XPost: alt.politics.trump, sac.politics, alt.politics.usa.republican   
   XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns   
   From: nowomr@protonmail.com   
      
   Juneteenth commemorations in recent years have spread across America,   
   recognizing the end of slavery following the Civil War.   
      
   Last year marked the ultimate milestone. President Biden signed   
   legislation to observe Juneteenth as a federal holiday. South Dakota is   
   now the only state without a Juneteenth holiday on June 19, according to   
   the Congressional Research Service.   
      
   Yet as the nation prepares to celebrate the 156-year-old observance,   
   efforts continue to limit discussions about the role racial discrimination   
   has played in shaping American history and modern society.   
      
   Republican politicians in 42 states have introduced varying legislation to   
   restrict how teachers, workplaces and public institutions address what   
   they consider “divisive concepts," according to Education Week magazine.   
   Those concepts include racism, sexism, transphobia, unconscious bias,   
   white privilege and discrimination.   
      
      
      
   Republicans decry discussions around these topics as “indoctrination,”   
   while civil rights leaders and Democrats condemn bans as attempts to   
   whitewash the history of enslaved Africans, their descendants in America   
   and other marginalized groups.   
      
   “(Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis) turned our classrooms into political   
   battlefields and put kids in the crossfire to advance his presidential   
   ambitions,” Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Florida, tweeted April 18,   
   2022, while sharing video of a media appearance.   
      
   Here are some of the forms the political rhetoric has taken across the   
   country. Florida   
      
   The Sunshine State is on the front lines of this divisive national debate.   
      
   Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Florida lawmakers enacted the Stop   
   WOKE Act to restrict discussions and diversity training in schools and   
   workplaces, rejected more than 50 math textbooks to protect students from   
   "indoctrination" and sought to punish Disney for opposing a bill that   
   prohibits instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in   
   kindergarten through third grade.   
      
   DeSantis is among many right-wing politicians who have broadly applied to   
   these issues the term "critical race theory" while attempting to rally   
   supporters against teaching practices related to race and racism. Critical   
   race theory, or CRT, is a college-level academic framework that examines   
   how racism permeates institutions. It is not taught in elementary and   
   secondary education.   
      
   “Florida’s education system exists to create opportunity for our   
   children,” DeSantis tweeted in June 2021. “Critical Race Theory teaches   
   kids to hate our country and to hate each other. It is state-sanctioned   
   racism and has no place in Florida schools.”   
      
   Democrats claim the rhetoric and legislation are designed to diminish past   
   and present inequities faced by minorities.   
      
   “Why is it bad to be awake, to be conscious of things, aware of what’s   
   happening and aware of what’s happened?” Sen. Gary Farmer, D-Lighthouse   
   Point, said during a state Senate session in March 2022. “Make no mistake,   
   racism is alive and doing all too well in the year 2022.” Tennessee   
      
   Tennessee lawmakers have followed a similar page, particularly when it   
   comes to books.   
      
   In June 2021, after state restrictions on race and bias teaching took   
   effect, a parent group petitioned for the removal of “Ruby Bridges Goes to   
   School: My True Story” by Ruby Bridges. The book was published in 2009.   
      
   As a 6-year-old, Bridges made history on Nov. 4, 1960, as one of the first   
   Black students to integrate America's public schools following the U.S.   
   Supreme Court's landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.   
      
   Back in Tennessee, a parent group, Williamson County Moms for Liberty,   
   argued the autobiography contains "explicit and implicit anti-American,   
   anti-white and anti-Mexican teaching" designed to make children "hate   
   their country, each other, and/or themselves."   
      
   The group later tweeted in July 2021: "'I always say that it would be   
   really really hard to explain to a six year old child what I was about to   
   encounter, going to school that day.' --Ruby Bridges. Should history be   
   taught? Emphatically, YES. But with objectivity and at an appropriate   
   age."   
      
   Rep. Jerry Sexton, R-Bean Station, introduced an amendment during a state   
   House session on April 27, 2022, that would give his state’s   
   politically-appointed textbook commission veto power over what books are   
   allowed in school libraries. When asked on the House floor what he would   
   do with any books that are banned — specifically whether he'd put them in   
   the street or light them on fire, Sexton replied, "I don’t have a clue,   
   but I would burn ‘em."   
      
   Sexton later said on the floor he wasn’t a member of the textbook   
   commission and didn’t think any book-burning was likely to occur. Sexton’s   
   comments came less than three months after Tennessee pastor Greg Locke   
   organized a book burning that destroyed copies of Holocaust-themed graphic   
   novel "Maus," "Harry Potter," "Twilight" and other works. Arizona   
      
   An investigation by USA TODAY and its network of newspapers found   
   right-wing groups such as the Center for Arizona Policy and the Goldwater   
   Institute helped draft much of the anti-CRT legislation proposed across   
   the nation.   
      
   In Arizona, legislation seeks to make teachers subject to a $5,000 fine if   
   they allow classroom discussions on controversial topics such as racism,   
   or fail to give equal weight to divisive topics. Legislation has also been   
   proposed that would allow parents to review instructional material and   
   school library books.   
      
   "Racism cannot be combated by teaching children to be racist," Republican   
   state Rep. Michelle Udall, the sponsor of Arizona’s "Unbiased Teaching   
   Act," said in a May 2021 release.   
      
   Parents have voiced similar views at school board meetings in Arizona and   
   beyond, igniting heated confrontations throughout many traditionally   
   nonpartisan government bodies.   
      
   State Sen. Martín Quezada is among the Democrats who condemned Udall's   
   arguments.   
      
   "This bill is nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction to a complete   
   misunderstanding of what #CriticalRaceTheory even is," Quezada tweeted in   
   response. "The people who need it the most are the ones who voted to ban   
   it." Oklahoma   
      
   Incendiary remarks about racism haven’t been confined to anti-critical   
   race theory bills. A Oklahoma state representative sparked backlash in   
   April 2021 when he, a white Republican, compared lawmakers’ push to end   
   abortion to the fight against slavery.   
      
   Rep. Jim Olsen, R-Roland, defended his comments after Democrats asked for   
   Olsen to be formally censured.   
      
   "I made a very historically appropriate analogy. I never spoke positively   
      
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