Standing among cheering rubes, Ron DeSantis demonstrates yet again why it’s so important for grown-ass adults to examine the racist frameworks in which our legal and educational systems are embedded:
In his never-ending quest to be more MAGA than any other Governor, Desantis this morning announces his ‘Stop WOKE Act’ to create a private right of action, modeled after TX abortion law, to sue schools if they catch them teaching CRT. pic.twitter.com/1M9a2Ns3tM
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) December 15, 2021
This new round of honest-to-dog gubmint censorship and cancel culture isn’t just about schools, though that’s the main focus. DeSantis is also asking the Republican-controlled statehouse to ban CRT from private businesses because, as everyone knows, Edmund Burke was all about policing corporate HR programs. From The Orlando Sentinel:
TALLAHASSEE — Critical race theory shouldn’t be taught to Florida’s children or workers, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday, and he’ll seek legislation next month to ban a practice that is stirring debate nationwide.
He also wants parents to be able to sue schools suspected of teaching the theory and receive attorney’s fees.
“In Florida, we are taking a stand against the state-sanctioned racism that is critical race theory,” DeSantis said at an event before cheering supporters in Wildwood. “We won’t allow Florida tax dollars to be spent teaching kids to hate our country or to hate each other…”
DeSantis wants the Legislature to codify that rule into state law when lawmakers convene their 60-day regular session starting Jan. 11. But he also wants them to go further and ban CRT from being used in seminars and training sessions for K-12 school employees and in all workplaces in the state.
The attorney’s fees part of the scheme will unleash partisan nutcases like the so-called “Moms for Liberty” to intimidate school administrators and teachers. My guess is it will work. Even if lessons are certified 100% CRT-free, no one wants to invite the hordes of screechers to come down on their school or workplace.
I wonder if the anti-woke Substackers who constantly bemoan the “self-censorship” they supposedly endured at prestigious, well-compensated media perches they formerly or currently occupy will take up Florida teachers’ free speech cause? Haha, of course they won’t.
Open thread.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
How do you know it will work?
Gravenstone
That Texas abomination is going to be the template for so many other things, good (eg. CA and NY talking measures attacking “assault weapons”) and ill (eg. DeathSantis and the above mentioned bullshittery). It is so far beyond fucking stupid, and it’s just getting started.
Gravenstone
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Because they will likely cave (or be forced to by craven admins and school boards) at the first hint of a threat of legal action under this POS act.
West of the Rockies
As an avowed progressive, I’d be mortified if I was expected to support and fight for some dumb-ass liberal version of this: No More Country Music! or Ban Cowboy Hats!
Why are these people not feeling self-owned and humiliated?
Baud
Man, I may need to move to Florida and start suing every religious school I can find.
Betty Cracker
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I didn’t say I know it will work, I said my guess is it will. The wingnut cranks now have an incentive to bring lawsuits and unwelcome publicity and turmoil to public schools, and I think it’s likely that will inspire teachers and administrators to avoid anything remotely controversial because they just don’t need that hassle. If it turns out otherwise, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Kay
I just love how they completely ignore it. They have written more about a dinner party scandal at Yale Law than they have about the absolute tidal wave of state laws banning speech. Okay, just “dinner party scandal” is hysterical :)
If I had sat down to write this to make fun of them I wouldn’t have gone this far. I would be afraid it was too much of a caricature, and unfair.
DougJ called the whole thing right at the outset, with the “Oberlin Student Council” :)
sdhays
I think DeSantis meant to say “We won’t allow Florida tax dollars to be spent teaching kids.” Period. Because clearly that’s a goal (one of many).
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I think public schools are inherently risk-averse and so “conservative”, as institutions. It’s why they sometimes err on the side of caution for things like school shootings, which are rare but the risk is catastrophic so we get the drills and all that shit- it’s completely understandable. They have to try to please a lot of people, and it’s impossible. But they try. I don’t know and it’s easy for me to say but I wish they would stick up for themselves more. They really don’t have to be the national depository of all our angst. They have a full plate. Someone else is going to have to pitch in.
Brachiator
Damn. And I thought that Trump was nuts.
Also, DeSantis has that perpetual “stick up his ass thing” going for him.
