Florida School District removes ‘Black Lives Matter’ story from 5th grade books

A ‘Black Lives Matter‘ passage was removed from reading curriculum materials for fifth-grade students in a Florida school district. The parents were told that the text “contained content that may be controversial and in conflict with” the state’s ban on critical race theory.

Critical race theory (CRT) is an academic movement of US civil-rights scholars who seek to critically examine how race and racism intersect with culture, law and politics.

The theory, which gained momentum in 2020 amid a nationwide reckoning on issues of racial injustice, was banned by Florida Department of Education in June as it adopted new rules that class instruction cannot “suppress or distort significant historical events” and that teachers should not be sharing personal views or try to “persuade” students to a particular point of view.

Also Read: Three men to go on trial in jogger Ahmaud Arbery’s murder

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis supported the ban, saying that he wanted to prevent instructors from “teaching kids to hate their country.”

A school official told local media that a small portion of the text in a vocabulary exercise had information that, “according to the instructional planning requirements from the state,” was aligned with CRT. The exercise told the story of a father and child attending a “Black Lives Matter” demonstration in June 2020. Some of words included in the passage of the book were “dissent,” “redemption” and “anecdotes.”

Also Read: George Floyd’s statue in New York City vandalised, again

Slammed the school’s removal of the narrative, 

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, said, “Banning the teaching of important milestones in our nation’s history is a DETRIMENT to our children and does them a HUGE disservice.”

“By replacing the story set during the 2020 protests, it is clear that this district is attempting to alter our nation’s history. Unacceptable!” he added.