managed to make the capitalist class pay me several pounds a week for writing books against capitalism. But I do not delude myself that this state of affairs is going to last forever ... the only régime which, in the long run, will dare to permit freedom of speech is a Socialist régime. If Fascism triumphs I am finished as a writer—that is to say, finished in my only effective capacity. That of itself would be a sufficient reason for joining a Socialist party."[
More of his pholosophy froem Wikipedia: "The adjective "Orwellian" connotes an attitude and a policy of control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth and manipulation of the past. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell described a totalitarian government that controlled thought by controlling language, making certain ideas literally unthinkable. Several words and phrases from Nineteen Eighty-Four have entered popular language. "Newspeak" is a simplified and obfuscatory language designed to make independent thought impossible. "Doublethink" means holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously. The "Thought Police" are those who suppress all dissenting opinion. "Prolefeed" is homogenised, manufactured superficial literature, film and music used to control and indoctrinate the populace through docility. "Big Brother" is a supreme dictator who watches everyone. Other neologisms from the novel include, "Two Minutes Hate", "Room 101", "memory hole", "unperson", and "thoughtcrime",[3][4] as well as providing direct inspiration for the neologism "groupthink".
On anti-Semitism he wrote " Writing in early 1945 a long essay titled "Antisemitism in Britain", for the Contemporary Jewish Record, Orwell stated that antisemitism was on the increase in Britain and that it was "irrational and will not yield to arguments". He argued that it would be useful to discover why anti-Semites could "swallow such absurdities on one particular subject while remaining sane on others".[286] He wrote: "For quite six years the English admirers of Hitler contrived not to learn of the existence of Dachau and Buchenwald. ... Many English people have heard almost nothing about the extermination of German and Polish Jews during the present war. Their own anti-Semitism has caused this vast crime to bounce off their consciousness."[287] In Nineteen Eighty-Four, written shortly after the war, Orwell portrayed the Party as enlisting anti-Semitic passions against their enemy, Goldstein."
So, will this end, not with a bang, but a whimper?. The actions taken by DeSantis listed in this column must be countered with a general strike. African Americans fought for their rights, nonviolently, and they were beaten, lynched and shot . But they persevered, nonviolently. Are white people up to such a fight?
Surely you're familiar with the abolitionist movement, and the labor movement, and the women's liberation movement, and the movements for lesbian and gay rights? If not, I suggest you do a little reading. White people were involved in all of them.
No need to be snarky. Of COURSE I’m aware of the role of white people in all the movements you mention. But I maintain that the majority of white people today are not going to fight for minority rights.
Who do you mean by "we" and when do you mean by "then"? White people were involved in the civil rights movement, but white people were also on the front lines defending segregation, and we also had the likes of Daniel Patrick Moynihan basically blaming white racism on Black women. White people weren't monolithic then, and we aren't monolithic now.
I bitch a lot about white class-privileged straight people who didn't realize the country was in trouble till Trump got elected and the MAGAts came out of the woodwork, but I can't deny that there's plenty going on *now*, and on multiple fronts. Whether we'll have the time necessary to get the country back on track toward a multicultural democracy -- that's anyone's guess. Fascism is rising and so are sea levels. But I don't see giving up as an option.
Thank you for this Lucien. The first steps in Fascism 101 are controlling opposing information and creating propaganda (gaslighting) that will create another reality. One of the most powerful books I have read in the past year is "M, Son of the Century" by Antonio Scurati, translated from the Italian. If you want to understand how Mussolini became so powerful, this book is a must-read. It's Trump, DeSantis, McCarthy, MTG, the whole lot of them. A cautionary tale.
Wow! The Meatball Man seems to forget the allure of the forbidden fruit to young minds. Yo, this is banned? Dang -- I got to read it! There will necessarily be an intellectual underground. Truth has many ways of arriving.