JMG
There will be at least one district, almost surely a well-off white one, that will resist on the grounds of “as parents we don’t want pols telling our kids what they can learn.” And companies have the deep pockets to ride the suits out. Unlike schools, they set national policies. First nutbar group that sues Disney and DeSantis will regret including entities that can resist his bullying in the law.
Martin
It’s going to be fascinating how we stuff this genie back in the bottle that USSC has uncorked. I rolled my eyes a bit when Newsom announced an SB8 style law, but this is now the rules of the game, and you need to play the game.
How about allowing us to sue media figures that lie to us?
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
It works:
Weirdly there is no substack devoted to this cancelled curriculum. No outrage at all. It’s Toledo Public Schools, so you know, the heartland diner enthusiasts. Cancelled!
Mike in NC
@sdhays: Republicans have been trying to destroy public schools ever since they were prevented from indoctrinating kids about the glory of Jesus Christ and Stonewall Jackson.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: You’ve made the point before that public schools get all of society’s problems dumped on them, and it’s absolutely true. The expectations are already unreasonable, and now that our social fabric is unraveling, they’re expected to patch that up too. It’s an impossible job.
Cameron
Well, of course they shouldn’t be teaching CRT to workers. I remember when I applied for a job stocking shelves at Winn-Dixie and they insisted I write a four-page essay on the history of redlining in the American South…..
I’m sure there are still copies of curricula and book lists from the 1920’s that Florida schools can adopt. Christ. I’m glad I’m an old fart with no kids.
The Dangerman
Oh Goody. It’s happy indoor mandate day in CA. It’s gonna be assholes on parade today;
I’m going back and hiding under the blankets for a few days.
raven
I always laugh at the anti-Facebook` hysteria here, mostly because I only use it with friends and family and don’t see all the poison. Somehow that asshole Andy Clyde’s push polls got on mine and the comments are incredible. These motherfuckers really do hate us.
narya
@Kay: I have to say, as a former President of the Oberlin Student Council, that’s not exactly how we operated. :-)
I actually DID hold that title, mind you!
Martin
The proposed bill is even more awesome than you think. It basically says ‘if your kids learned any of this, you can sue’. It doesn’t even require that the school teach it. Just shut the Florida educational system down – it’s effectively illegal now.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Just amazing to me that they completely accepted all responsibility for gun violence. No one else has any responsibility at all, apparently. I was amazed that some prosecutor somewhere finally said “WTF with this?” You mean…someone else might have some responsibility?
They get it both ends. No gun violence BUT ALSO no reaction to gun violence. What?
I think they just pass that hot potato right back. “Here- take your insane GUN PROBLEM back- we’re a school and we’re busy”
I just wait for it now. I was at a legal education program on drug overdoses and we generously decided schools had to fix it, then we all went home. Done and DONE. Good work, everyone!
Peale
@Cameron: What they mean is no more seminars for white collar workers about “unconscious bias”. If you have to sit through a seminar on evaluating your own biases, you can sue. That’s the goal.
Cameron
Let us not dwell on the latest Florida Follies, when we can look at national politics for true inspiration:
https://www.alternet.org/2021/12/manchin-biden/
Kent
@West of the Rockies: The liberal version is what CA is doing, allowing private citizens to sue gun dealers who sell assault weapons.
Another liberal version might be letting private citizens sue to corporate polluters to enforce environmental laws. Or sue farms to enforce animal cruelty laws.
That sort of thing.
cope
@Betty Cracker: Well, in my experience of teaching in a Florida public school, our district was known for rolling over and settling every time some dim bulb sued for one bogus reason or another and this was over 28 years of teaching in the district.
Cermet
This is an ideal law – if dem’s had half a brain and since there is absolutely no legal definition of CRT since this is a totally made up issue, then they need to sue everyone using the law for teaching ANY history that includes any race; like all the white people in the history books – aha, ha! That’s critical race theory! Prove me wrong! Wait, you can’t because there is no fucking definition of CRT! So I win and all CRT suits are either frivolous or false. QED
Peale
I’m guessing the end game is allowing fans to sue Disney for having too many female heroines and not dressing them scantily enough in Marvel films.
Alison Rose
@Martin: Well, from what we typically see of Florida folks, those kids aren’t learning shit, so they needn’t worry.
