Habari Gani 2023 Vol 4: A Focus on Recent Events

By Makheru Bradley

We titled this series Habari Gani, a Kiswahili term we use during Kwanzaa, translated as “What’s New”, or “What is the News?” Our intent is to cover recent events that impact Afrikan people.

“And that’s Uncle Joe, he’s moving mighty slow...”

When asked about classified documents found at the residence of Donald Trump, Joe Biden responded: “How that could possibly happen. How one — anyone could be that irresponsible. And I thought, ‘What data was in there that may compromise sources and methods?’ … Totally irresponsible.” Well, it didn’t take long for the vultures to come home to roost on Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.

Is anyone really surprised Joe Biden didn’t know that he had classified documents stored away? In Trump’s case, it was a matter of arrogance. He knew he had classified documents. In Biden’s case, you fill in the blanks_________________. It does however raise a question. What about Obama? Bush? Clinton?

More importantly, why is this damaging information on Biden being released now? When asked by Robin Roberts, before the documents fiasco became public knowledge, whether she hoped Biden would run again, Michelle Obama said, “You know, I — I will have to see.” As an insider, Mrs. Obama probably already knew about the first discovery of documents on November 2.

As a person with no affiliation to either wing of the corrupt two-party system, I think the leak is an inside job by Democrat Party elites who don’t want Biden to run in 2024. I don’t think those elites have an ounce of confidence in Vice-President Kamala Harris either. Who do they want? I don’t know, but it could get ugly.

Last week the state of Florida blocked the inclusion of the College Board’s Advanced Placement (AP) African American Studies course from its high school curriculum.

The Tampa Bay Times reported:

Without a detailed explanation, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has rejected a new Advanced Placement course on African American studies for high school students, broadly claiming it violates state law and that it “lacks educational value.” When asked for specifics on the content, the Florida Department of Education did not respond, making it unclear what items the state believes are unlawful or objectionable. The course would be offered by the College Board, which administers the Advanced Placement program and the SAT exam.

The State Board of Education has barred lessons that deal with critical race theory, a 1980s legal concept that holds that racial disparities are systemic in the United States, not just a collection of individual prejudices, as well as lessons about “The 1619 Project,” a New York Times project that reexamines U.S. history by placing the consequences of slavery and contributions of Black Americans at the center.

In Florida, which DeSantis has declared to be the state where “woke goes to die,” DeSantis and Republican legislative leaders have approved laws that limit what schools and employers can teach about racism and other aspects of history. The DeSantis administration has also rejected dozens of math textbooks for what the state called “indoctrination.”

The conservative Florida Standard noted that the rejection was based on the AP course teaching doctrines such as intersectionality, Critical Race Theory, and Black Queer Theory.

The Florida Department of Education (FDOE) sent a letter to the College Board on January 12 saying “as presented, the content of this course is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value. In the future, should College Board be willing to come back to the table with lawful, historically accurate content, FDOE will always be willing to reopen the discussion.”

After the rejection, State Senator Shevrin Jones tweeted: “AP European History - AP Art History - AP Japanese Language & Culture - AP German Language & Culture - AP Italian Language & Culture - AP Spanish Language & Culture Are AP classes currently offered. It’s crazy how AP African-American studies made the chopping block in FL.”

The College Board responded by saying: “The process of piloting and revising course frameworks is a standard part of any new AP course, and frameworks change significantly as a result. We look forward to publicly releasing the updated course framework as soon as it is completed and well before this class is widely available in American high schools.” On January 23, Governor DeSantis defended Florida’s rejection of the AP African Americans Studies course, which he said included “problematic ideological material.”

“In the state of Florida, our education standards not only don’t prevent but they require teaching Black history, all the important things. That’s part of our core curriculum. This was a separate course on top of that for Advanced Placement credit, and the issue is we have guidelines and standards in Florida. We want education, not indoctrination. If you fall on the side of indoctrination, we’re going to decline. If it’s education, then we will do it.

Regarding the problematic ideological material, DeSantis said: “What’s one of the lessons about? Queer theory. Now, who would say that an important part of Black history is queer theory? That is somebody pushing an agenda on our kids. And so when you look to see they have stuff about intersectionality, abolishing prisons, that’s a political agenda. When you try to use Black history to shoehorn in queer theory, you are clearly trying to use that for political purposes.”

The FDOE also identified the “Movements for Black Lives,” “Black Feminist Literary Thought,” “Reparations,” and the “Black Struggle in the 21st Century” as topics in the AP African American Studies curriculum which they were opposed to. A lot of people were surprised when in June 2020 Governor DeSantis signed a bill titled “Educational Instruction of Historical Events,” which, in part, required the Education Commissioner’s African American History Task Force to examine ways to include the 1920 Ocoee Election Day Riots (Massacre) in the required instruction on African American History. This was a massacre and removal of Afrikan Americans from a thriving community near Orlando, similar to what happened in Wilmington, NC in 1898, Tulsa, OK in 1921, and Rosewood, FL in 1923. (See: https://makheruspeaks.blogspot.com/)

The DeSantis Administration, via the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act,” is basically saying we control what can and can't be taught in classrooms. However, a lawsuit, Pernell v. Florida Board of Governors, was filed on behalf of a group of Florida educators and students in higher education, challenging what the plaintiffs describe as a “discriminatory a classroom censorship law.” Per the ACLU, “the lawsuit argues the ‘Stop W.O.K.E. Act’ violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments by imposing viewpoint-based restrictions on instructors and students.” In November, a federal judge issued an order that will immediately block the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act,” from being enforced in higher education.

I expect a similar lawsuit to be filed against Florida’s rejection of the AP African American Studies course.

We discussed one glaring omission in the AP course and some other issues on the Afrikan Liberation Media podcast which can be seen at:

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(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author)

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