Great column! The other day I saw a list of banned books and was surprised that Orwell's "1984" was on it (def part of my public school education). But now it makes perfect sense - DeSanctimonious et al want to be "Big Brother".
I read "1984" when I was thirteen and I thought the sex in it was pretty hot. so maybe the scumbags are using THAT as an excuse. otherwise, it's just soooo transparently coming from a place of overwhelming fear.
but yeah, if books are banned, kids are gonna find them. at least that's BEEN the case. I have no idea what things are like NOW...I retired from having to know stuff about kids twelve years ago, which is actually a pretty long time as things in schools go.
Great column! If colleges have this amazing ability to indoctrinate students, you would think even Republicans might begin to wonder how so many of their leaders, like DeSantis, Rafael Cruz, John Neely Kennedy, Hawley, etc. etc. survived their Ivy League educations from those bastions of liberal orthodoxy. Are they all outliers? As usual, the idiot savant of Maga Republicans, DJT, said the hidden part out loud, "I love the poorly educated." Keep us all barefoot and stupid and they continue to rule.
Very well said. I would only add that it is not surprising that he went after New College. A few years ago  Derek Black, the godson and heir apparent of David Duke, and who was raised from birth to be the next KKK wizard by his father Don Black, the latter being a leader in nazi groups and a founder of the far right website stormfront.org came out repudiating all of this racism and hatred. And the story of what changed him is in this book… It was at New College where he met a variety of different people from different walks of life.https://archive.org/details/rising-out-of-hatred-eli-saslow/mode/1up
turns out it's one of the thousands of Audible titles I haven't gotten around to and I plan on dealing with it this weekend. but really, dontcha think that it's precisely these sorts of accounts of conversion to more left wing ways of thinking which MOST terrify the kinds of assholes who want to do away with such places as New College?
[...and] evidence, reality, truths, knowledge/intellectualism to include historians, the arts and sciences, vaccines, wimmin, POC, 2spirit people, immigrants, non-Bibi loving Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, atheists, aboriginals, indigenous, comedians/satirists, rappers, fruit throwers (Tanx Trump), ACORN, Antifa, the 3New Black Panthers, foreign terrorists (Tanx Tom Ridge for your duct tape and plastic sheathing Oh My), dance The Twist, commies infiltrating anything/everything aka the Red Scare and on and on.
Over the years they've created so many Boogiemen those very Boogieman have frightened the bejesus out of them. Heck, many applaud #nevertrumpers who to a person keep tossing out the phrase, be afraid, be very afraid.
Fear causes the temporary paralysis of the mind and of the body that carries the potential to consume both and/or result in various levels of paranoia. Leads to folk owning more guns and ammo than they could possibly need, labeling the mainstream media as the enemy of the people, and educators as some sort of modern-day Svengalis.
The appeal to fear is an actual fallacy, argumentum in terrorem. It's not the only fallacy Rs/cons and RWNJs advance as valid argument. Every formal and informal fallacy can be identified intheir thinking and actions.
In the truest sense today's Rs/cons and RWNJs and their informational ecosystem are the modern-day equivalent of Plato's Allegory of the Cave.
A couple of thoughts. What is "woke"? My congressman, Brandon WIlliams NY-22, says he is opposed to "woke ideology". I challenged him to define it. Crickets... I can only think that "woke" equals "the reality of the 21st century that makes white men uncomfortable". (I am a 69 year old white man and I am not uncomfortable even though I admit there are things that matter to Gen Z that I don't understand) Is there really any other explanation? And as for the New School - Rhonda Santis can put his lackeys in place, but without students, faculty, alumni support and accreditation, what does he have? An ownership of the libs? But what else? Nothing. And nothing is not sustainable.
Once again I thank you for your post.The reason that Republicans are against the learning of our past is simply that knowledge is power and information is knowledge.This goes way back to when slaves were forbidden to learn to read.Frederick Douglass was taught to read by the wife of the man who owned him.Douglass stated that his learning to read”would make him unfit to be a slave “.It is hard to fathom that this mentality is alive in the 21st century but there you have it.I for one will keep soaking up knowledge and imparting it wherever I can.