Kay
@Martin:
I thought it was great. You know the far Right justices all read their reviews because they whine about it incessantly, so I’m all for poking at them.
It actually gets better. Shortly after Alito’s whiny diatribe the Chief Justice used the same word – “nullification”. You couldn’t make this stuff up.
Cacti
Reminder:
Floriduh is the state where the Rosewood massacre happened, and got ignored by the state for the next 70 years.
Bupalos
@Brachiator:
SiubhanDuinne
@Brachiator:
He has an incredibly annoying whiny pitch to his voice. How can his staff and family and friends even bear to listen to him?
Kelly
The current enthusiasm for legalizing vigilante actions seems to go back to stand your ground. Overall pushing us back to the bad old days of lynching and pogrom.
Cameron
It’s interesting (I don’t know how else to describe it – is this sort of thing normal here?) that in the days that are almost certainly a calm before an omicron tsunami, this CRT crap would dominate the news here. THIS is what this asshole thinks is important, or, more likely, what he thinks Mr. & Mrs. Cletus Lee Hogleg and their neighbors the Skeeters think is important.
Maybe he’s right, I dunno. As Mencken observed, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” I don’t even like Mencken, but this sounds prescient.
Kent
@Kay: That is just gutlessness on the part of those teachers. I teach HS science and have taught it in the baptist heartland of Central TX as well as in Washington State. Evolution is front and center in the curriculum standards for biology in every state. If you don’t cover it you aren’t doing your job and the kids are liable to fail standardized assessments which cover evolution. You can teach evolution without getting into human evolution, which is frankly the only thing the fundies actually care about. They could give a shit if you teach about Darwin’s finches or tortoises on the Galapagos.
The CRT thing is different. I don’t know what social studies standards look like in most of these states but those are what the state says you should and must teach. But I guarantee that CRT is not mentioned in any state social studies standards. Although racism, Jim Crow, reconstruction, civil rights movement, etc, most definitely is.
cope
@raven: If you use FB, they are making money off you. You don’t need to click ads or news stories or links to poisonous groups. They set rates with advertisers by how many active users they have. I suspect FB even parses user’s total time online to justify their rates to advertisers.
Hoodie
@Cermet: All race theory is critical, right? Theory that intentionally does not reference race is a race theory, too, (i.e., race doesn’t matter), right? This could get interesting.
Obviously this is the new red baiting. If the GOP gets control of the House, look forward to re-animation of HUAC, this time focused on the looming threat of CRT and gender studies.
Roger Moore
@Mike in NC:
FTFY.
Sebastian
@Martin:
That was my first thought, too. Why go after the 2nd A when the 1st is so much better.
Daoud bin Daoud
Let the book burning commence!
CaseyL
It’s going to be fascinating watching how the Bill of Rights, and the 13th-15th Amendments come unraveled depending g on which state you happen to be In. Articles of Confederation, here we come!
UncleEbeneezer
@Kent: I imagine they will soon object to any use of Omicron/Delta variants to illustrate evolution in action, as well as any Biology lesson that explains how vaccines work.
Dan B
@narya: There’s a lot of Oberlin in my family – my mother, my father’s sisters, and two cousins. We went to events at Oberlin once a year when I was a kid.
What did it take to get elected?
UncleEbeneezer
@Cermet: The problem is that Republicans would LOVE to screw over every public school. I don’t really see a counter-move by Dems using this law that wouldn’t ultimately help the GOP’s attack on public education.
Brachiator
@Kent:
Interesting. Some of the must fascinating recent discoveries have involved the remains of early human ancestors. Oh, well, I guess you can have fun talking about dinosaurs, and even show Jurassic Park in class.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Martin:
Didn’t somebody try that with Tucker not long ago? He and his (and the Murdochs’) attorney argued that he was so obviously a fake news cartoon that only moron could take him seriously? (I paraphrase the defendants’ argument)
Bupalos
I’m really starting to think the Dems need to go ahead and test their strength in this new arena we’ve got going here, of passing plainly unconsititutional laws against things that don’t meaningfully exist but kind of prod latent supporters. This kind of rhetorical campaign-governance really seems like it’s got a ton of potential.
Maybe a law against using Nazi imagery and tropes in worship services, with some kind of heightened scrutiny if the congregation is disproportionately white?
