By Kalyn Womack
Elementary school students in Florida were sent home with permission slips to learn the lyrics to James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” according to ClickOrlando. The slip opened some conversation not only about the drama surrounding Florida’s anti-critical race theory legislation but also about why CRT regulations have been narrowly tailored to exile Black history.
A Marion County Schools spokesperson said students in grades 3-5 would be participating in learning the song to recite in a performance for Black History Month, says the report. The activity was labeled as an extra-curricular acitivty allowing students to “participate in presenting historical facts regarding African-Americans and/or singing the Black National Anthem.”
According to school board member Eric Cummings, the lyrics “We have come treading our path through the slaughtered” may have left some parents (more than likely anti-CRT ones) with unease. The permission slip was meant to honor the wish of critical-race-Karens: allowing them to have a say in what their kids learn.
However, some parents were more disturbed by the fact that only something regarding Black history was met with a permission slip as opposed to other points of history.
For both the watching of “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” and the slavery documentary in middle school, I was given the option to leave the classroom or auditorium if I did not want to participate. To be fair, we barely learned any real Black history beyond MLK and Rosa Parks. However, both events were considered potentially triggering to maybe the students who had Holocaust survivors in their family or people like me who would burst into tears at the sight of a lynching.
The movement against teaching race and racism has seemingly weighed one historical tragedy against the others – all of which students are bound to learn in class. It’s honestly not about what is less appropriate for students but instead what makes white parents feel better.