Thing is, not all that long ago all sorts of information was missing from both educational institutions and public discourse not because of some governor's fiat but because the white guys in charge didn't think it existed. Hell, they couldn't even imagine it. But then something happened: women, people of color, indigenous people, people with disabilities, poor people, lesbians and gay men, and many others went looking for traces of our people(s) in the historical record. We found much more than traces. Whole academic disciplines grew up around what we were finding -- the disciplines, to be sure, that DeSantis et al. are now trying to abolish and erase.
What DeSantis and those terrified Republicans are up to is appalling, and scary too. It's not hard to imagine Florida becoming a template for the rest of the country. But I remember how as kids we managed to find books we weren't supposed to read and learn words we weren't supposed to know. The late feminist, lesbian, social-change activist Barbara Deming wrote, "We cannot live without our lives," and she sure wasn't the only one to come to that conclusion. The way forward will be tough, but we're fighting for our lives and our histories and we can't afford to give up.
I've often wondered what Yale University thinks of some of its graduates, especially Ron DeSantis, Stewart Rhodes, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh. What a destructive group!
My guess...as long as they donate big bucks, Yale is just fine with them.
I bet they all held their noses and absorbed as little as possible of any liberal ideas. They all no doubt saw an Ivy League degree as a necessary stepping stone to their professional success.
I think they are all proof that an Ivy League degree is not evidence of an education, just of spending four years sleeping thru class. Keep in mind that the default grade at Harvard (reported by multiple sources) is an A-. Hard to get in, impossible to flunk out.
I keep reading that DeSantis graduated magna, so I'm sure he spent lots of time shut in his room, memorizing shit for exams. he frequently boasts that he was "careful" to avoid the "indoctrination" at Yale.
before it got all "liberal" in the late '60s, Yale was the main supplier of CIA agents. and it was THOSE guys who behaved so badly.
Yale may be a lot of things, but a hotbed of liberalism would not be on the list. That said, everyone should watch Timothy Snyder's Yale course on Ukraine. Every lecture he makes some snarky comment about Yale students, who they are and what they believe.
yes, Snyder's course is a significant benefit for anyone who wants to know what's involved in Ukraine. as for the Chris Hedges et al...fuck 'em at this point.
I frankly could hardly give less of a fuck about this Sy Hersh Nordstream pipeline thing. but hey, that's just me.
actually, there are LOTS of excellent Yale courses online, and many of them are what most of us would consider liberal. David Blight's Civil War course is especially excellent.
as for Yale itself, I have no idea. the two guys in my HS class who went there weren't exactly firebrands, but that was still the mid-'60s.
It seems like the US is experiencing white backlash similar to Jim Crow at the turn of the 2Oth Century. It took 40 years after the Civil War to really get Jim Crow entrenched. Now, more than 40 years after the 1960s, we are seeing efforts the white right wing to suppress hard won equality by women and minorities. It's the KKK all over again without the hood.
I see that to. Obama the great divisive figure. According to grievance insane maggots.
When you compare Obama as a family man, a Christian, his enjoyment of life, his love of dogs and children, his academic record to Donny loser, it blows the hell out of white supremacy. Yet there was a doubling down of stupidity.
Great summary of what modern and current day conservative tactics are on a wide array of issues and topics. I sum it up and conclude all of this is directly from the playbook of fascism where the goal is to eliminate freedom and replace it with lock step indoctrination of a one size fits all society and the shape and size of the society will be imposed by a minority.
So my bottom line is what the new conservative movement is attempting to do is stamp out freedom in every aspect of that word. Just how much more anti American can you get considering our history, the principles of our founding and the now going on three hundred year struggle to build the fabled more perfect Union.
