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amanda gorman
Ron DeSantis Has a Very Un-American Vision For America
While the poet Amanda Gorman has provided a beautiful and promising song, the GOP presidential candidate—with hopes to do to the nation what he has done to Florida—offers up a dystopian nightmare.
May 25, 2023
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) wants to be the 47th president of the United States. He’s running on his record as governor, which an overwhelming majority of Americans should find alarming. Armed with a Republican legislature that rubber stamps his every whim, DeSantis’s most celebrated accomplishments defied the will of most Americans:
- He spearheaded a ban on abortions for women who are more than six weeks pregnant, even though many women don’t know by then that they’re pregnant and most Americans oppose such a draconian restriction.
- Only days after the mass shooting in Nashville, he signed legislation allowing gun owners to carry concealed weapons without a permit or training. The vast majority of Americans want more gun restrictions, not fewer.
- He defunded diversity, equality, and inclusion programs at all state universities, ignoring the contrary desires of most students.
- His crusade against the LGBTQ+ community has compromised the freedom of an oppressed minority and morphed into a blood feud with Mickey Mouse. Popular opinion is running against him on those issues as well.
And most recently, a vivid illustration of his dangerous view of the First Amendment emerged – once again defying the wishes of most Americans.
DeSantis: Leading the Way to Illiteracy
On March 25, 2022, DeSantis signed the “K-12” bill – one of three state laws aimed, at least in part, at reading or instructional materials in schools. It’s an integral element of his ongoing attack on public education.
As a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School, DeSantis knows that he’s running a con. He’s exploiting and amplifying culture war issues to win Trump’s MAGA crowd.
The law bans the use of any instructional materials in classrooms, in school libraries, or on school reading lists that are “not suited to student needs and their ability to comprehend the material presented, or is inappropriate for the grade level and age group for which the material is used.”
A key provision allows any parent or resident to lodge a complaint for anything that violates the law's amorphous standard. So far, among the books removed from circulation in one of Florida’s school districts are Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
Now another victim is focusing attention on DeSantis’s unpopular crusade.
DeSantis: Pandering to the Lowest Common Denominator
At President Joseph Biden’s inauguration, Amanda Gorman delivered The Hill We Climb – a 700-word poem – to great acclaim. Then she published it as a book, but a parental complaint under DeSantis’s new K-12 law led a Miami-Dade county school committee to limit student access to it.
The parent was Daily Salinas, who has attended Proud Boys rallies and posted anti-Semitic tropes on social media (deleted after the Miami Herald revealed her identity on May 22 and the group Miami Against Fascism highlighted them in an expose’ on Twitter the next day).
Salinas completed the complaint form in her own hand, and the form itself merits scrutiny as a marvel of ignorance and illiteracy:
TITLE OF THE MATERIAL IN QUESTION: “The Hill We Climb”
AUTHOR-PUBLISHER: “Oprah Winfrey”
WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO ABOUT THIS MEDIA: Box checked: Remove the challenged material from the total environment
1. TO WHAT DO YOU OBJECT (please be specific, cite pages or sections): [Left blank]
2. WHY DO YOU OBJECT TO THIS MATERIAL? “Is not educational and have [sic] indirectly hate messages - page 12-13”
3. DID YOU REVIEW ALL THE MATERIAL? “Yes”
4. ARE YOU AWARE OF PROFESSIONAL REVIEWS OF THIS MATERIAL? “I don’t need it”
5. WHAT STRENGTHS DO YOU PERCEIVE IN THIS MATERIAL? [Left blank]
6. FOR WHAT AGE GROUP WOULD YOU RECOMMEND THIS MATERIAL? “Not for schools”
7. WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS THE FUNCTION OF THIS MATERIAL? “Cause confusion and indoctrinate students”
8. IN ITS PLACE, WHAT MATERIAL WOULD YOU RECOMMEND THAT WOULD RESULT IN THE SAME OUTCOME? [Left blank]
That’s the sum total of what it took to start the DeSantis process that culminated in removing Gorman’s acclaimed book from a public elementary school library. To summarize:
Salinas got the author’s name wrong.
She said that she didn’t need any awareness of the glowing professional reviews that Gorman’s poem received, but claimed that it was “not for schools.”
She said she had reviewed “ALL THE MATERIAL,” but concluded that it was not educational, has “hate messages,” and can cause “confusion and indoctrinate students,” referring only to these lines (page 12-13):
“We’ve braved the belly of the beast.
