Dictator DeSantis?

[Jarhyn]

Florida has changed so much for the worse over the last decade.

I mean, it was brought into the Union explicitly so we would have better access to the Caribbean slave markets and more effectively cut off the Southern escape route for our runaways ... History has always been and always will be a contentious issue in Florida schools. So are gun rights, immigration policy, and most of the other issues he takes extreme stances on. DeSantis just took advantage of an existing set of biases to build a twisted political career, like any other populist authoritarian.

That may be, but I lived in Florida for a few years during the early 90s and it was nothing like it is now. My husband was born and raised in South Florida and it was controlled by Democrats for most of the years that he was growing up. He has an engineering degree from a Florida University and no-one was trying to dictate what could be taught or what books could be read during those years.

We lived in a more conservative part of Florida but it wasn't as extreme as it is currently. Regardless of Florida's early history, Florida has gone through many changes and the current one is very extreme.

I think that is likely true, and of course there are all manner of people with all manner of political persuasions living in Florida even now. UF is in fact a great school as I measure these things, with a strong commitment to social justice in fact. But these were always touchy subjects, what DeSantis has built his career on. When you bring a touchy subject into the light, people seem to think they are being presented with a choice of whether to feel remorse or whether to get very angry, and they fall in along predictable Party lines.

I use UF's Vodou archive quite a bit; I'm starting to wonder I ought to be salvaging copies of some of their videos and articles while they are still available...

You could express this concern to them and offer to host a mirror of the content?

That way if they pull it due to state concerns, they can link off-site to your mirror, and nothing actually changes other than the data being hosted off-site (at your site)

A nice thought, but its an enormous site; I think they'd probably need a partner library. I could drop a line and inquire whether they're pursuing options.

You should. I'm not even interested in Vodou as a discipline but I would love to learn about the religion, and more open resources would be helpful in that regard.

 

[southernhybrid]

I was a spoiled toddler when we had a beach house/winter home in Naples FL. (Mid 1950s)
Very idyllic, beachcombing, fishing, exploring Everglades. My parents (Mom mostly since dad was often away on his ketch treasure hunting) had a black maid. One day my mom gave her a ride home and I went along.
OMFG! They lived in a big dirt lot full of little wooden boxes on short stilts. Not houses, just flimsy boxes. No plumbing, electricity, pavement - no NOTHING. Just little naked kids playing in the dirt, ogling the oddity of an actual automobile in their space.
To say I was shocked would be an epic understatement. I couldn’t even formulate the question “why do they live like that?” But it made a really deep impression.
By 6th grade my dad was two years dead, mom had sold the beach house and moved us to Philadelphia ‘burbs where the public schools were highly rated.
The school was probably 30% black kids, but despite the forced “integration“, was FAPP segregated except in sports. THAT answered a lot of questions for me, and laid the table for my rejection of the white supremacy that allowed for little naked kids playing in the dirt while their Mom toiled away keeping up the relative mansion that was our beach house.
In retrospect, my dropping out of school and leaving home at 17 was a natural outgrowth of that rejection, and put me politically and forever in the progressive column.
We are all products of our experiences.

Florida has changed very little over the last 65 years in respect to racism. It’s just less overt now. DeSantis is a perfect fit.

The entire country is full of racists. Imo, the Northeast is one of the most racist places in the country. It's just not always as obvious as it is in places like Mississippi etc. Northerners often live well in their segregated neighborhoods totally unaware of how minorities are living, since they are often ghettoized into certain cities without many opportunities.

Little children may not be playing in the dirt in NYC, but they are often living in apartments that lack reliable heat, have mold, rats etc. We have the same problem in Atlanta since wealthy California investors bought up a lot of large apartment complexes and then refused to maintain them. New York City has the most segregated schools in the county. At least the schools are racially integrated in most of the South, but there is no escape from racism in the US, whether it's obvious or hidden.

Let me add, that there is a lot of poverty among both Black and White folks in my town, but at least little children aren't playing naked in the dirt and they do have free school lunches, SNAP, CHIP or Medicaid etc. Those things weren't even around in the 1950s when you and I were little children. Mixed race kids are also very common here. I doubt that was common during the days of Jim Crow.

Still, that doesn't explain the rise of Fascism or someone like DeSantis gaining so much power. It doesn't explain why we have so many far right extremists in Congress or why we have so many voters who support these people. White Christian Nationalism seems to be a big part of the problem, but what else is making people act so hateful towards anyone who isn't like them? We can blame some of it on Trump, but what made so many white conservative Christians attracted to him in the first place? It's sad and a bit scary to say the least.

 

[Politesse]

Florida has changed so much for the worse over the last decade.

