The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - #BecauseMiami: Blackface Through Animation

Episode Date: August 11, 2023

Comedian Will Lopez is in the co-host chair with Billy Corben today. Joining them is Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation, to talk about the dumpster fire that is the Florida educational system and the harm that curriculums supplied from independent companies like PragerU will do to students. Veteran Metro columnist from the Orlando Sentinel, Scott Maxwell, updates us on the crumbling Ron DeSantis presidential campaign. And veteran psychology teacher Rachel Chapman talks about Florida's attempt to eliminate advance placement classes for psychology and the lack of actual teachers in the state's public school system. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to Giraffe King's Network. The Florida of today is the America of tomorrow, but maybe not so much anymore. DeSantis is falling. DeSantis is falling. He is not a shooting star. He is very much a falling star and he is getting desperate and flailing.

And this is a guy who thinks he's like the class president or the jock, the quarterback. He's not even the class clown. He's like the creepy kid in the corner who eats his boogers, you know, like who still like shits his pants in high school. Like that's, that's what's happening with this guy. And people are not buying the whole Let's Make America Florida. Like, what the hell's going on in Florida? Just this week, the man in a total desperate attempt to

revive his dying presidential aspirations. He removed Monique Warelle, the only black woman who is a lead prosecutor or state attorney in the state of Florida. This is now the second Democrat prosecutor he's removed from office in his many years. It was found unconstitutional when he did it the first time to Andrew Warren last year, but the same federal judge said, but I don't really have the power to reinstate you. So yeah, it was unconstitutional. I can't do anything about it. And now he's done it again. and if you want to talk about big government government overreach the weaponization of the government look no further than the free state of florida and ron de santis who's no better than fidel castro as it turns out the weaponization of government is not the

DOJ or jack smith or alvin bragg or Fanny Willis are doing to Donald Trump. It is what Ron DeSantis is doing here and the hypocrisy is just, it's like a, it's a grotesque read at this point, speaking of which comedian Will Lopez is here as a guest co-host. You ever hear of Prager U? Your kids go to Prager University? No. I do not know anything about Prager U. That's foreign to me.

And you're putting me in a weird position, man, because my boy Ronnie D, this week, he put eight racks in my pocket, man, what my step up for students program. And for someone that give me that kind of money, and for me to still believe who this guy is, tells a lot about what's on my wonderful state. You're a sellout in that you'll take the money, but you're not a sellout in, you know, tells a lot about what's so like so in my wonderful you're a sellout in that you'll take the money. Oh, I sell out that you don't take a side.

All right, all right. I am a complete sellout. I respect that. I'm the stugots of parenting in in this state of Florida. Prager you is a fake university. It's basically a YouTube channel started by this conservative talk show personality Dennis Prager and it produces proudly by the way, indoctrination materials to poison the minds of young people and because they can't reproduce so they have to recruit because kids aren't born hateful and ignorant and stupid. You have to teach that and instill that in our nation's youth

and that's what they proudly say their intention is. But after all these years that we've been listening to how public schools should not indoctrinate students and teachers are grooming. And ideology should be taken out of the classroom. We need to just teach the facts, right? In schools, now the Florida Department of Education has approved for use as teaching resources.

Prager you videos, okay? I mean, you got titles like How the Left Destroyed My Country, Unwoke Inc. Andrew Jackson, the People's President, and the inconvenient truth about the Democratic Party. They're asking important questions, Roy, like, should T be part of LGBT? Is hate speech free speech? Would you house illegal immigrants in your home and was Jesus a socialist?

Spoiler alert? Yes, he absolutely was. So this whole Prager U, it's all Bud Light, open borders, Holocaust exploitation, transgender hysteria, fossil fuel industry propaganda. Florida has decided we've heard enough from like legitimate experts and scientists and professionals and peer-reviewed educational materials like Scholastic and Highlight. It's time we hear from people with that to no excitement. Yeah, absolutely no experience or qualifications whatsoever.

