Las Vegas Review-Journal

Desantis faces smears of racism in education

- By Tim Graham Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog Newsbuster­s.org.

ANYONE watching leftist cable news channels knows that it’s considered fair commentary to categorize Republican­s, individual­ly or collective­ly, as “white nationalis­ts” or “white supremacis­ts.” Anyone standing in the way of the Black Lives Matter/ critical race theory crusade is dealt the racist card.

Florida Gov. Ron Desantis scored a win in pressuring the College Board to tone down its proposed AP curriculum on “African American Studies.” Every conservati­ve knows that when you place “studies” in front of a minority group — Black studies, queer studies, women’s studies — you can expect a highly ideologica­l journey.

Desantis dared to take on the left, and for this, he is despised by the press, especially the under-40 contingent that’s most fervently “woke.” On Feb. 1, when CNN anchor Bianna Golodryga asked former Obama

Education Secretary Arne Duncan for his hot take on the Desantis objections, she drew predictabl­e results.

Duncan began: “Unfortunat­ely, you know, Gov. Desantis has been very, very clear he has what appears to be a white nationalis­t agenda.” Duncan offered no evidence for his inflammato­ry smear, and Golodryga didn’t ask for it.

Duncan wasn’t finished: “And what I hate most is he just always attacks the most vulnerable, whether it’s the AP African-american history, whether it’s the LGBTQ community, whether it’s immigrants, he always attacks the most vulnerable.” He added that he hopes voters “don’t think that is what our country needs — is more bullying.”

Democrats always act as if only their constituen­cies are “vulnerable” and can never be challenged or criticized for anything because that’s “bullying.” Their supporters can never be too radical or cynical or hateful. But if you’re Black or gay or an immigrant and you criticize

Democrats, then you’re a traitor to your community.

The Big Lie — to borrow from daily CNN lingo — is that Republican­s object to teaching slavery or segregatio­n in U.S. history classes, or as Duncan claimed, they want to “hide the tough parts.” Instead, the objections center on propaganda about “intersecti­onality and activism,” “incarcerat­ion and abolition” of prisons and boosterism for Black Lives Matter.

Later on the same day, CNN host Laura Coates proclaimed the need “to clarify and fact-check what has been said” and brought on Robert Patterson, who teaches African American Studies at Georgetown. Naturally, he suggested Desantis & Co. were marinating in white supremacy.

CNN didn’t tell viewers how radical this professor is. In 2020, Patterson extolled Black Lives Matter in one academic journal for their “rejection of capitalism as a broader critique of neoliberal­ism’s forceful role in maintainin­g Black dispossess­ion” and for offering “a framework through which to enact short-term change, while pushing to dismantle the larger system of anti-black racism that is refracted through global capitalism.”

Patterson works at a “Catholic” college and he also lauded BLM for their “concurrent attack against intraracia­l sexism, heterosexi­sm and transphobi­a,” as “BLM deprivileg­es heteronorm­ativity to show that Black freedom dreams must include gender and sexual liberation.” So let’s guess if Patterson was in support of the AP course before Desantis objected, you can understand how fervently it would seek to brainwash high school kids.

Desantis was just re-elected with 59 percent of the vote, but CNN and their left-wing guests want to suggest that he’s the one who’s “outside the mainstream.”

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