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I imagine myself as a middle school social studies teacher in Florida. I am a white woman with a Black husband and two mixed-race children.
The state published new African-American history standards, which I am required to follow. My students are of multiple races and ethnicities. The new standards refer to slaves as “Africans,” not African Americans. Why? I have always seen people referred to as Americans once they were here. Books don’t call European immigrants Europeans. They are Irish Americans or German Americans, but always Americans. Slaves may be from Africa, but they weren’t visiting. They were African Americans.
Worse, the standards dictate that “instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” How? Slavery wasn’t a jobs program to help people gain marketable skills. It wasn’t as if the plantations had profit sharing with slaves.
It seems that the standards expect me to teach that it was a continuum from poor free immigrants to indentured servants to slaves. I cannot do that. Slaves were property. I cannot avoid that horror in the classroom. The ancestors of some of my students probably were slaves. My husband can trace his ancestors back to the early 1800s in South Carolina.
With the rise of book banning and demonizing sexuality in Florida schools, I thought I would be safe in my history nook. After all, history is the study of what was. Now, I’m in the same boat with school librarians, reading teachers, sex education teachers and psychology teachers. The teachers in my school are fearful of students spying on them for their parents. A couple of parents belong to Moms for Liberty, and they have been trying to get rid of some of the library’s books.
What to do? I need this job. I have 20 years in the district. But I have integrity. I cannot and will not stand in front of my students and teach that slaves were developing job skills on the plantations. I can’t look at my husband and children if I taught this offensive nonsense. Maybe I will end up being fired, but at least I will keep my integrity.
Anne Blanford, Boynton Beach
Holy Cross Health and Cigna
As president and CEO of Holy Cross Health, I see the huge impact that our local health systems have daily on many lives. Not only are they the foundation of care and well-being, but they are economic drivers that empower local businesses and neighborhoods to thrive and support you, our friends and family.
I’ve followed firsthand the ongoing negotiations between Holy Cross Health and Cigna. I’m disheartened but not surprised that a major health insurance company would fail to understand the importance of Holy Cross Health to our community, and instead focuses on furthering its bottom line despite its lucrative profit margins of late. Cigna is willing to jeopardize patients’ access to the physicians many of you know and trust. If Cigna cannot reach an agreement with us by 11:59 p.m. on Aug. 14, Cigna users who are patients at Holy Cross Health will be forced to seek care with alternative doctors or specialists who do not know their health history.
Holy Cross Health has served this community for 67 years and needs this community’s help to hold Cigna accountable and ensure that we have the financial fortitude to continue serving for years to come.
As a champion of Holy Cross Health, I urge you to call Cigna and share the importance of keeping Holy Cross Health in network for their users. If Cigna forces Holy Cross Health out of network, the relationship between patients and their physicians will be broken. It is not right for Cigna to put profits over the needs of patients and weaken the financial viability of a critical health care provider in Broward County.
Mark Doyle, Fort Lauderdale
The writer is president and CEO of Holy Cross Health.
What’s wrong with No Labels
Sun Sentinel reader Lynn Stote of Pompano Beach wrote that she supports the No Labels party in 2024 because Joe Biden and Donald Trump are both flawed. The reality is that a third party bid in 2000 by Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the presidency and we got George W. Bush. No Labels, according to Mother Jones, has major contributions from conservatives and many large Republican Party donors.
They no doubt see it as a way to split the Democratic Party, thus causing Biden’s defeat. If you are for gun control, women’s rights over their bodies, sane environmental policies, protections for those in the gay community and voting rights, you must vote Democratic. Democracy is at stake.
Jack Miller, Parkland
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