And that's that I'm very excited that Ellie Mastal is here. He is the Justice correspondent at the Nation and the host of its new legal podcast called Contemptive Court. He's an Alfred Nobler Fellow at the type media center. Most importantly to me, he is the author who know my favorite books about the law, The New York Times bestseller,

allow me to retort a black guy's guide to the Constitution and I'm going to allow him to retort to this Prager U video of an animated Frederick Douglass white-splaining slavery and I guess I said Frederick Douglass white-splaining. That's a phrase in the year of our Lord 2023. White-splaining slavery and the Constitution while throwing shade at BLM. Children are founding fathers new that slavery was evil and wrong, and they knew that it would do terrible harm to the nation.

They wanted it to end, but their first priority was getting all 13 colonies to unite as one country. The Southern colonies were dependent on slave labor, and they wouldn't have joined a union that had banned it. Are you okay with that? I'm certainly not okay with slavery, but the founding fathers made a compromise to achieve something great,

the making of the United States. It was America that began the conversation to end it. But Leo is correct that big problems need to be approached very carefully. Have you kids heard of William Lloyd Garrison? No, Nope. He's an abolitionist like me, and he and I used to be friends, but we aren't any longer. We don't agree how to solve problems. William refuses all compromises, demands immediate change, and if he doesn't get what he wants,

he likes to set things on fire. Sounds familiar? Sounds like you know the type. Yeah, we've got that type in our time. So, you're trying to work for change inside of the American system. Precisely, Leyla. Our system is wonderful, and the Constitution is a glorious, liberty document. We just need to convince enough Americans to be true to it. This sounds like a white guy who had his voice slowed down for this video. Absolutely.

That's the most disturbing part of all of that for me. There's a lot there too, but that, yeah, like the old school Popeyes commercials, it was totally like a white voice over artist, like trying, yeah, I don't really have much more to say about this. It sounds like it's all, I think we just need, I mean, that was like so much runway that I don't need, I just gonna, I'm gonna push my, my chair back from the tape. It sounds like a Howard Stern skit. Like I'm, I'm, I'm surprising to say Baba Booey at the end of it. It's unbelievable.

Elymastal, what do you think of this Prager U lesson for the youth of Florida? Hello, Billy. Hello, Will. Nice to meet you. Yeah, so there's a lot I want to talk about, but we'll start with Prager U and I have to say guys, until I saw that video, I did not know you could do blackface through animation. But that's what that is. That is the blackface animation of Frederick Douglas. And it is of course disturbing. It is of course a lie, but you almost have to respect the hootspa of these Prager You people to just take a white man, dress him in animation blackface, and then have him cosplay as Fredrick Douglas.

It is, it takes a certain level of depravity yet creativity to come to that video. It's kind of amazing, right? it takes a certain level of depravity, yet's creativity to come to that video. It's kind of amazing, right? So, I mean, look, it's embarrassing that I have to say this, but obviously everything in that video was false. We can start with the falsity of Frederick Douglass being allowed to speak to white children.

All right? That's not something that happened. That's not something they let him do. Talk to white people. Are you kidding me? I mean, are you actually kidding me, right? So like, that's like number one. I know it seems like the smallest thing,

but it actually goes to show just how kind of insidious that video is That video creates the idea that slavery was a conversation There was back and forth. There were good people on both sides, right? And that's just not how it happened and the biggest lie there is not even a lie It's the acceptance of something they actually do say in the video, right? The founding fathers wanted to end slavery, but their first priority was to get the unions in unite as one country. Hey, the founding fathers not want to end slavery.

And we can talk about that. But be the idea, right, that it was more important to these people to unite the country than to end slavery, even if you think that they wanted to end slavery, how depraved and messed up as that, right? Because if you had asked, Fred from Douglas, if you had asked any black person at the time, they would have said, no, no, no, ending slavery is the most important thing not united in the country and we can prove that right because something like 5,000 or so black people fought in the Revolutionary War on the sides of the Americans, right?

20 to 25,000 black people fought in the Revolutionary War on the side of the British because what they were trying to do was get free. That's how important freedom was to black people at the time of the founding, at the time of the Revolution. They looked at their options and they were like this British colonial empire with the mad king better Better for me than George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and the lies and slavery they are selling George Washington at the time of the revolution was the largest slave holder in America That's where his wealth came from.

