New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
A short road from book banning to book burning
“Your grandchildren won’t even understand what a book is.”
Ray Bradbury, “Fahrenheit 451”
Joseph Goebbels, the head of the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, stated in 1933: “The national education of the German people will be placed in my hands.” Not too long after that statement,
Nazi student organizations were burning books by Jewish and left-leaning intellectuals and writers. Ernest Heminway’s books were burned along with the books by Hannah Arendt, Jack London, H.G. Wells, Karl Marx, Baruch Spinoza, and Sigmund Freud.
These were all writers whose works are now considered classic works of Western intellectualism. By 1938, Nazi students were burning those books, and by 1940, Nazis were committing mass murder on an industrial scale. History shows that autocrats and fascists ban books then burn books, then engage in genocide. This was true in Germany, Cambodia and Rwanda.
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has become the self-appointed Minister of Propaganda where his target is diversity, and more specifically literature by and about Black Americans and the horrors committed by past generations of white Americans. Recently, DeSantis authorized and supported the “Stop Woke Act,” which makes it unlawful for employers to sponsor mandatory employee trainings that promote certain concepts related to discrimination, diversity, equity and inclusion. This is something former President Trump attempted, as well, by banning diversity training for federal employees and employers with federal contracts. One of President Biden’s first executive orders was to negate Trump’s executive order on the topic.
The latest actions by DeSantis to eliminate an Advanced Placement course for African American history and making it potentially illegal for teachers and librarians to have some banned books on their shelves represents the first step in fascism. While difficult to comprehend the reasoning behind DeSantis’ bans and animosity to history and literature, it is playing well to certain segments of the Floridian population — other anti-intellectual rednecks who are still fighting the Civil War and the rights that white Americans had to exploit Black Americans.
It is not a coincidence that during slavery, slaves were prohibited from being taught to read. The only occasional exception was that some slaveholders found it useful to allow some slaves to read so they could communicate selected portions of the Bible that supported the “peculiar institution.” Despite the restrictions of teaching slaves to read — it was punishable by death to teach a slave to read — Blacks read, and they used their human intelligence to see that their condition was not of God, or even of the Bible. Enslaved Blacks learned to root their resistance on Moses’ resistance to slavery under Pharoh.
The damage DeSantis is doing to Florida and students in Florida can have lifelong societal impact. I have zero interest in going to Florida so long as he is governor. I do not think I am alone in this decision. I am a potential retiree who would normally consider the warmth and lower taxes attractive enough to relocate, but not with him in power. But more important than my personal views are the children — Black, white, Asian and Hispanic — who will essentially get only a portion of the American story from educators restricted by these fascist laws. As a former educator at some of the best universities in the country, Floridian high school graduates will be judged as less prepared for the rigors of higher education. Floridian graduates will also suffer in the eyes of national employers who understand that having a well-rounded education makes for a more productive and effective worker and leader.
The actions of DeSantis are relevant to educators, school boards, students and politicians here in Connecticut and elsewhere because his playbook is being seriously considered by “conservative” leaning towns and states. It is time for intelligent citizens to look fascism in the face and say “no.” If we are to survive as a multiracial, multi-ethnic democracy, we must have a fully educated population.
DeSantis and his ilk are fearful people. Perhaps they had some trauma in their lives related to the people who they now want to “cancel.” Trauma is part of the human condition. Fearful people like DeSantis should never be allowed to lead. Fearful insecure people like DeSantis (and Trump and Kevin McCarthy) demonstrate they have not learned from their trauma to be more human. DeSantis has learned that his success is predicated on his ability to make others fearful and for them to blame their trauma and fear on Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Muslims and Jews.
In DeSantis’ world there would be no Baldwin, no Giavanni, no Wright, no Ellison, no Hurston, no Walker, no Morrison, and maybe no McKinney who had the audacity to call out DeSantis for what he is and his threat to democracy and freedom.
Fred McKinney is the co-founder of BJM Solutions, an economic consulting firm that conducts public and private research since 1999, and is the emeritus director of the Peoples Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Quinnipiac University.