How’s it going down in Florida these days?
The inflation rate hit a two-year low in June but the financial relief may not be felt in Florida.
The Federal Reserve raised the interest rate again on Wednesday in an effort to lower inflation. It comes as the Tampa Bay area still has among the highest inflation rates reported, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater has a Consumer Price Index, which is measured for inflation, of 7.3% for the year ended in May.
Meanwhile, the Consumer Price Index grew at an annual rate of 3% in June — the smallest increase since March 2021, the Labor Department said on Wednesday.
South Florida is also reporting similar numbers.
The CPI for Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-West Palm Beach is at 6.9% in June from the year before.
[…]
Those like Nhick Ramiro Pacis of Tampa keep an eye on his budget from the rising costs at the grocery to his insurance.
“It’s really affecting a lot of people. Not only me,” Pacis said.
Like other Floridians, Pacis has had to make adjustments. On top of working two jobs, he’s cut down on TV subscriptions and dining out in an effort to save.
Claar said it’ll be difficult to understand just how soon Florida’s higher inflation rates will cool down. As desirable of a market as it was before for factors like real estate, it’s undergone high interest since the start of the pandemic.
“I don’t think a responsible economist at this point can tell you the day or the month or maybe even the year that things will begin to look more normal… because we don’t quite know yet what the new normal is going to be,” Claar said.
DeSantis seems to think killing “woke-ism” is what’s important. The Florida economy, not so much.
And they are doubling down:
Media Matters took a look at the curriculum:
A cartoon Booker T. Washington distorting the history of the Civil War. A narrator explaining that embracing climate denialism is akin to participating in the Warsaw Uprising. An instructional video telling girls that conforming to gender stereotypes is a great way to embrace their femininity. A dramatization of the supposedly civilizing, benevolent era of British colonial rule in India.
These are just some of the episodes of PragerU Kids — an offshoot of right-wing propaganda organization PragerU — that Florida has just approved for use in its public school classrooms, reflecting and potentially accelerating the state’s hard conservative turn.
“The state of Florida just announced that we are now becoming an official vendor,” said PragerU CEO Marissa Streit in a video heralding the news. She claimed that schools have “been hijacked by the left” and “used by union bosses” to pursue an agenda “not for our children.”
“We are just getting started — additional states are signing up,” Streit added.
Here’s one very special example tailor made for DeSantis’ FLorida:
Leo & Layla: Lessons in collective forgetting
Another series sees animated characters Leo and Layla traveling back in time to learn from historical figures. In one episode, the pair discuss slavery with a fictionalized Booker T. Washington.
“I hate that our country had slavery,” Layla says. “Mr. Washington, sometimes do you ever wish you could have lived somewhere else? Like a different country?”
“That’s a great question, and I hate slavery too, but it’s been a reality everywhere in the world,” Washington responds.
The fictional Washington then elides the reality of the U.S. Civil War by adopting the passive voice. This flattens the process through which enslaved people freed themselves — alongside the Union Army — into an undifferentiated joint venture of the entire country.
“America was one of the first places on earth to outlaw slavery,” Washington says, getting the timeline completely reversed. “And hundreds of thousands of men gave their lives in a war that resulted in my freedom.”
“When you put it that way, it totally makes sense,” Leo responds.
Washington’s comforting account of history adds up to a conclusion squarely in line with DeSantis’ anti-critical race theory agenda. “Future generations are never responsible for sins of the past,” Washington reassures the children.
“OK I’ll keep doing my best to treat everyone well and won’t feel guilty about historical stuff,” Layla responds, now absolved and innocent.
PragerU Kids’ anti-anti-racism project includes a predictable deradicalization of Martin Luther King Jr., whom Leo and Layla travel to meet.
“My parents … taught me that racism, thinking people are better than or lesser than because of skin color, is wrong and to hate the wrong but never the wrongdoer,” the fictional King tells the kids.
“Wow. That’s so noble,” Layla responds, in an inadvertent but tellingly condescending way.
“My Christian faith directs me to love my neighbors, even when they act in ways I don’t like, and that’s always helped me remain peaceful,” King replies.
Like in the “Around the World” segments, Leo and Layla also have ample opportunities to promote Western chauvinism.
“What’s up with the face?” Layla asks her brother at the beginning of their Christopher Columbus episode. “You look stressed.”
“I’m just doing some research,” Leo responds. “Was today weird for you?”
“Yeah. How’d you guess?” Layla says.
“Columbus Day,” Leo says.
“Or Native American Day, or Indigenous People’s Day — it’s weird, right?” Layla replies.
The kids then discuss how their teachers and peers got into arguments about whether Columbus should have his own holiday.
“The side against Columbus says he was a really mean guy who spread slavery, disease, and violence to people who would’ve been better off if he’d never gone to the new world,” Leo says. “The side for him says he was a really courageous guy who loved exploring, inspired generations, and spread Christianity and Western civilization to people who really benefited from new ways of thinking and doing things.”
When the two kids meet Columbus, he assures them that he was justified in his violence against indigenous people.
“The place I discovered was beautiful, but it wasn’t exactly a paradise of civilization, and the native people were far from peaceful,” he tells them.
Like the fictional Booker T. Washington, Columbus naturalizes slavery and the slave trade as something that happened everywhere.
“Slavery is as old as time and has taken place in every corner of the world,” Columbus says.
“Well, in our time we view slavery as being evil and terrible,” Layla corrects him.
“Ah. Magnifico! That’s wonderful,” Columbus responds. “I am glad humanity has reached such a time. But you said you’re from 500 years in the future? How can you come here to the 15th century and judge me by your standards from the 21st century?”
As this episode shows, the overriding theme of Leo and Layla’s adventures — and PragerU Kids in general — is that schools have made white children feel uncomfortable by teaching them about racism, colonialism, and other forms of oppression, and that that anxiety must be alleviated through a rigorous disavowal that the past plays any role in ordering the present. If historical wrongs committed by white people in the United States or Europeans must be acknowledged, we must teach that those injustices were undertaken with good intentions. Even more importantly, the past must remain firmly in the past, lest Leo and Layla lose their innocence and be forced to confront continuities of domination.
And this:
Closer to home, “Los Angeles: Mateo Backs the Blue” is anti-Black Lives Matter, pro-cop propaganda. The video describes a Mexican immigrant family that moved to Los Angeles and had their lives upended by the death of George Floyd, whom the narrator characterizes as “a Black man who resisted arrest.”
“Activists claimed that police were targeting the Black community and purposefully killing unarmed Black men,” the narrator says. “As the false claims of racial targeting spread, so did the anger and violence.”
Mateo develops fondness for his school’s “resource officer” — a euphemism, though one not unique to PragerU Kids — and comes to view the cop as “as a guide, a mentor, and a protector, not how he has seen police characterized in the news, as mean-spirited bullies.”
I particularly like this one:
In “How to Be a Victor and Not a Victim,” students learn that “people all around the world who have encountered great setbacks have gone on to overcome them, whether it’s poverty, disease, discrimination, or all of it combined.”
That, PragerU Kids says, is the mentality of winners. “Victims on the other hand, don’t believe that personal growth is possible,” the presenter — who, it should be noted here, is Black — instructs the kids.
“Or, even worse, don’t believe it’s needed,” he continues. “Victims are often so busy blaming everything and everyone else for their problems that they don’t stop to think about how their own growth can make things better.”
I think this is actually an excellent lesson for the right wing. There is no group on earth that whines more about being victims than they do.
This stuff is going to be taught in schools in Florida. I expect there will be parents who will object. Will they have the same “rights” as the fascist friendly Moms for Liberty?
