"A Thought For Black History Month..."

February is, of course, Black History Month, and, this year, teachers are facing a new challenge as they try to help students expand their knowledge of American history. 

During the past year, roughly 30 states have proposed new restrictions on what schools can teach about our nation's racial history. Radical right-wing governor Ron DeSantis in Florida has been among the most aggressive in limiting what educators can teach. In 2022, DeSantis signed a bill that effectively prevents teaching certain concepts related to race, national origin, or sex that could "make students uncomfortable."

The history of how this country, and especially former Confederate states like Florida, have treated African Americans SHOULD make us uncomfortable. If it does not, it is a lie, and we have lied long enough. What I cannot comprehend is why white parents of good conscience have not rebelled against this state-sanctioned bigotry that insists on white-washing the truth. Slavery, Jim Crow injustice, voter suppression, segregation, lynching, economic disparity, prison-chain-gang slavery … the list could go on and on. I HOPE my children are made uncomfortable, or I have done a terrible job as a parent. 

Are the children of right-wing legislators so fragile they cannot bear to learn the truth in schools anymore? Or is this simply one more attempt to bury the truth so racism can continue to reign supreme? This new overt repression of African American history is evil because it allows the next generation to continue the discrimination that has never ended against God’s children. 

As horrified as I am about laws being passed under the reign of someone I call #GeorgeWallaceDeSantis, there is an evil I find even more terrifying: the silence of good people who know better. "The ultimate tragedy," Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, "is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people, but the silence over that by the good people." I, for one, think he was right.

Love,

Rev. Dr. Michael Piazza

Rev. Piazza is a nationally-known author, activist, and church growth consultant.