In the wake of the mass shooting at a Jacksonville Dollar General store carried out by a racist shooter who targeted Black people, some are attempting to link the incident to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' rejection of course material in an AP African American Studies class.
One of those is high school history teacher Marlon Williams-Clark, who was "one of only 60 educators in the country who were pioneering" the new course, according to a report in Slate. Williams-Clark's class was unexpectedly canceled after the Florida Department of Education declared that the course was "inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value."
Speaking to Slate, Williams-Clark said that the shooting's connection to DeSantis "speaks for itself."
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"Look at the laws that have been signed, and look how that might be encouraging to people who have anti-Black attitudes. Look at the video of DeSantis speaking in Jacksonville. The amount of boos and side-eyes that he received … I think it all speaks for itself," Williams-Clark said, referring to the reception DeSantis got when he made an appearance at a prayer vigil for the three victims of the Dollar General shooting.
"Politicians are acting oblivious, as if their words and the policies aren’t encouraging that kind of behavior. It seems to me that the leaders of our state are very much anti-Black, no matter how much they try to mask it," he said. "Their policies and speech are anti-Black, which is why the NAACP issued a travel warning for any Black people coming to Florida. Even the 'Stop WOKE' Act … 'Stay woke' was Black vernacular from the early 20th century, which Black people have used as a way of warning others what’s happening around them in their community. Because, as we know, just being Black in some areas was a crime."
According to Williams-Clark, "DeSantis is doing some really hard damage to our state and educational system."
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"History is not supposed to be comfortable for anybody. History is history," he said later in the interview. "We go with the facts. We go with what happened, and we listen to the voices of the past. We look at primary sources. It is not to make anybody feel bad. It is to teach us so that we don’t repeat bad behaviors of the past. And there is a certain element of our country that is hellbent on making sure that we don’t tell those truths."
Read the full interview over at Slate.
