The Gantt Report
By Lucius Gantt
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has rejected an Advanced Placement African Studies course from being taught in Florida schools.
But you shouldn’t be shocked, awed or upset because America’s politicians have never wanted Black people to know, understand and admire the glorious history of people with African ancestry.
White nationalists and supremacists believe history should essentially be whitewashed, covered up and adulterated.
The truth about slavery days is not the only history that politicians desire to negate. They don’t want the facts about Native American genocide, Asian American incarceration or America’s roles in worldwide colonialism to be taught in schools either.
Children of African descent have a history of being taught by African and African American elders. The parents, grandparents and great-grandparents schooled us in ways that devilish politicians never would or never could.
Nowadays, we leave it to Tik Toc, Instagram and Facebook to teach and educate ourselves and our youth.
Our children oftentimes say, “If it’s not on social media, it must not be true.” The opposite is truer. If it is on social media, it’s probably a meme, a conspiracy story or an outright lie!
Prolific liar and newly elected Representative George Santos, R-NY, showed the free world that American elected officials have no problem in misrepresenting the truth, the facts and themselves.
Instead of teaching about how the first known humans were Africans, how many great European teachers and philosophers were students in North Africa and how Africa was civilized with developed communities and societies when other ethnic groups were living in caves, DeSantis suggests the history of England, Spain and even Germany is all right but Motherland history should be disputed, disrespected and abandoned!
I buy young people in my life books. Ask a young person what interests them and buy them books about subjects they would enjoy reading about. Black households have more cell phones and digital tablets in the home than books, more video game consoles than Black history videos and more rap lyrics than freedom songs or Last Poets recordings.
Don’t get caught up in political maneuvering by desperate politicians that only want to please closet klansmen and neo-nazi voters.
Rejecting Black history is bad but DeSantis has done worse. His “woke” actions, “Don’t say gay” policies and his despicable gerrymandering plan that created at least three Republican Congressional districts are universally known as terrible pieces of legislation.
The idea in the Black community that knowledge and wisdom can’t come from Black elders because they are “too old” should be abandoned.
If you can learn from the mouths of babes, you certainly can learn from senior citizens that have heard, seen, done and experienced far more than a young person.
Back in the day, Black newspapers accurately reported on the bad things and good things that happened in African American communities.
Today, God needs to send us another Carter G. Woodson. Woodson was the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History.
I remember when I was a reporter at NPR (National Public Radio). I was producing a nationally distributed documentary about the “Soul of Black Music” and I asked Dr. Woodson if I could visit with him.
When I got to his house, every room was filled with books, I mean books were everywhere, on shelves, in boxes and even on the floors. The man was very well-read.
If you only buy one book for yourself and your family, I suggest you purchase “The Mis-Education of the Negro”, it will give you a road map on how to get the history and education that Ron DeSantis doesn’t want you to have.