They do not just want to take us back. They are charting a very dark and dangerous path away from our history. It has been tried elsewhere and always leads to a very bad end even for the masters who try to impose it where and when they have attained the power to do it.
Mr. Turscott's point is absolutely vital. The Republicans are afraid of the truth. One thing that probably scared the Hell out of them was the widespread participation of young people and especially of "rainbow of colors" in the demonstrations in response to the George Floyd murder. The racists were LOSING the support of many (majority? -- we can hope!) of white youth --- They want to make sure that "pipeline" of young people who are horrified by racism --- both individual such as the murderous cop who killed George Floyd but also the institutional --- and are determined to do something about it is shut off. The way to shut it off is to bring up a new generation of ignorant brainwashed white folks. Our job is to make sure they fail. Thank you for a most enlightening issue of your newsletter. (Michael Meeropol --- 80 year old retired economic professor! --- my father Abel Meeropol wrote STRANGE FRUIT)
And to think that Roy Cohn was the prosecutor, the same Roy Cohn who later mentored tRump.
https://www.rfc.org/nytoped08.10.15
"The way to shut it ["the pipeline of young people horrified by racism"] off is to bring up a new generation of ignorant brainwashed white folks. Our job is to make sure they fail." YES!!
I am genuinely impressed. of course, if we went by Hollywood's version, it was "written" by Diana Ross.
And again Wow. Thank You Mike.
https://www.npr.org/2012/09/05/158933012/the-strange-story-of-the-man-behind-strange-fruit
Wow!
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/the-story-behind-billie-holidays-strange-fruit/17738/
Strange Fruit
Strange Fruit https://g.co/kgs/wQLBvh
A great summation of the situation.
Here is a recent tweet re DeSantis:
" MSNBC’s @BeschlossDC: “[@GovRonDeSantis
] really has tried to turn himself into sort of a local Mussolini in Fla. What w/ the book banning, the brutal tactics, & … the suggestion that bloggers have to register w/ the state … This is fascism & authoritarianism”
George Orwell had this to say about totalitarian systems: "...
: For some years past I have managed to make the capitalist class pay me several pounds a week for writing books against capitalism. But I do not delude myself that this state of affairs is going to last forever ... the only régime which, in the long run, will dare to permit freedom of speech is a Socialist régime. If Fascism triumphs I am finished as a writer—that is to say, finished in my only effective capacity. That of itself would be a sufficient reason for joining a Socialist party."[
More of his pholosophy froem Wikipedia: "The adjective "Orwellian" connotes an attitude and a policy of control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth and manipulation of the past. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell described a totalitarian government that controlled thought by controlling language, making certain ideas literally unthinkable. Several words and phrases from Nineteen Eighty-Four have entered popular language. "Newspeak" is a simplified and obfuscatory language designed to make independent thought impossible. "Doublethink" means holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously. The "Thought Police" are those who suppress all dissenting opinion. "Prolefeed" is homogenised, manufactured superficial literature, film and music used to control and indoctrinate the populace through docility. "Big Brother" is a supreme dictator who watches everyone. Other neologisms from the novel include, "Two Minutes Hate", "Room 101", "memory hole", "unperson", and "thoughtcrime",[3][4] as well as providing direct inspiration for the neologism "groupthink".
On anti-Semitism he wrote " Writing in early 1945 a long essay titled "Antisemitism in Britain", for the Contemporary Jewish Record, Orwell stated that antisemitism was on the increase in Britain and that it was "irrational and will not yield to arguments". He argued that it would be useful to discover why anti-Semites could "swallow such absurdities on one particular subject while remaining sane on others".[286] He wrote: "For quite six years the English admirers of Hitler contrived not to learn of the existence of Dachau and Buchenwald. ... Many English people have heard almost nothing about the extermination of German and Polish Jews during the present war. Their own anti-Semitism has caused this vast crime to bounce off their consciousness."[287] In Nineteen Eighty-Four, written shortly after the war, Orwell portrayed the Party as enlisting anti-Semitic passions against their enemy, Goldstein."
