Democrats in Florida are trying to use a state law that censors books in public schools against the governor who signed it, Ron DeSantis, by asking schools to review or ban the Republican governor’s own book, The Courage to be Free.
The Democratic minority leader in the Florida state house, Fentrice Driskell, told the Daily Beast, “The trap he set for others is the same trap he set for himself.”
People thought that DeSantis’s book The Courage to be Free, which came out in February, was the start of his campaign for the Republican nomination for president. He said that he was the one who wrote the book.
In order to compete with Donald Trump, who has big leads in the polls, DeSantis has made a name for himself as a ruthless “culture warrior” who is willing to use government power to fight against different interests and points of view.
Last year, he signed the law about books in schools. It has rules about what is and isn’t okay to show based on race, sexuality, gender, and violent images.
But the language of the law has caused problems, like when a children’s book about Roberto Clemente, a famous baseball player who faced racial discrimination, became the center of a national debate.
In order to take advantage of these questions, Florida Democrats are pointing out parts of DeSantis’s book that they say could go against his own rules.
The Beast said that in The Courage to be Free, DeSantis “uses the terms ‘woke’ and ‘gender ideology’ 46 and 10 times, respectively. Both of these terms could be considered ‘divisive concepts,’ which the governor has said should not be taught in schools up to college level.
DeSantis also says that students were forced to “chant to the Aztec god of human sacrifice” and shows a video of “dead black children dramatically warning… about ‘racist police and state-sanctioned violence'” to back up his claims.
DeSantis also talks about the 2017 mass shooting at a baseball practice for members of Congress, where Republican leader Steve Scalise was seriously hurt.
Democrats say that such passages could break the governor’s own rules, which Florida publisher Peter Schorsch called a “clever bit of trolling.”
The Beast says that at first, only one school district answered the Democrats’ complaints. Marion County, which is close to Orlando, said that none of its public schools had the governor’s book.
“We’re focusing on one of [DeSantis’s] weaknesses,” Driskell told the Beast.
“…If America doesn’t want what’s going on in Florida now to be what’s going on in America in the future, people need to know what’s going on here. This is how we’re fighting back, but it also shows how silly some of this is, right?”