Slave holding, all right? And so black people at the time, look at that. Like, no, I'm trying to king George Man. So like the entire video is obviously a lie. It's obviously meant to indoctrinate white children because the, and you kind of again you kind of understand why slavery is horrible. It's a horrible thing to have done. And when white children figure out what this country is based on, they're like, wait, that's

that doesn't sound right to me. And that's why more people end up being liberal than conservatives, right? Because the only, the people who end up being conservatives are the one that is like, I asked Laverie had happened, but what are you going to do about it? But once we end up being liberal, it's like, no, that, that, that seems wrong. We should probably do something about that, maybe like now, right? And so they have to tell white kids, it wasn't as bad as you think. It wasn't as bad as it sounds because if you tell people what it really was, they react pretty strongly, both politically and professionally. So that's

why it's there. We know why it's there. The upshot of all this. And I'm saying this based not on my kind of understanding of the history of America, but my understanding of the history of North Korea. The upshortfall is that when you try to indoctrinate a populist by telling them lies, by telling them things that are not true, by telling them a historical things, that only works if you can keep them within that closed system for the rest of their lives. Right? There's a reason why North Korea shuts down the internet. Right?

There's a reason why North Korea won't let you see the Barbie movie, right? Because they have to keep their people locked in forever. Because the minute they see what the world is really like, they react and revolt against that indoctrination and then get those lives, right? It's why the East Germans had to build a wall because once you saw, you've got the Venus Nitschel here. That's amazing, right? Once you saw what they had in West Germany, you were like, well, it's East Germany thing.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, goes, uh, uh, escape the free state of Florida. Right. If anyone ever goes to see, uh, you know, I, I don't even know what's called anymore. A big 25 football game in Michigan.

Big 25. Yeah. If anybody, if anybody, if anybody gets on a riverboat in Montgomery, right, freedom on a, on a riverboat in Montgomery right for freedom on a freedom ship They're gonna learn some new stuff and we're going to be Angry at the people who lie to them and indoctrinated them in the past. Yeah, I think about this video I wish we had a still photo of this you mentioned blackface about it It was clearly drawn by white animators because that didn't even look like Fred did that look like James Brown with bad chin hair. But the kids look like Taylor Swift fans.

They look. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's amazing that they think that this is going to work. But like, I mean, look, I have kids. Kids are dumb. They'll believe what you put in their face, right? Like for a bit, eventually they become teenagers and they start, you know, and it's gonna be amazing, right? When these kids who were indoctrinated this way, and start rejecting, yeah, start rejecting everything that they've been taught. Because knowledge to them is gonna be like the new drug, right?

You know, yo, yo, you want a book? You want a book, yo, I got books. I got books, yo. Yes, the Florida book black market uh... we're gonna start running here i'm not gonna lie to you when i was a kid i was raised to believe everything was rosy and okay like i just saw the movie up in him or i was told yeah we dropped a couple of bombs to end the war wasn't a big deal. What, what, you know, then you see the movie, see what we did, what, we did what, huh? Like, huh? Of course kids are gonna get fooled.

It's easy. I fool my kids every day. I lied to my kids every day. They believe me. And they're in college. And they're in college now. Yeah. Well, I'll say this and Roy back me up here,

if you think I'm right. But when I was a kid, I was also raised to believe that everything was rosy and okay, by the schools, but it was coming home to the parents, coming home to the aunties and uncles, coming home to the community that taught me black history. My parents did not rely on the school. And I grew up in liberal last New York. My parents did not rely on the liberal, white school system to teach me a damn thing

about black history or the history of this country, right? They knew that I wasn't gonna get the real truth from the schools. So there's a whole home educational project and this is what I've said generally about Florida schools. Like all that's happening is that kind of white people in Florida are realizing they're going to have to behave more like black parents have behaved for the past 200 years.

