Some mornings when I first wake up I will scrunch my eyes closed and try to will myself back to sleep, back to that lovely dream I was having. It never works. I have no choice but to wake up and face the day.
Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida not only believes that eye-scrunching works, he is determined to make eye-opening illegal. Just look at the “Anti WOKE” legislation.
The name says it all. Don’t wake up! The law makes it illegal to even suggest social injustice exists. According to this law there is not now and never has been any discrimination in the US.
And even if there was, it wasn’t our fault! So let’s not dwell on it.
Merriam-Webster defines “woke” as aware of, and actively attentive to, important societal facts and issues. That is what DeSantis and company are determined to repress. If they can pretend hard enough that everything is fine and dandy then they can keep their children ignorant of what others have gone through. Never mind that their children are wide awake already. They watch television and movies with black, white, brown, gay, trans and every other kind of human. They listen to music by all kinds of people. They read eye-opening books. There is, in fact, no better way to get children to read than to forbid them. Even kids who hate to read will seek out forbidden books and devour them.
This is a lesson Texas, too, has failed to understand. They hold the record for the most book bannings in schools. More than 800 books have been banned in 22 school districts in the last year — mostly books that dealt with race or sexuality.
It makes me so sad and angry for all the kids who already feel “other” when, instead of validating their feelings, telling them that they are not alone, teachers are ordered not to speak of race, gender or sexuality issues. These children are being set on a path toward self-harm and suicide. Though I am certain that subject is too woke for Floridians also.
Recently the Florida Board of Education rejected an AP course on African American History because it encourages “ending the war on Black, trans, queer, gender-nonconforming, and inter-sex people.” DeSantis, himself, dismissed it as “Black, Queer Studies.”
It is an elective course for college bound teens on American history! “Black Queers” are part of that history, too! Great swathes of Americans have been left out of the American history we are taught in school. Leaving them out did not make them go away.
In recent years, America has made great strides towards accepting differences and recognizing the evils done to people of color and gender non-conforming people in the past. Clearly some Floridians do not see that as progress. And since it is a federal crime to discriminate against and persecute people of color and gender non-conforming folks the best DeSantis and his cronies can do is scrunch their eyes up and pretend — pretend that we all still live in that imaginary past with fields full of happy workers.
Going through life with your eyes closed is dangerous. You may well trip and fall. More than that, you miss so much!
Lisa Wright divides her time between her home in Lakeville and Oblong Books in Millerton where she has worked for nearly 40 years. Email her at wrightales@gmail.com
Cella’s paintings are tucked in almost every available space thoughout Little Store Antiques. L. Tomaino