I mean, it was brought into the Union explicitly so we would have better access to the Caribbean slave markets and more effectively cut off the Southern escape route for our runaways ... History has always been and always will be a contentious issue in Florida schools. So are gun rights, immigration policy, and most of the other issues he takes extreme stances on. DeSantis just took advantage of an existing set of biases to build a twisted political career, like any other populist authoritarian.

That may be, but I lived in Florida for a few years during the early 90s and it was nothing like it is now. My husband was born and raised in South Florida and it was controlled by Democrats for most of the years that he was growing up. He has an engineering degree from a Florida University and no-one was trying to dictate what could be taught or what books could be read during those years.

We lived in a more conservative part of Florida but it wasn't as extreme as it is currently. Regardless of Florida's early history, Florida has gone through many changes and the current one is very extreme.

I think that is likely true, and of course there are all manner of people with all manner of political persuasions living in Florida even now. UF is in fact a great school as I measure these things, with a strong commitment to social justice in fact. But these were always touchy subjects, what DeSantis has built his career on. When you bring a touchy subject into the light, people seem to think they are being presented with a choice of whether to feel remorse or whether to get very angry, and they fall in along predictable Party lines.

I use UF's Vodou archive quite a bit; I'm starting to wonder I ought to be salvaging copies of some of their videos and articles while they are still available...

You could express this concern to them and offer to host a mirror of the content?

That way if they pull it due to state concerns, they can link off-site to your mirror, and nothing actually changes other than the data being hosted off-site (at your site)

A nice thought, but its an enormous site; I think they'd probably need a partner library. I could drop a line and inquire whether they're pursuing options.

You should. I'm not even interested in Vodou as a discipline but I would love to learn about the religion, and more open resources would be helpful in that regard.

You should take my class one of these semesters! There is much to explore within the all-too-often dismissed or misunderstood world of Vodou. American racial politics have seriously impacted the way the Afro-Caribbean traditions are treated in materials accesible to our countrymen.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The source of the fascist populism is a mixture of reasons.

• 40 years of right-wing propaganda
• millions of jobs moving to Asia and abroad
• many more jobs evaporating due to efficiency (see coal mining and auto (any) manufacturing)
• Nixon's southern strategy and merging of the racist Democrats into their party
  • hatred
  • inability to handle their side losing the rebellion they started over 150 years ago
• Geographic isolation

I needed to drive around Ohio to look at some sites, and it struck me just how different rural Ohio and urban/suburban Ohio really are. The access to shopping, gas stations, services, etc... are much further apart in rural Ohio. The people who live out there are living differently than those in the suburban/urban areas. And of course, when you get isolation between population groups, you get the stereotyping of lazy welfare queens / slack jaw'd yokels. We really are becoming two Americas.

The issue specifically in Florida, I believe, is merely demographics. The Democrats don't win many white votes, about 50% fewer than the GOP gets. This means the Dems need minority votes to get elected. Hispanic and Black. The trouble is, the "Hispanic" part of the equation has an asterisk in Florida due to Cuba and communism. And DeSantis has done a brilliant job of labeling the Democrats socialists, that he has retained enough of the Hispanic Cuban vote for the GOP. This creates an imbalance the Democrats simply can't overcome in Florida.

 

[Jarhyn]

I was a spoiled toddler when we had a beach house/winter home in Naples FL. (Mid 1950s)
Very idyllic, beachcombing, fishing, exploring Everglades. My parents (Mom mostly since dad was often away on his ketch treasure hunting) had a black maid. One day my mom gave her a ride home and I went along.
OMFG! They lived in a big dirt lot full of little wooden boxes on short stilts. Not houses, just flimsy boxes. No plumbing, electricity, pavement - no NOTHING. Just little naked kids playing in the dirt, ogling the oddity of an actual automobile in their space.
To say I was shocked would be an epic understatement. I couldn’t even formulate the question “why do they live like that?” But it made a really deep impression.
By 6th grade my dad was two years dead, mom had sold the beach house and moved us to Philadelphia ‘burbs where the public schools were highly rated.
The school was probably 30% black kids, but despite the forced “integration“, was FAPP segregated except in sports. THAT answered a lot of questions for me, and laid the table for my rejection of the white supremacy that allowed for little naked kids playing in the dirt while their Mom toiled away keeping up the relative mansion that was our beach house.
In retrospect, my dropping out of school and leaving home at 17 was a natural outgrowth of that rejection, and put me politically and forever in the progressive column.
We are all products of our experiences.

Florida has changed very little over the last 65 years in respect to racism. It’s just less overt now. DeSantis is a perfect fit.

The entire country is full of racists. Imo, the Northeast is one of the most racist places in the country. It's just not always as obvious as it is in places like Mississippi etc. Northerners often live well in their segregated neighborhoods totally unaware of how minorities are living, since they are often ghettoized into certain cities without many opportunities.