Betty Cracker
@Alison Rose: I know I shouldn’t take it personally, but comments like yours seriously piss me off. I’ll just leave it at that.
narya
@Dan B: I knew a lot of people? I had been part of the committee that helped rewrite the constitution, and thought I should help implement it. It was kind of accidental on my part, in many ways, but I’m glad I did it.
senyordave
From the Hill magazine:
Ron DeSantis Accused of Attending Drinking Party With Students At High School Where He Taught
It would be irresponsible not to speculate as to whether CRT was taught at that school.
Cermet
@UncleEbeneezer: Then you missed my point – once a judge finds there is no such thing as CRT (since it applies to whites as well and that is 99% of every history text book), all such suits by thugs are null and void. Further, we get attorney fee’s for proving they can’t use that to sue any school in the state.
Edmund Dantes
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1471152961577439234?s=20
Pelosi is on the wrong side of this. Congress has a ton more power and information than a lot of low level people at companies that get highly restricted windows (for them and their families) and times that they can trade in the stock that they have insider information on.
Part of the price you pay to get into congress should be at worst very limited stock windows for them to trade in for them (and their families) of up won’t do the full ban on trading (other than say index funds).
Pelosi rejects stock-trading ban for members of Congress: ‘We are a free-market economy. They should be able to participate in that.’ (yahoo.com)
Ken
Add in authorization for any citizen to arrest them and transport them to the state where the lawsuit is filed, with all fees incurred by the citizen to be paid by the defendant regardless of the outcome of the lawsuit.
(Or since this is legal language, should that be “irregardless”?)
Cermet
You got to think like the enemy and use his methods against him – just don’t take on the enemies values.
Betty Cracker
@SiubhanDuinne: DeSantis has a whiny voice and no detectable charisma IMO. But I also hated Trump’s horrible voice and thought he was repellent in every conceivable way. It’s just impossible (for me, anyway) to tell what’s going to catch on in Wingnutland.
UncleEbeneezer
@Cermet: I hope you are right that it would play out that way.
Citizen Alan
@raven: The feeling’s fucking mutual. I am afraid my sister or one of her kids (the oldest, who is, frankly, a dumbass) will cop to being a Trumpist. And after that, I will likely never speak to them again.
Dan B
@narya: My father visited his sisters at Oberlin. It was during the depression. He was startled at the dinner: two carrots and one potato, boiled.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
@Betty Cracker:
@Gravenstone:
Then we need to stand up and put some stiffness in their spines and put pressure on them to resist this
Roger Moore
@cope:
If you don’t use FB voluntarily, they are still making money off you. Their ad network extends far beyond their own products. Even if you don’t have an account, they are still tracking you online, creating a profile of you, and using that profile to sell your attention to advertisers. The one argument in favor of having a FB account that makes any sense is that doing so gives you the ability to set privacy settings. Whether FB actually follows those settings is another question.
Bostondreams
@Kent: It;s more about banning anything that suggests white people have done anything bad. Right now, the Moms for Liberty are on an anti-Ruby Bridges kick. Reading to 9 year olds about how older white people screamed at her when she was 9 and trying to integrate her school is apparently bad.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: My high school roommate (Fred Gage) went to UF, and he turned out OK.
raven
@cope: whatever
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: His predecessor Nosferatu doesn’t exactly ooze charm, either.
Kent
You can endlessly teach evolution even in Fundie central as long as you are using plant and animal examples. No one ever cares. They just don’t want to learn about human origins, which is really more human paleontology than basic biology. But if you are covering say, the evolution of flowering plants (which is a really big deal) no one ever gives the slightest shit.
I actually got more pushback from fundie parents over covering climate change than I ever did covering evolution, and I always spent a lot of time on evolution. And even climate change was in the TX curriculum standards because they were written so long ago before it became a hot button political issue.
TheTruffle
Where is the ACLU in all this?
delk
Congratulations narrow headed screechers.
