Florida Offers Alternative History Course To Combat AP Courses That Teach Non-Whitewashed Black History

In 2023, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the members of his state’s Department of Education rejected an Advanced Placement course covering African American Studies, which they justified by claiming the course “significantly lacks educational value,” by which they meant it was of no value to white people who would rather stick their heads in the sands of white nationalism than be educated, if DeSantis’ years-long war on wokeness is any indication.

Well, apparently, their attempt to block non-whitewashed Black history from reaching Florida classrooms did not prevent an Advanced Placement U.S. History course from becoming, as the New York Times described, “a behemoth that reached more than half a million high school students last year.” So, now, Florida officials are seeking to combat the popularity of the AP course with an alternative U.S. history course that promotes a more conservative-friendly framework, which, in their minds, makes it more geared towards patriotism, because it argues that the U.S. Constitution is an antislavery document, and that the founding fathers were adamantly against slavery, despite the glaring fact that many of them enslaved Black people.

Before we get into how this is yet another attempt by Florida “education” officials to make U.S. history more palatable to white people by lying about it, let’s take a look at what this new course, which will roll out as a pilot program this fall, entails.

From the Times:

The Florida class, whose framework was released on Monday, shares many similarities with other American history survey courses. It does not omit dark periods in the nation’s history, such as slavery, Japanese internment or the Trail of Tears. It does suggest a specific textbook — “Land of Hope” by Wilfred McClay — that, according to Jonathan Zimmerman, a historian at the University of Pennsylvania, tends to cover such events as “aberrations from an otherwise admirable story,” as opposed to part of a foundational history of racism.

An aberration is defined as “a departure from what is normal, usual or expected,” as well as a “deviation from the standard, moral or natural course…”

So, if an entire race of people was enslaved for roughly 250 years, more than a century of which occurred after said nation was established as an independent nation that touts itself as the “land of the free,” and then that roughly 250 years was followed by another century of Black people, including the formerly enslaved, being legally considered to be second-class citizens — in a nation that touts itself as one where “all men are created equal” — what the hell kind of aberration is that? Slavery and Jim Crow were not a “departure from what is normal” in the U.S. Black people were either in state-sanctioned bondage or were legally segregated from white society for 400 years in a nation that has only been independent for 500 years. That would be one hell of a dominant “aberration.”

Anyway, what else you got, Florida?

More from the Times:

Ideas about liberty and equality from the Bible, and in the writings of Martin Luther and John Calvin, were crucial precursors to the American founding, according to the new Florida framework. It suggests that students read religious texts, a practice that has fallen out of favor in most public schools.

Professor Zimmerman acknowledged that many of today’s students, including his own, were unfamiliar with basic religious thought, which could make it difficult to understand the nation’s origins.

“These people were reading the Bible,” he said of Puritan colonists, “and if you don’t understand what the Bible says, you can’t understand them.”

The framework stops short of explicitly calling the United States “a Christian nation,” which is a popular term on the right, Professor Zimmerman noted. 

Ahhh yes, conservative “educators” are still trying their best to call the U.S. a Christian nation, but this time, they’re not directly saying it; they’re just heavily implying it, according to an approving professor, who insists that Puritan colonists had a handle on biblical interpretation that a non-Christian could never have.

No, no — that is definitely a non-biased endorsement.

And, of course, Florida’s curriculum of alternative historical facts suggests the founders actually opposed slavery. In fact, it reportedly dedicates an entire unit to explaining the contradiction between the founders’ stated antislavery beliefs and the fact that many of them owned other human beings.

Annette Gordon-Reed, a Harvard historian, said of the course that in portraying the founders as fundamentally opposed to slavery, it was simplifying the founders’ actual views, noting that Thomas Jefferson, for example, believed that if enslaved people were freed, they should be expatriated, and that George Washington, our first president, was an owner of enslaved people until his dying day.

“Each of these people had political power that could have been deployed against slavery,” Gordon-Reed wrote in an emailed statement to the Times. “This presentation seems directed at explaining away their inaction.”

Understand this: After rejecting the African American history course in 2023, because it “lacked educational value,” Florida’s Board of Education implemented new educational standards that require teachers to teach that enslaved people benefited from their enslavement because it taught them skills, and that Black people also committed acts of violence during anti-Black race massacres like Tulsa and Ocoee. The board put unqualified Black conservative “educators” with no real expertise in Black History in charge of designing the new standards, and those non-experts, at least initially, got most of their “history” completely wrong.

Some board members had previously expressed concerns that the AP studies course didn’t offer any “opposing viewpoints” or “other perspectives” of slavery, specifically, that the course “may only present one side of this issue” and “may lead to a viewpoint of an ‘oppressor vs. oppressed’ based solely on race or ethnicity,” which, of course, accurately describes exactly what the transatlantic slave trade was.

Later, Florida officials selected PragerU—an unaccredited conservative non-profit organization founded by a loud and proud racist—to provide classroom materials to Florida schools. As we previously reported, PragerU produced animated videos for children that taught, among other things, that the iconic abolitionist and former enslaved person Frederick Douglass would have agreed with America’s choice to prioritize the greater good of the nation over ending slavery.

Are these really the people we should trust to make sound judgments on how Black history, or any history, for that matter, should be taught?

Anyway, this year, over 500 Florida schools offered the A.P. American history course, according to College Board data, and “students who do well on A.P. tests can earn college credit or access to more advanced classes at thousands of institutions nationwide,” according to the Times. Meanwhile, Florida’s alternative course is part of a new series of accelerated courses known as FACT — Florida Advanced Courses and Tests — which, at least for now, will only earn students credit at Florida public colleges.

So, basically, it’s an academic downgrade, which sounds about right for courses full of alternative FACTs.

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