Shivers
One can only hope that Pissantis and his ilk overstep til they
go over the cliff into irrelevance; c'mon America, wise up and
rise up.
and VOTE
I like the root of "Pissantis."
Let's modify that a bit: pisspantis
So, will this end, not with a bang, but a whimper?. The actions taken by DeSantis listed in this column must be countered with a general strike. African Americans fought for their rights, nonviolently, and they were beaten, lynched and shot . But they persevered, nonviolently. Are white people up to such a fight?
Very unlikely!
Surely you're familiar with the abolitionist movement, and the labor movement, and the women's liberation movement, and the movements for lesbian and gay rights? If not, I suggest you do a little reading. White people were involved in all of them.
No need to be snarky. Of COURSE I’m aware of the role of white people in all the movements you mention. But I maintain that the majority of white people today are not going to fight for minority rights.
I was responding to Bob Palmer, but hey, if the shoe fits . . .
That was White people then. Are we the same White people now?
Who do you mean by "we" and when do you mean by "then"? White people were involved in the civil rights movement, but white people were also on the front lines defending segregation, and we also had the likes of Daniel Patrick Moynihan basically blaming white racism on Black women. White people weren't monolithic then, and we aren't monolithic now.
I bitch a lot about white class-privileged straight people who didn't realize the country was in trouble till Trump got elected and the MAGAts came out of the woodwork, but I can't deny that there's plenty going on *now*, and on multiple fronts. Whether we'll have the time necessary to get the country back on track toward a multicultural democracy -- that's anyone's guess. Fascism is rising and so are sea levels. But I don't see giving up as an option.
I think not. The idealistic 60’s were a long time ago.
I think not.
sorry about that.
Thank you for this Lucien. The first steps in Fascism 101 are controlling opposing information and creating propaganda (gaslighting) that will create another reality. One of the most powerful books I have read in the past year is "M, Son of the Century" by Antonio Scurati, translated from the Italian. If you want to understand how Mussolini became so powerful, this book is a must-read. It's Trump, DeSantis, McCarthy, MTG, the whole lot of them. A cautionary tale.
Wow! The Meatball Man seems to forget the allure of the forbidden fruit to young minds. Yo, this is banned? Dang -- I got to read it! There will necessarily be an intellectual underground. Truth has many ways of arriving.
Great column! The other day I saw a list of banned books and was surprised that Orwell's "1984" was on it (def part of my public school education). But now it makes perfect sense - DeSanctimonious et al want to be "Big Brother".
We're in the fight of our lives.
Terrifying isn't, to think we could see this in our lifetime?
Yes, and every day it seems to get worse.
I read "1984" when I was thirteen and I thought the sex in it was pretty hot. so maybe the scumbags are using THAT as an excuse. otherwise, it's just soooo transparently coming from a place of overwhelming fear.
but yeah, if books are banned, kids are gonna find them. at least that's BEEN the case. I have no idea what things are like NOW...I retired from having to know stuff about kids twelve years ago, which is actually a pretty long time as things in schools go.
Great column! If colleges have this amazing ability to indoctrinate students, you would think even Republicans might begin to wonder how so many of their leaders, like DeSantis, Rafael Cruz, John Neely Kennedy, Hawley, etc. etc. survived their Ivy League educations from those bastions of liberal orthodoxy. Are they all outliers? As usual, the idiot savant of Maga Republicans, DJT, said the hidden part out loud, "I love the poorly educated." Keep us all barefoot and stupid and they continue to rule.