More kids now know more (and want to find out more) about CRT than if you would have kept your yaps shut.
cc Barbra Streisand
Betty
Can we talk about the Florida Governor’s race? Does Nikki Fried have a chance to beat him? Do we also know whether Val Demings has a chance to take out Rubio? What a wonderful change winning those two races would produce.
zhena gogolia
I keep saying wait until they hear about Afro-pessimism. And no, don;t ask me to explain it
Kent
You have a point. Pretty much ALL of history taught in the US is actually white history. And we can’t cover that since pretty much all of it supports the fundamental thesis of CRT. Westward Expansion and the pioneers? We can’t cover that because that is actually WHITE westward expansion and supports CRT. Texas Revolution and the Alamo? Also lends support to CRT. Hard to find anything in American history that doesn’t have some linkage to race.
In fact, the entire anti-CRT movement actually supports the truth of CRT. By opposing CRT they are actually making the point that it is true.
Heh…
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Why would the wingnuts be offended by black people who are concerned about bad hair days?
Josie
@Betty Cracker:
Just try to remember that people who make these types of sweeping generalizations about certain states or sections of the country are only showing their own ignorance.
Old School
@zhena gogolia: Wouldn’t they say it was just CRT?
cope
@Alison Rose: Well, after 28 years teaching high school science here in The Mildew State, I can assure you that those who want to learn do. Yes, there are issues and yes, there are teachers who shouldn’t be allowed within shouting distance of a developing mind but in my time, I saw amazing students go on to do amazing things with their lives. I also taught alongside some of the most amazing teachers you could ever hope to meet.
Might things be getting worse? Probably for a variety of reasons, most intentionally initiated by the Republican scum who draft our laws and set our salaries.
Maybe you meant to use a finer brush when you made your comment about examples of educational malpractice here in Florida and had somebody specific in mind. For my own peace of mind, I think I’ll go with that thought.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@cope: Just out of curiosity, which state is The Mildew State?
cope
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Florida.
West of the Rockies
@Kent:
None of those that bad to me.
zhena gogolia
@Old School: it’s beyond crt as i understand it. crt is not pessimistic about changing things
Kent
When I taught HS biology in TX I had a lot of black students and there were always black girls who tried to get of of going outside for labs because the humidity was going to mess with their hair and I “just didn’t get black girl’s hair.” I told them they were free to go down to the office and get an excuse slip from one of the Black women assistant principals or counselors who presumably did “understand black hair”. None of them ever took me up on it.
Jim Appleton
How is it that one old photograph of a domestic lynching elicits howls of protest about CRT, but one photo of burnt and lynched mercenaries on a bridge in Faluja elicits howls of outrage at the injustice of it all?
Bill Arnold
@delk:
The wikipedia entry is a decent start:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory
(“The government of [this State] prohibits the teaching of critical race theory, but the wikipedia article is long and has a lot of references.”)
ian
@Kent:
Well yeah, that is the point. These goons wouldn’t know CRT if we beat them over the head with it, but they know little Sally and Billy are hearing about the terrible things we did to minorities in the past, and they want it banned. So all of those things you mentioned are swept up under the banner of CRT.
Old School
@zhena gogolia: I doubt the average conservative pundit/politician would appreciate the difference.
Danielx
Beatific vision: Trump v DeSantis Republican primaries. Try to out-crazy each other. Either one loses, he screams about a rigged election and REPUBLICAN villains responsible. Meanwhile, the semi-sane portion of the electorate looks and and wants no part of either. Biden wins general by 20 points. What’s not to like?
Felanius Kootea
Hmm. I think DeSantis just opened Pandora’s box. This isn’t going to end the way he thinks it is. Thanks Texas.
cope
@Roger Moore: I was not aware that the slimy tentacles of Mr. Z stretched so far. I reckon all the tech big boys are making bucks off all of us then.
Side topic: those are some lovely pictures of one of my favorite parts of the country. I did a lot of work in Utah and even had a Utah driver’s license for a while. All my kin still live in Grand Junction.
mrmoshpotato
The stupid! It burns!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That’s what I am thinking – if they don’t specifically define what “CRT” means then it can mean anything (“Christian Reclamation Theory” anyone?)
Cameron
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Communist Revolutionary Trotskyism.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Danielx: It would be nice to have the 2024 end in a riot between DeSantis and Trump supporters in the Convention Hall while the two of them scream “I won!” at each other on stage while only wearing their underwear.
SpaceUnit
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
You make a good point. It’s going to be interesting when claims of voter fraud, stolen elections and illegal ballots begin making their way into Republican primaries. Probably just a matter of time.
