DeSantis Doubles Down on Critical Race Theory in Schools: ‘It’s Based on Historical Falsehoods’

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is doubling down on his criticism of critical race theory being taught in American classrooms, saying on Monday the curriculum is “based on historical falsehoods.”

DeSantis made the remarks at Florida International University, where he blamed “corporate” media for promoting the ideology.

“There’s a movement now in some of the elite corporate outlets to gaslight people about what critical race theory is,” DeSantis told reporters. “I saw one thing saying Texas has a bill, ‘they don’t want people to learn about slavery,’ that’s nonsense.”

“You teach the facts,” DeSantis said. “You teach everything that’s happened. But what critical race theory is, is basically race essentialism.”

“It teaches people to view that as the most important characteristic,” DeSantis said. “And obviously if you’re certain races, Caucasian, what-not, they view that in a negative fashion. That is not something that’s appropriate for schools.”

“It’s based on historical falsehoods,” DeSantis said. “For example, some of these people have said the American Revolution was fought, uh, because they wanted to preserve slavery. Really? In Lexington and Concord, that’s what they were fighting about?”

“Just open up a history book,” DeSantis said. “Read the pamphlets. Read what they were doing at the time. It doesn’t have a place.”

The Florida Politics website reported on the governor’s remarks:

DeSantis noted that while the Board of Education will meet in “a week or two” to discuss the philosophy, the buck ultimately stops with him and the legislature.

“If you continue to have some of this movement in spite of the state policy, it really should have funding consequences that flow from it. Look, have we done so well on the basics that we go off on these political and ideological tangents in our schools? They’re not supposed to be indoctrinating kids with faddish ideologies. They’re supposed to be teaching the basics. Let them make sense of this for themselves,” DeSantis said to applause, at yet another event that melded a formal ceremonial bill signing with the optics and exuberance of a political rally.

“If we have to play whack a mole all over the state stopping this critical race theory, we will do it,” DeSantis said.

As Breitbart News reported DeSantis has vowed to do more than talk about the controversial curriculum.

“The Florida Board of Education is meeting and they are addressing this. And I told them they need to address this, and we’ve got to do it,” DeSantis said.

“I mean, first of all, it’s offensive — here we are celebrating tax savings — it’s offensive to the taxpayer that they would be asked to fund critical race theory,” DeSantis said, “That they would be asked to fund teaching kids to hate their country and to hate each other.”

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