Very well said. I would only add that it is not surprising that he went after New College. A few years ago  Derek Black, the godson and heir apparent of David Duke, and who was raised from birth to be the next KKK wizard by his father Don Black, the latter being a leader in nazi groups and a founder of the far right website stormfront.org came out repudiating all of this racism and hatred. And the story of what changed him is in this book… It was at New College where he met a variety of different people from different walks of life.https://archive.org/details/rising-out-of-hatred-eli-saslow/mode/1up
it is a beautiful tale.
turns out it's one of the thousands of Audible titles I haven't gotten around to and I plan on dealing with it this weekend. but really, dontcha think that it's precisely these sorts of accounts of conversion to more left wing ways of thinking which MOST terrify the kinds of assholes who want to do away with such places as New College?
obviously, I do.
I completely agree.
Facts. They’re afraid of facts.
[...and] evidence, reality, truths, knowledge/intellectualism to include historians, the arts and sciences, vaccines, wimmin, POC, 2spirit people, immigrants, non-Bibi loving Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, atheists, aboriginals, indigenous, comedians/satirists, rappers, fruit throwers (Tanx Trump), ACORN, Antifa, the 3New Black Panthers, foreign terrorists (Tanx Tom Ridge for your duct tape and plastic sheathing Oh My), dance The Twist, commies infiltrating anything/everything aka the Red Scare and on and on.
Over the years they've created so many Boogiemen those very Boogieman have frightened the bejesus out of them. Heck, many applaud #nevertrumpers who to a person keep tossing out the phrase, be afraid, be very afraid.
Fear causes the temporary paralysis of the mind and of the body that carries the potential to consume both and/or result in various levels of paranoia. Leads to folk owning more guns and ammo than they could possibly need, labeling the mainstream media as the enemy of the people, and educators as some sort of modern-day Svengalis.
The appeal to fear is an actual fallacy, argumentum in terrorem. It's not the only fallacy Rs/cons and RWNJs advance as valid argument. Every formal and informal fallacy can be identified intheir thinking and actions.
In the truest sense today's Rs/cons and RWNJs and their informational ecosystem are the modern-day equivalent of Plato's Allegory of the Cave.
A couple of thoughts. What is "woke"? My congressman, Brandon WIlliams NY-22, says he is opposed to "woke ideology". I challenged him to define it. Crickets... I can only think that "woke" equals "the reality of the 21st century that makes white men uncomfortable". (I am a 69 year old white man and I am not uncomfortable even though I admit there are things that matter to Gen Z that I don't understand) Is there really any other explanation? And as for the New School - Rhonda Santis can put his lackeys in place, but without students, faculty, alumni support and accreditation, what does he have? An ownership of the libs? But what else? Nothing. And nothing is not sustainable.
Once again I thank you for your post.The reason that Republicans are against the learning of our past is simply that knowledge is power and information is knowledge.This goes way back to when slaves were forbidden to learn to read.Frederick Douglass was taught to read by the wife of the man who owned him.Douglass stated that his learning to read”would make him unfit to be a slave “.It is hard to fathom that this mentality is alive in the 21st century but there you have it.I for one will keep soaking up knowledge and imparting it wherever I can.
Thing is, not all that long ago all sorts of information was missing from both educational institutions and public discourse not because of some governor's fiat but because the white guys in charge didn't think it existed. Hell, they couldn't even imagine it. But then something happened: women, people of color, indigenous people, people with disabilities, poor people, lesbians and gay men, and many others went looking for traces of our people(s) in the historical record. We found much more than traces. Whole academic disciplines grew up around what we were finding -- the disciplines, to be sure, that DeSantis et al. are now trying to abolish and erase.
What DeSantis and those terrified Republicans are up to is appalling, and scary too. It's not hard to imagine Florida becoming a template for the rest of the country. But I remember how as kids we managed to find books we weren't supposed to read and learn words we weren't supposed to know. The late feminist, lesbian, social-change activist Barbara Deming wrote, "We cannot live without our lives," and she sure wasn't the only one to come to that conclusion. The way forward will be tough, but we're fighting for our lives and our histories and we can't afford to give up.