Dan B
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: You had me till “underwear”. Neither seem to a credit to the human form. Must do Brain Bleach!
Gin & Tonic
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: As long as that is only covered on radio.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
It isn’t always a matter of “stiffening spines”. There’s a parent group there who oppose book bannings. That’ll be an effective pushback.
They can’t do this by themselves. They’re vulnerable and they need cover.
brendancalling
@Kay: @Betty Cracker: I think it depends on the district. I am critical as hell about Burlington VT where I live—don’t get me going on what it’s actually like in Bernie’s socialist paradise—but I will say our teachers, administrators, and students would openly and gleefully defy that shit. Philly’s another one I can think of, where I cannot imagine the schools would put up with that kind of aggression.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Suggested long read from TPM
I’m sure Timothy Mellon un-ironically thinks of himself as a self-made man.
And you’ll never eat M&M’s again
NotMax
@Kay
Uh-huh. That there Bible thing is pretty darn racy. And violent.
//
Roger Moore
@cope:
I’m glad you like them! I really love southern Utah, and I’ve come to love it more the further off the beaten path I get. Some of that has to so with getting away from other people, I guess.
Marmot
@Felanius Kootea: Uh, thanks Abbott. Not Texas. Plenty of Texans hate that fool.
debbie
WTF happened to the GOP’s demand for tort reform? How many frivolous lawsuits are they enabling with this nonsense?
Geminid
@TheTruffle: Where is the ACLU? They are trying to ride the flat-tired Abolish Student Debt! band wagon:
Butter Emails
@Gravenstone:
It’s going to be a template that will be attempted to be used for a couple of good things prior to the callers of balls and strikes identifying them as unconstitutional while a flood of evil shit will be ruled OK because reasons.
Marmot
@Kay: thanks for the link, Kay!
Here’s a press release from the org, PEN America, fighting the Williamson County Commission. I just donated! All y’all do it too!
https://pen.org/press-release/pen-america-calls-out-texas-school-district-after-banning-eleven-books/
Edit: Excerpt!
debbie
@Martin:
Let’s sue Fox for not being balanced or fair!
Sure Lurkalot
I was about 30 when I met someone that told me he had no intention of saving for or sending his kids to college. He didn’t go and so neither would his kids as far as he could control it. I had naively assumed all parents wanted their kids to go.
My parents did not attend college but they saved to pay for their kids to go. They wanted their kids to have a better start in life than they had.
What do these parents want for their children? The best answer I can come up with is they never want their kids to question or challenge them. And that’s both an arrogance and ignorance I can’t wrap my head around.
burnspbesq
You know who will be the plaintiffs in the first round of lawsuits, don’t you?
White men forced to sit through workplace diversity/anti-harassment training. That shit is excruciating.
burnspbesq
Wouldn’t it be deliciously ironic if Catholic schools came to the rescue of parents who want their children to be properly educated?
burnspbesq
@TheTruffle:
Do you imagine there is a huge file server somewhere, full of pre-drafted complaints and motions for preliminary injunction against every conceivable and inconceivable piece of potential tomfoolery that might spring up anywhere at any time? Get a grip.
And before you drag on the ACLU, show us the receipts from your contributions.
Alison Rose
@Betty Cracker: I apologize. It was intended as a poke at the “Florida Man” thing, but I can see how it would come across, and I’m sorry for that.
Kent
No
Marmot
@burnspbesq: Gross. You follow up my link to donations for PEN America with this?
misterpuff
@Geminid: “Cancel Student Debt Now”. Where do I start?
First off I have put taken student loans twice in my life: once for my college expenses and then again to help my son get his degree. I have paid both off. I know that this is tough. In my twenties and early thirties, debt maintenance kept me from owning a home and building wealth. But luckily, it bootstrapped me into a career where I could dig out of that morass. The idea was “buy now, pay later when you have more money” but with the 80s to the 10s there was stagnation on the wage front, you never had enough money. So I’m all in on a student debt jubilee.
However, no one ever talks about the bigger picture. Cancel Student Debt seems to exist as a moment in time. Poof all student debt is wiped out, but what about the people in school or the the kids currently in high school, middle school and elementary school that will need help to finance those college dreams. Will those programs still be in place and won’t a certain percentage of them fall prey to the cyclical nature of indebtedness?
