Medicynic

Government censorship to suppress historic fact is reminiscent of the German movement in the 30’s to disenfranchise and later murder an entire categories of people— whether the brutal murderous suppression of the Roma or the Jews the outcome was the same.

We, in the once United States, are having a kind of nervous breakdown moment. It’s a fact that slavery occurred for hundreds of years in our country. It’s a fact that all manner of atrocities occurred under slavery. This was not limited to the south but the bulk of the horror occurred there and indeed a bloody war was fought between states on this issue. And yes formalized legal segregation of the races also occurred. An it’s a fact that racism is still quite evident in our culture today.

So maybe it’s not surprising that the Florida governor, the grandchild of Italian immigrants, is moving, with the support of the Florida Republican Party, to erase the well documented history of slavery and segregation from schools in his state. He doesn’t want it taught there.

And now other states controlled by conservative republican legislatures are considering this type censorship.

Medicynical Note: For hundreds of years in parts of our country, the so-called land of the “free,” blacks were slaves, couldn’t own land, weren’t allowed into certain shops, had to sit in the back of the bus; and were limited to separate and unequal educational opportunity; etc, etc, etc. Hundreds of years without freedom, hundreds of years not being educated and hundreds of years of insecurity and poverty.

Republicans at one time had a proud history of opposing slavery (Lincoln) and supporting the anti-segregation civil rights legislation in the 60’s. That all changed in the late 60’s under the leadership of Nixon. The Repubs jumped ship and using a “southern strategy” suddenly like magic declared, after 300 or so years of racism, segregation and white preference, that any attempt to balance the scales was “discrimination” against whites. How timely and politically opportunist. The south has been solidly republican since that time.

And now, Florida is moving to stop teaching the facts of slavery and racism in our history. The movement sadly is not limited Florida. It’s white America in denial returning to it’s “originalist’s” racism.