It’s time to boycott Florida

When the Florida Board of Education approved Black history standards that say in part, that enslaved Africans benefited from the skills they learned in bondage, it was the latest salvo in the ongoing war against Black people.

In a country where white supremacists have already stolen Black labor, Black land, and Black lives, stealing history is the next logical step. By presenting the false narrative that the enslaved were somehow better off because of the skills they learned in captivity, white supremacists can do more than whitewash their crimes against humanity. They can present slavery as a viable alternative for the future.

That’s why the fight for tomorrow’s freedom must begin today. To win it, Black people must use the most powerful weapon we possess. We must boycott the state of Florida.

In a country where white supremacists have already stolen Black labor, Black land, and Black lives, stealing history is the next logical step.

Some will question why the battle for Black history is important enough to warrant such drastic action. Perhaps we should ask our Jewish brethren. Their history includes the Holocaust — a period in which 6 million European Jews were murdered at the direction of German Chancellor Adolf Hitler.

It’s illegal to publicly deny the Holocaust in Germany, because denying history opens the door to repetition. That’s why the Anti-Defamation League monitors antisemitic propaganda so closely. It’s why any hint of antisemitism is so quickly addressed, and it’s the reason that no state would dare to approve a curriculum filled with lies about the Holocaust. The political, economic, and media backlash would be devastating.

Florida doesn’t fear the same reaction from African Americans. After all, the state’s previous attacks on Black history have been met with little more than finger-wagging.

When right-wing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed laws banning lessons on racist privilege and oppression, Democratic politicians crowed, the courts stood aside, and the story eventually faded from the news cycle. When the state banned an AP studies course on Black history, there was anger on social media and a flurry of coverage that did little to change the facts on the ground. When the state unveiled a Black history curriculum that twisted truth to the breaking point, the White House sent Vice President Kamala Harris to deliver a speech in Jacksonville.

Harris rightly said that extremists in Florida want to “replace history with lies.” She also asked, in reference to Florida’s proposed lessons on slavery, “How is it that anyone could suggest that in the midst of these atrocities that there was any benefit to being subjected to this level of dehumanization?”

The vice president — a Black woman — was correct to pose such a question. We must all question a curriculum that seeks to cover the rape, murder and brutality of slavery by teaching middle school students “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

We must question any curriculum that seeks to teach high school students that the victims should share blame for the 1920 Ocoee Massacre, one of the deadliest acts of Election Day violence in American history. By requiring teachers to include “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans,” the state is seeking to gloss over the fact that a mob of white Floridians initiated the attack because a Black man tried to vote.

For those who doubt that history repeats itself, I give you Jan. 6, 2021. That day of deadly violence occurred after Black voters in key states helped to oust Donald Trump. On that day — little more than a century after Ocoee — another mob of white people attacked to oppose Black political power, and in an aftermath both frightening and bizarre, white supremacists and their political allies tried to tell us it was a tourist visit.

At a time when such people will lie about the present, we must stop our enemies from burying the past.

Boycott Florida.

Not one dime in Disney World or Universal Studios. Not a penny in Sea World or the city of Miami. No money on spring break, and no spending for vacations, because fighting the battle for history is not about preserving yesterday. Fighting the battle for history is about protecting tomorrow.