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace,
And the norms and notions of what ‘just is’
Isn’t always justice.
“And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow, we do it.
Somehow, we’ve weathered and witnessed
A nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.”
Salinas also complained about four other books. Only one—Countries in the News: Cuba—remained available for all students in the school. The others, including The Hill We Climb and The ABC’s of Black History (written for ages five and up), are now kept in the middle school section of the media center where elementary school students won’t see them.
Salinas, along with one of the many school committees that now live in fear of a governor known for political retaliation, accomplished all of that destruction in just a week.
How did she miss Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech?
Gorman said that she wrote the poem “so that all young people could see themselves in a historical moment. Ever since, I’ve received countless letters and videos from children inspired by The Hill We Climb to write their own poems.” She added, “A school book ban is any action taken against a book that leaves access to a book restricted or diminished."
DeSantis: Conning the Public
DeSantis asserts that criticisms of his assault on the First Amendment are a “book ban hoax.” “Hoax” has a familiar ring. I wonder where he heard it.
“Exposing the ‘book ban’ hoax is important because it reveals that some are attempting to use our schools for indoctrination,” he said, claiming that “inappropriate materials have been snuck into our classrooms and libraries….”
Snuck?
As a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School, DeSantis knows that he’s running a con. He’s exploiting and amplifying culture war issues to win Trump’s MAGA crowd. To borrow Amanda Gorman’s phrase, DeSantis has put Florida in another “historical moment.” Now he wants the entire country to join him there.
But Gorman’s poem is a message of hope, as its concluding lines demonstrate:
“The new dawn blooms as we free it,
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it,
If only we’re brave enough to be it.”
Watch the video of Gorman delivering her message on Inauguration Day. Then imagine a country where just one person of marginal literacy can fill out a form that will prevent your child from reading it.
That’s only one scene in Ron DeSantis’s vision for America.
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'A Shame for the Children,' Says Amanda Gorman After Far-Right Parent Gets Poetry Banned
"One parent could get my poetry banned from classrooms. And yet one country can't ban assault rifles from massacring them," noted Gorman, who recited her poem, The Hill We Climb, at President Joe Biden's inauguration.
May 24, 2023
Amanda Gorman, the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate, reacted Tuesday after a South Florida school banned elementary students from reading the poem she recited at President Joe Biden's 2021 inauguration following the complaint of a parent who has repeatedly espoused white supremacist and anti-Jewish views.
"I'm gutted," Gorman said in a statement posted on Twitter. "Because of one parent's complaint, my inaugural poem, The Hill We Climb, has been banned from an elementary school in Miami-Dade County, Florida."
"Book bans aren't new," she continued, "but they have been on the rise—according to the [American Library Association], 40% more books were challenged in 2022 compared to 2021."
"The majority of these censored works are by queer and non-white voices."
Common Dreams reported last month that laws passed in Republican-controlled states have led to nearly 1,500 book bans nationwide during just the first half of the 2022-23 school year. This followed a record number of book bans last year, according to the American Library Association.
"What's more, often all it takes to remove these works from our libraries and schools is a single objection," Gorman added. "And let's be clear: Most of the forbidden works are by authors who have struggled for generations to get on bookshelves. The majority of these censored works are by queer and nonwhite voices."
\u201cSo they ban my book from young readers, confuse me with @oprah , fail to specify what parts of my poetry they object to, refuse to read any reviews, and offer no alternatives\u2026Unnecessary #bookbans like these are on the rise, and we must fight back \ud83d\udc4a\ud83c\udfff DONATE here:\u2026\u201d— Amanda Gorman (@Amanda Gorman) 1684879662
While Gorman's poem can still be read by sixth, seventh, and eighth-graders at Bob Graham Education Center in Miami Lakes, students in grades K-5 are barred from reading or reciting the widely acclaimed work, which promotes unity, reflection on the past, and hope for the future of the United States.
The restriction was enacted after Daily Salinas, a mother of two students at the school, lodged a complaint challenging five works—Gorman's poem, plus The ABCs of Black History, Cuban Kids, Countries in the News Cuba, and Love to Langston—over what she claimed are references to critical race theory, "indirect hate messages," gender ideology, and indoctrination.
\u201cThe Hill We Climb is making headlines, but please don\u2019t forget there are three other titles - titles clearly written for elementary school readers - that are restricted too.\n\nWe need to get The ABCs of Black History, Love to Langston, & Cuban Kids back on K-5 shelves too!\u201d— Florida Freedom to Read Project (@Florida Freedom to Read Project) 1684953943
"One parent could get my poetry banned from classrooms. And yet one country can't ban assault rifles from massacring them," Gorman noted on Twitter.