Little children may not be playing in the dirt in NYC, but they are often living in apartments that lack reliable heat, have mold, rats etc. We have the same problem in Atlanta since wealthy California investors bought up a lot of large apartment complexes and then refused to maintain them. New York City has the most segregated schools in the county. At least the schools are racially integrated in most of the South, but there is no escape from racism in the US, whether it's obvious or hidden.

Let me add, that there is a lot of poverty among both Black and White folks in my town, but at least little children aren't playing naked in the dirt and they do have free school lunches, SNAP, CHIP or Medicaid etc. Those things weren't even around in the 1950s when you and I were little children. Mixed race kids are also very common here. I doubt that was common during the days of Jim Crow.

Still, that doesn't explain the rise of Fascism or someone like DeSantis gaining so much power. It doesn't explain why we have so many far right extremists in Congress or why we have so many voters who support these people. White Christian Nationalism seems to be a big part of the problem, but what else is making people act so hateful towards anyone who isn't like them? We can blame some of it on Trump, but what made so many white conservative Christians attracted to him in the first place? It's sad and a bit scary to say the least.

My husband's family is from our around CT.

It's as you say, where it's segregated between whole cities, with one town being the most annoying kind of smallish old-money whiteness, and the next a pit of poverty, almost like some sick checkerboard with the barrier to entry, the cliff, literally being the comparative cost of living, and the preexisting wealth within family groups.

There is no middle ground to wealth that I could see, it was always either tucked away poverty, or places where it smelled like money.

 

[Elixir]

it was always either tucked away poverty, or places where it smelled like money.

Yup. Our summer/primary home was in Easton CT. 200+ acres, tennis court, 60’ swimming pool, and the only blacks were the black angus cattle running on the land. Not one single minority person in the public grade school. Shocking insulation from the realities that minorities and poor whites were living.
Guess I should thank Florida for opening my eyes early.

 

[southernhybrid]

it was always either tucked away poverty, or places where it smelled like money.

Yup. Our summer/primary home was in Easton CT. 200+ acres, tennis court, 60’ swimming pool, and the only blacks were the black angus cattle running on the land. Not one single minority person in the public grade school. Shocking insulation from the realities that minorities and poor whites were living.
Guess I should thank Florida for opening my eyes early.

And, I have New Jersey to thank. NJ is the most segregated state I've ever lived in, racially and economically. That's why it's so easy for so many white people in places like NJ to hide or deny their racism. Anyway.....we haven't really figured out why so many people voted for DeSantis. Maybe we never will.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I read that same article at lunchtime. I was appalled.

You should be appalled. The reporting on this has been almost purposely erroneous.

The Truth behind the Great Florida Classroom Library Freak-Out | National Review

Florida education commissioner Manny Diaz says teachers covered up their classroom libraries as part of a ‘stunt’ to make DeSantis look bad.

www.nationalreview.com

The new school transparency law, HB 1467, does not address penalties. But a separate Florida lawthat deals with the distribution of “harmful materials” to minors, indicates that it is a felony to provide kids with “explicit” materials — depictions or recordings of “nudity or sexual conduct, sexual excitement, sexual battery, bestiality, or sadomasochistic abuse.”

It is not a new law, Diaz noted, and it doesn’t just apply to schools. It is illegal in Florida for a teacher — or any adult — to provide harmful or pornographic materials to minors. And it was illegal last year, and the year before that, and the year before that.

Sorry, but I don't believe it.

The Republican garbage is normally structured so you can pretend it's reasonable, but there's wiggle room left that everyone knows will be used to persecute. Just look at what has happened with abortion--multiple states have clearly come down on the side that abortion to save the woman's life is unacceptable. Never do they actually come out and say it, but anyone with the intelligence to be a doctor can see what will happen.

The worst interpretation is almost certainly the real interpretation.

In this case, simply call the books that show views other than fundamentalist Christian nationalist harmful material.

 

[Oleg]

Sorry, but I don't believe it.

What is it you don't believe? That before DeSantis became governer that was already a law against distributing pornography, BDSM, and beastiality materials to children? That the transparency law DeSantis signed did not have enforcement penalities? That you uncritically accepted the media lie that teachers faced felonies for materials that were not pornography, BDSM, and beastiality? Does it upset you that you can't hand out beastiality mags to children?

 

[southernhybrid]

Sorry, but I don't believe it.

What is it you don't believe? That before DeSantis became governer that was already a law against distributing pornography, BDSM, and beastiality materials to children? That the transparency law DeSantis signed did not have enforcement penalities? That you uncritically accepted the media lie that teachers faced felonies for materials that were not pornography, BDSM, and beastiality? Does it upset you that you can't hand out beastiality mags to children?

