WTF

Textbook Cuts Race from Rosa Parks Story Amid ‘Anti-Woke’ Florida Push: NYT

An updated version of the social studies textbook, published by Studies Weekly, says Rosa Parks “was told to move to a different seat”—but it doesn't mention why.

It appears one education company is going to incredible lengths to preserve its sales in the state of Florida—reportedly whitewashing the story of Rosa Parks to remove any mention of race, according to a version of the social studies textbook reviewed by The New York Times. Parks, a Black woman, was famously asked to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus because of her race, thanks to discriminatory segregation laws. But she refused, becoming a cause célèbre in the civil rights movement. However, in an updated version of a textbook created by Studies Weekly, a company which caters to mostly younger students, all mentions of race and segregation have been removed. “She was told to move to a different seat,” the lesson reads, according to the newspaper. It’s unclear whether the version was officially submitted for review in Florida—though it was publicly available on the publisher’s website as recently as last week. The incident is one of many uncovered by the Times as part of an investigation into the result of “anti-woke” education laws being pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and his conservative allies in Florida. Another textbook was apparently rewritten to include a tortured passage on slavery that also removed any mention of race—claiming it was illegal for “men of certain groups” to be unemployed.