THE GREAT UNLEARNING.

Here, have a rare mid-week free issue of Roy Edroso Breaks It Down; this one’s a scene from a future AP African-American Studies class. Pushing the needle from “satire” to “prophecy” is today’s news that the College Board caved to the bullying of Head Florida Man In Charge and scraped all the authors who wouldn’t pass muster with your average moderately-polite white racist out of that AP lesson plan:

After heavy criticism from Gov. Ron DeSantis, the College Board released on Wednesday an official curriculum for its new Advanced Placement course in African American Studies —  stripped of much of the subject matter that had angered the governor and other conservatives.

The College Board purged the names of many Black writers and scholars associated with critical race theory, the queer experience and Black feminism. It ushered out some politically fraught topics, like Black Lives Matter, from the formal curriculum.

And it added something new: “Black conservatism” is now offered as an idea for a research project.

The black conservatism thing is hilarious – an outright and obvious act of rightwing affirmative action/social promotion (These guys haven’t earned a place in the curriculum on merit? Here’s a carve-out!) Time to pull those dusty Thomas Sowell books out of the remainder bin, though I’m sure the teacher will also accept the dozens of donation-seeking emails Tim Scott has sent out claiming unnamed Democrat(s) called him an Uncle Tom. 

In the Rules for Rationals I ought to produce one day, one of the aphoristic chapter headings will be: Fascism is a crime of opportunity. One reason we didn’t have so much trouble with would-be Fuhrers a few years ago is because they got treated the way they should be treated – that is, told to fuck right off. But when the fascists took over the Republican Party, they demanded their opinions be afforded the same respect and forbearance that Republicans always get, as if insurrectionism and trans and CRT panic were the equivalent of the Balanced Budget Amendment – and, of course, our dumb-shit prestige media fell for it, and now we have the classic “Nazi bar” situation where they’ve so colonized the discourse that they can’t be dislodged, and the New York Times is writing headlines like “DeSantis Takes On the Education Establishment, and Builds His Brand” rather than “Fash Goomba Muscles Educrats to Gut Curriculum, Thrill Shitheels.” 

Meanwhile I’m sure Bari Weiss and Matt Taibbi are hard at work on “Twitter Files XIV: Jan. 6 defendants deprived of Constitutional right to all-access social media pass.”