There are about 54 math text books that DeSantis has banned. Do you really think that math books are full of porn? DeSantis is a threat to democracy and free speech. I've yet to see a book on his banned list that would quality as porn. I"ve never known of a teacher who is offering pornography to children. Of course any teacher who did offer porn to children would be prosecuted, but that's not what DeSantis is trying to do. He's banning books that have been considered appropriate for school age children on topics that he personally dislikes. He doesn't want children to learn the truth about racism. He doesn't want children who have minority sexual orientations or gender IDs to be accepted as normal. The books aren't the threat. DeSantis is the threat.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Sorry, but I don't believe it.

What is it you don't believe? That before DeSantis became governer that was already a law against distributing pornography, BDSM, and beastiality materials to children? That the transparency law DeSantis signed did not have enforcement penalities? That you uncritically accepted the media lie that teachers faced felonies for materials that were not pornography, BDSM, and beastiality? Does it upset you that you can't hand out beastiality mags to children?

I see no reason to think the media is lying. This law is about defining the books as harmful materials. We already have laws about harmful materials. Why in the world should we think they won't apply??

The Republican approach is always about pretending their laws aren't horrible. Again and again they prove otherwise. The pattern has been around for more than 100 years--the 18th was the fundies pretending they had moderate objectives and then showing their true colors once the law was passed.

 

[Jarhyn]

Sorry, but I don't believe it.

What is it you don't believe? That before DeSantis became governer that was already a law against distributing pornography, BDSM, and beastiality materials to children? That the transparency law DeSantis signed did not have enforcement penalities? That you uncritically accepted the media lie that teachers faced felonies for materials that were not pornography, BDSM, and beastiality? Does it upset you that you can't hand out beastiality mags to children?

I see no reason to think the media is lying. This law is about defining the books as harmful materials. We already have laws about harmful materials. Why in the world should we think they won't apply??

The Republican approach is always about pretending their laws aren't horrible. Again and again they prove otherwise. The pattern has been around for more than 100 years--the 18th was the fundies pretending they had moderate objectives and then showing their true colors once the law was passed.

As a side note, it is exactly the prohibition, in the same way as WW2 revealed the true evils of fascism, that revealed the evils of conservative causes.

Now, whenever I see a moral crusade against a legal thing that is painted as the thing eroding our morals, I always compare it to prohibition, of alcohol and later weed, and afford a huge helping of doubt.

The only things worth pointing to as erosive of morals are things which are actually, just by themselves, immoral. Things like failure to participate in coordinated group responses to major threats. Those can fuck right off.

Sadly though, some people just want whatever they want and would burn all of the world to get it.

 

[blastula]

Settlement reached in "don't say gay bill" lawsuit. Say gay at will. Both sides claim victory.

Florida settles lawsuit over parental rights law, will clarify vague wording

Plaintiffs calling it the Don’t Say Gay law say the deal will stop school districts from “overreacting.”

www.tampabay.com

Florida students, teachers can discuss sexual orientation, gender ID under 'Don’t Say Gay' bill settlement

LGBTQ groups that challenged the law said it was a "historic settlement" and "nullifies the most dangerous and discriminatory impacts."

www.usatoday.com

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Sorry, but I don't believe it.

What is it you don't believe? That before DeSantis became governer that was already a law against distributing pornography, BDSM, and beastiality materials to children? That the transparency law DeSantis signed did not have enforcement penalities? That you uncritically accepted the media lie that teachers faced felonies for materials that were not pornography, BDSM, and beastiality? Does it upset you that you can't hand out beastiality mags to children?

What I don't believe is that the law is the same as it was before.

They are pretending the law is the same as it was, but the devil is in the details. First, you have to define pornography--a task that's stumped the Supreme Court.

(Warning, link is definitely NSFW)
Let's consider this page: https://labialibrary.org.au/photo-gallery/

Educational or pornography? I certainly consider it the former, the creators of the page consider it the former. In many places the law (AFIAK, including where that website is) categorically defines it as the latter. (And somewhere I have a link to a far more comprehensive set of pictures but I'm not finding it right now.)

However, the issue goes deeper. Anything depicting a gay or lesbian couple is considered unacceptable, even if there's nothing sexual about it.

Or, lets get out the DeLorean and examine the past. Specifically, let's take a picture of my wedding back 50 years earlier. I'm not sure what they would have called it beyond proof of a crime. (And this is why I'm a strong defender of gay rights. I'm arrow-straight but I know how vital it was for us to have that marriage license (green card) and I don't want that denied others because their partner isn't the social norm.) The way the current SCOTUS is going I'm actually relieved to know that the legality of my marriage doesn't trace to Loving.