I was taken aback when I read that the Florida Senate and House have proposed legislation requiring 8th and 11th graders to view Dinesh D’Sousa’s so called political documentary, “America: Imagine the World Without Her.” The bills sponsors are: SB 96 — Sen. Alan Hays (R-Umatilla and who represents The Villages) and HB 77 — Rep. Combee and cosponsored by Reps. Albriton, Santiago and Van Zandt.
The idea that schools should be REQUIRED to air this commercial film is a waste of students precious study time, teachers preparatory efforts, and taxpayers’ resources. Worse than that: this film is not historically valid. The film received universally poor reviews for its historical inaccuracies and, more bluntly, ignorance of historical fact. It also might prove difficult to explain to school boards and parents that Mr. D’Sousa is a convicted felon (campaign finance fraud) and that tax dollars are being used to promote his paranoid disagreement with academic historians. And just whose work – D’Sousa’s or historians – are to serve as the basis of knowledge students are to use to meet testing requirements? University of Miami’s historian Nicole Hemmer writes, “’America’ is political entertainment, not academic history, and it’s troubling that Florida legislators can’t tell the difference between the two.”
As noted by Variety magazine, “drawing largely from his own published work, D’Souza offers a point-by-point response to historical revisionists, social activists and community organizers who want to define America as “a predatory colonial power,” and dwell on such unpleasant topics as the decimation of Native Americans, the mistreatment of blacks and Mexicans, and the widening gap between rich and poor in a capitalist society.” Discussing historical facts related to those topics is not doing America justice, in his view. D’Sousa continues to espouse arguments made in previous writings – this one taken from his 1996 book, The End of Racism, which included this typical gem: “The American slave was treated like property, which is to say, pretty well.”
Legislators — do your homework; don’t waste your time on this issue — Florida has great needs. Providing mis-information to students should not be one of them.
B. Howard Penix is a resident of The Villages.