Kiss me where the sunshine don't state

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The Florida Senate approved legislation on Thursday that limits how workplaces and schools teach about race and identity.

The measure prohibits trainings that cause someone to feel guilty or ashamed about the past collective actions of their race or sex, and its passage clears the way for Gov. Ron DeSantis to sign one of his top legislative priorities into law. — Washington Post, 3/10/22

FROM: Florida Department of Education TO: Superintendents of Schools SUBJECT: Self Esteem In Our Curricula

Effective immediately, Florida no longer permits curricula that induce guilt or shame.

Given your exemplary performance in scrubbing banned books from libraries and teaching materials, we are confident you will react swiftly to this directive.

As educators, we must protect our students from unpleasant feelings related to events, past or present. The shortest path is to construct a world in which those things never happened.

You ask, "which things?" We can't say.

Did they happen? Did what happen?

Fortunately, our state and nation have woken up to the dangers of being woken up. In recent years, we have moved decisively toward redacting disturbing opinions, events, principles, and facts from our collective memory, sweeping them into the memory hole, and making reflection upon them a thoughtcrime.

Incidentally, if you understand the literary allusion in the previous sentence, you are familiar with a blacklisted book. Schedule an appointment with our office at your earliest convenience, but no later than today at 4 pm.

Please begin implementing the following changes immediately.

1. Some "historians" claim that through the 19th century, Africans were forcibly removed and sold to wealthy plantation owners, and then required to work for nothing in abysmal conditions. That would be unspeakable. Several of our staff's ancestors ran plantations. We would feel terrible had such atrocities occurred. Imagine the effect on impressionable students! Fortunately, there is no credible evidence for any of this. Discontinue teaching such revisionist speculation within the hour.
2. Occam's Razor suggests we prefer explanations that posit the fewest entities. We therefore conclude that anyone who immigrated from Africa came voluntarily in search of a better life, traveled comfortably in clean spacious quarters, earned valuable agricultural skills from plantation owners at no charge, and revered the white families who shouldered the burden of raising them. Teach that, and students will hold heads high.
3. Regarding Critical Race Theory, guilt and shame result when people are criticized. We welcome Race Theory to our schools. For example, we regard the Kentucky Derby as a grand Southern institution and espouse the intellectual ferment surrounding it. Consider serving mint juleps in classrooms. It's educational.
4. A Florida education tolerates no bias against skin color. For this reason, we are banning all curricula related to Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and the Civil Rights Movement. These have spawned violence, division, and destruction in our state and country. We will not tolerate our African American students being shamed by discussing this travesty.
5. Discontinue curricula that teach inequalities. More specifically, redact any expressions with the following symbols: >, ≥, <, ≤. No student should feel bad that things were or are unequal. Our state and nation do not allow inequality. That's not America.
6. When covering the Seminoles, emphasize the tremendous business opportunities provided them. What's the loss of a few swampy acres compared to owning the Hard Rock Cafe? There's no shame in our 1930 grant to the Seminoles of nearly eight square miles of prime southern Florida real estate, a full 0.000118806837191 of our state's territory. Tribal population has recovered to 19364, a robust 9% of its size when Europeans first brought technological wonders like gunpowder. Imagine the pride of every young Seminole watching Osceola on his warhorse Renegade planting a burning spear at midfield before every Florida State University Seminoles football game. FSU could be the Klansmen. But they're the Seminoles. That's respect. And that's what Florida's all about.
7. Let's not forget the welfare of our German-American students. Telogia, Florida, for example, is 43% German. Nine of twenty-one people! No doubt one of those nine is a student. That child's self-esteem matters. For her sake, avoid sketchy concepts like the Holocaust. When covering WW2, it's enough to say a bad man did bad things but we kicked his Teutonic ass and he's gone now.
8. Avoid controversy when discussing the 2020 election. Nothing bad happened. Some well-meaning but ignorant Democrats were misled by a few bad actors into believing they had won, a martyred statesman stood up for Constitutional principles, and a band of zealous patriots — exactly like those who rebelled against George III — defended Liberty. . Florida is privileged to host that very statesman's humble residence. He is an esteemed ex-President and Governor DeSantis will ensure he remains so.
9. When teaching sleep cycles in Biology, avoid the term "woke." No one is "woke." They have simply stopped sleeping.

As we attend to these changes with haste and vigor, let's remember the inspiring motto of the great state of Florida's Department of Education.

Sui gratia ante doctrinam, complacentia ante veritatem