In her complaint, Salinas—who erroneously attributed Gorman's poem to "Oprah Winfrey"—objected to pages containing two passages of The Hill We Climb.
\u201cThese are the pages of my inaugural poem that an objecting parent cited as "not educational and have indirectly hate messages". And now because of that one complaint, my poem is now banned for elementary school students at a school in @MiamiDadeCounty.\u201d— Amanda Gorman (@Amanda Gorman) 1684881016
In a Monday interview with the Miami Herald, Salinas insisted she "is not for eliminating or censoring any books," but wants materials to be age-appropriate and for students "to know the truth" about Cuba—a socialist dictatorship with a higher literacy rate than the United States.
The Herald made no mention of Salinas' ties to far-right and white supremacist groups. A Twitter thread posted Tuesday by Miami Against Fascism shows Salinas rallying with the Proud Boys, a neo-fascist group that promotes and perpetrates political violence, and Christopher Monzon, who allegedly assaulted anti-racist counterprotesters at the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
\u201cBut there\u2019s more\u2026 \n\nMiami book banning parent Daily Salinas also attended a Proud Boy organized rally in Hialeah in November 2022 in support of white supremacist Marco Rubio canvasser Christopher Monzon, who falsely claimed he was beaten for political reasons. 5/\u201d— Miami Against Fascism \ud83c\udf34\u2615\ufe0f (@Miami Against Fascism \ud83c\udf34\u2615\ufe0f) 1684867001
Miami Against Fascism also posted video showing Salinas and members of the far-right group Moms for Liberty—a Florida-based pressure group sometimes referred to as "Klanned Karenhood" for its crusade ban books in schools across the United States—interrupting a July 2022 Miami school board meeting.
Salinas also shared social media posts promoting white supremacist and anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, including Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
\u201cSo the parent who got my inaugural poem The Hill We Climb banned for elementary students @BGEC_Bobcats has ties to WHITE SUPREMACIST ORGS. Anyone surprised?@MiamiDadeCounty This is a shame for the children in your school system who deserve to have access to poetry.\u201d— Amanda Gorman (@Amanda Gorman) 1684884414
The Miami Lakes school's restriction of Gorman's poem comes amid relentless attacks by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis—who on Wednesday officially declared his candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination—and other GOP state officials on educational freedom from kindergarten through the university level.
DeSantis has replaced key state education officials with right-wing allies who toe his "anti-woke" line, and has been accused of stoking a climate of fear in which educators have removed books from classroom libraries to avoid running afoul of bans on titles dealing with race or LGBTQ+ issues.
Notable figures who rushed to defend Gorman include Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, a Democrat, who invited the 25-year-old poet to recite The Hill We Climb before a public audience, and the ACLU, which tweeted: "Schools should be fostering growth and the exchange of ideas—not preventing students from learning and understanding different perspectives."
"These unnecessary book bans join a host of other attempts to silence us," the civil liberties group added. "We must fight back."
\u201cThe poem that Amanda Gorman read at President Biden\u2019s inauguration, entitled \u201cThe Hill We Climb,\u201d has been banned in schools. The poem was a lecture on peace, love, unity, and freedom. This isn\u2019t free speech. Don\u2019t skip this without leaving a heart for her.\u201d— Mohamad Safa (@Mohamad Safa) 1684872214
In her statement Tuesday, Gorman explained that "I wrote The Hill We Climb so that all young people could see themselves in a historical moment."
"Ever since, I've received countless letters and videos from children inspired by The Hill We Climb to write their own poems," she said. "Robbing children of the chance to find their voices in literature is a violation of their right to free thought and free speech."
"What can we do? We must speak out and have our voices heard," Gorman stressed. "That's why my publisher, Penguin Random House, joined PEN America, authors, and community members in a lawsuit in Florida's Escambia County to challenge book restrictions like these."
"Together this is a hill we won't just climb, but a hill we will conquer."
"Together this is a hill we won't just climb, but a hill we will conquer," Gorman asserted.
Gorman was referring to a lawsuit filed last week claiming Escambia County School Board book bans are unconstitutional.
"It's quite apparent what [book bans] are about: It's an effort to erase certain segments of our population, to marginalize particular stories, to prevent kids from seeing themselves in the books they find on the shelf," PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel said during an interview on MSNBC last week.
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