My point is if you are going to cancel student debt and prevent that negative aspects of debt, how are we going to finance a college education for most future Americans in a fair and equitable way. And I’ve heard no good conversations about that.
Sloganeering won’t get us there.
Peale
@Kay: Looking into the story, one of the school districts removed the books after a review and announced it December 3. They are cutting off the funds anyway to punish the school district even when it did what it wanted. It removed the books too slowly.
Marmot
Reposting because it looks like nobody saw.
Here’s a press release from the org, PEN America, fighting the Williamson County Commission. I just donated! All y’all do it too!
https://pen.org/press-release/pen-america-calls-out-texas-school-district-after-banning-eleven-books/
Edit: Excerpt!
Kent
High school teacher here. These dipshits are completely fighting a last century battle. Kids don’t go to the library for books much anymore. Certainly not for ones to read on their own time. Most kids at every school these days have school-issued Chromebooks. Also phones of course. They can get any damn content they want 24/7. Kids talk about LGBT issues on places like Discord. They don’t need the library to curate that sort of content for them.
Geminid
@misterpuff: I think there is a viable approach to the cost of higher education that would involve some debt relief. @Mangy Jay has made some characteristically thoughtful comments on this question. Ms. Jay herself has student debt and would benefit from cancellation. But she cannot agree with the way advocates are centering their own interests to the exclusion of other worthwhile initiatives such as free community college. And she does not see them rallying support for universal pre-K education, which she believe would be a transformative reform. That has yet to pass, but she doesn’t see the “abolish debt” crowd lifting a finger to rally support for it.
Personally, I favor some relief from student debt, and medical debt as well. But the advocates are trying to use it as a wedge issue to peel away support from the Biden administration, while ignoring real problems of equity and practical politics in what they propose. They do not argue honestly.
Evidently, the ACLU is going along. But they’ve been on my shit list anyway since they took up for the organizer of the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally. The City had moved it from the cramped downtown park to a safer, more spacious location one mile away. The organizer claimed that he had a right to hold it in front of a statue he purportedly was defending. But he invited every nazi and klansman he could contact. They never would have fit into Lee Park even if the State Police hadn’t declared the assembly to be unlawful on account of the violence that was breaking out already.
The ACLU did not have to help this person. He did not care about that statue, he was just trying to jumpstart a career as a rabblerouser. They made a choice and it was a bad one.
So I’ll drag the ACLU for that and their undermining of President Biden, even though I can’t show any receipts for contributions to them. Another commenter suggested that one shouldn’t criticize them without having receipts, but I consider that to be an infringement on, well, my civil liberties.
Anonymous At Work
Question: Can we only sue our workplace or any workplace for “CRT”? I think the Florida governor’s workforce is being instructed on CRT when it learns about password safety. And I bet I can find 300000 amateur attorneys willing to collect legal fees.
Chacal Charles Caltrop
@Martin: I just knew they were here!
how do you feel about being so famous?
Daoud bin Daoud
@Kent: that realization is far beyond mental capacity of most CRT opponents.
Daoud bin Daoud
@ian: CRT = anything that challenges my fragile white ego
Daoud bin Daoud
@Peale: it’s no fun unless you rub salt in their wounds.
Betty Cracker
@Alison Rose: Appreciate that! I should also be less touchy about it, so my apologies for that. It sucks being a FL Democrat these
daysdecades.Alison Rose
@Betty Cracker: No no, not at all. You were right. I always try not to be one of those insufferable blue state liberals who makes dumb jokes about people in red states. I slipped up here and I appreciate being called in on that.
fancycwabs
If this is written to enforce an antr-CRT law written the way the “CRT” law is written in Tennessee, I could sue my kid’s school if they invite the governor speak because he won’t say Joe Biden won the 2020 election, and therefore supports the armed overthrow of the US government.
TriassicSands
Suing the government and private citizens for behavior the Republicans don’t like .ay be the new GOP jobs program. Unemployed? Sue your neighbor for getting Plan B in the mail. Need extra cash because your eighth grade “education” isn’t cutting it anymore? Sue your school district for mentioning the word “slavery” without an accompanying positive adjective.