DeSantis’s Apartheid Pedagogy in the Age of Fascist Politics

[Photo: Florida Bans by Dave Whamond, Canada, PoliticalCartoons.com]

By: Henry A. Giroux
Source: LA Progressive
It is hard to understand how African Americans who were raped, tortured, whipped, and subject to unimaginable acts of dehumanization somehow benefited from the horrors of slavery.

The cult of manufactured ignorance now works through disimagination machines engaged in a politics of falsehoods and erasure. Matters of justice, ethics, equality, and historical memory now vanish from the classrooms of public and higher education and from powerful cultural apparatuses and social media platforms that have become the new teaching machines.

Category: Culture, Extremism, Henry A. Giroux, History and Patterns, Pull Right - Fascism, White Supremacy | Comments Off

28 July 2023

Ron DeSantis and the Politics of Ugly Freedoms

[Photo: DeSantis Anti-Woke Campaign, Adam Zyglis, The Buffalo News, NY,7/24/2023. ]

By: Henry A. Giroux
Source: Counterpunch

Henry A. Giroux

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

– Martin Luther King, Jr,

Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life.

– Bob Marley

Freedom in the current historical moment has turned ugly.[i] The dark side of freedom as a call to domination and repression is with us once again; it no longer hides in the shadows; nor is it relegated to the margins of society. Americans live in an age when the summons to freedom is being falsely appropriated by the far-right to dominate, suppress, and exclude those considered unworthy, disposable, and excess. It is also being weaponized as a political tool to eliminate those institutions which provide support for those individuals considered enemies, or dehumanized because of their color, identity, politics, and ethnicity. The poisoning of freedom is particularly obvious in the ideologically-driven politics and policies of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has used freedom front and center as a calling card and political theater to both promote his presidential aspirations and destroy those values and institutions that are foundational to a substantive democracy.

Category: Autocracy, Hate, Henry A. Giroux, Pull Right - Fascism, White Nationalism, White Supremacy | Comments Off

20 June 2023

Juneteenth – Not Just History

[Photo: President Biden and Opal Lee after he signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act Bill, June 17, 2021, (Photo by Chandler West)]

By Rowan Wolf

It was not until June 17, 2021 that Juneteenth became a national holiday when it was signed into law by Joe Biden. Opal Lee was 89 when she walked across much of the country to raise awareness about Juneteenth. She met with then-President Obama, but it wasn’t he who signed the proclamation. God forbid that a black man (or at least a half-black man) sign a recognition of the final act of freeing the slaves. It took a while for the news to be broadcast in Texas. Was it a last act of Southern resistance? No, just one of many that are still happening to this very day.

Category: Activists, Culture, Hate, History and Patterns, Ideology, Racism, Rowan Wolf - UTJ Editor, Social (In)Justice, White Nationalism, White Supremacy | Comments Off

28 March 2023

Staying Woke: Revering Life

[Graphic: “Where Woke Dies”, Bill Day, FloridaPolitics.com, 3/20/23]

By Robert C. Koehler
Source: CommonWonders

Editor's Note

If the Republican attack on “wokeness” seems eerily familiar, it is. Remember the attacks on “political correctness”? Political correctness started as a statement on political organizations and mean over-adherence to the party line. It was then weaponized by conservatives as over-sensitivity to issues of race and gender, particularly in terms of language. What was becoming simple politeness to not use offensive language was taken up as an attack on (white male) “free speech” and expressing themselves. As with the attack on ‘woke’, the concern is with protecting the “sensitivities” of the privileged and total disregard for anyone outside the circle.

Category: Genocide, Hate, Homophobia, Patriarchy, Politics, Privilege, Racism, Robert C. Koehler, Sexism, White Nationalism, White Supremacy | Comments Off

20 December 2022

Neoliberal Fascism, Cruel Violence, and the Politics of Disposability

[Photo: “The Hate Whisperer”, Nate Beeler. CagleCartoons.com]

By: Henry A. Giroux
Source: Counterpunch

Editor's Note

It is no secret that during the Trump presidency that the purpose of much of the policies implemented was cruelty. This seems to continue to be the strategy of the GOP, and I don’t think that it is Trump’s hold on the party that is driving it. The GOP has apparently determined that hate and cruelty “work” and are playing their cards as wickedly as possible. The two most in the news with such antics are Abbott in Texas and DeSantis in Florida – though they are certainly not alone. But there is a point to the cruelty, a context, and a reason why some people are being driven down this path – a deliberate process of radicalization.

Category: Henry A. Giroux, Lies Damn Lies - Propaganda, Mechanisms of Contrrol, Pull Right - Fascism, Social (In)Justice, Violence, White Nationalism, White Supremacy, Xenophobia | Comments Off

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DeSantis’s Apartheid Pedagogy in the Age of Fascist Politics

Ron DeSantis and the Politics of Ugly Freedoms