Well, in my case, you educate your own because you know that the public school system isn't going to do the job. In my case, I was raised Cuban. So in a Cuban household, you got to understand the same thing, no internet where they were from. They came over, they got here for freedom. So, growing up for me was shut up and dribble, shut up and learn. Just shut up and listen to your teacher. And that's it, because what do you want to go back to Cuba? You want to go back to what we had.

So, to me, it was, okay, this is what freedom looks like. This is what beauty looks like. This is what a wonderful world looks like. And we didn't question it. We just went along with it. A lot of people always ask me, Billy, why do you like anything? You hate everything. Well, I love Ellie Mistal, and I love his book, Allow Me to Retort, a Black Guys Guide to the Constitution. And if you want to be smarter, you will read this book. If you want to learn something about our founding father is about the founding document that still runs this country today. And it's fundamental inequities and dysfunction.

You have to read this book. And it is so funny and so entertaining as is Ellie Mistal. Ellie, thank you so much for being here again. Thanks for having me. Welcome to our segment, Fear and Florida Men on the campaign trail. I was right in the middle of a bullpen reptile zoo. Somebody was giving booze to these goddamn things. Joining us to talk about fear and Florida men on the campaign trail is long time Metro

columnist for the Orlando Sentinel. Scott Maxwell, you know, Scott, we've been talking about how the theory of the Florida today is the America of tomorrow seems to be kind of sinking along with the fortunes of one Ronald Elizabeth DeSantis in his and really his his wife tacky os hopes that someday he is going to be President of the whole wine world Please clap but The idea that of course that Florida has been for the last two plus decades Really just a beta testing ground for the worst fucking laws and ideas. Florida's black

widow Mary and Hammer who spent 44 years as a lobbyist for the NRA and served as the first woman of that national gun cult on his help make the United States the mass shooting capital of the world and made firearms. The number one cause of death for American children more than car crashes and cancer. Of course, in 2005, she wrote by her own hand the Shoot Your Neighbor aka, Stanger Ground Law that was then exported to other, you know, beta tested here and then exported to other legislatures across the country. Um, and that really was blood on the hands of Marion Hammer and Jeb Bush and the NRA and all of the complicit cowards and death cultists of the Republican party who allowed for basically a gun industry organization.

Masquerading is a civil rights organization, I should say to murder people for profit and it's getting worse. More Americans die of gun related injuries in 2021 than any other year on record. I'm going totally off on a tangent here, but my point is that Florida keeps screwing this country up. And, Rhonda Santis was not having a very good week. All the news was bad.

Down was going Casey's dreams of running for governor herself and all of this, you know, being a Republican Hillary Clinton and all this stuff. And then he tried to change the conversation with a little bit of fascism. Scott, what the hell's going on here? Yeah, you know, you're absolutely right. Florida has exported.

If it was crappy, Florida has exported it. It's not just Andrew Brown. It's don't say gay. There's a bunch of other things. But all of a sudden, we have Ron DeSantis, whose campaign has had more resets than a busted iPhone. And you keep having his problem saying, well, maybe it's not this staff. We need to get this chief of staff.

I feel like, like, this is the marketing team for like anchovy bubble gum. At some point in time, they have to realize it's not this staff, we need to get this chief of staff. I feel like this is the marketing team for like Anchovi bubble gum. At some point in time, they have to realize it's not the staff. It's not the billboards. It's the product you're trying to pedal. And for the first time, really in a long time, America is looking at Florida and saying, what the hell is wrong with you all? Why are you so obsessed with drag queens and slavery? And we're like a laughing stock at this point. We got this nose picker from Deniedon,

who's in his high heel boots running around in pumps. But I'm like, it's just, you know, literally like picking his nose and eating it on live TV. And man can't even laugh like a human. I think Chris Christie is going to dismantle him in this debate. If Donald Trump's there, they're both gonna dismantle him. I mean, this is an embarrassment at this point, right? Yeah, no, everything that's happened has what's the word for not exceeded, going beneath expectations for Ron DeSantis. And what's remarkable to your point, a lot of liberals

get driven crazy by Ron DeSainas, and after a minute, they're still in a state that for the most part really likes him. I mean, he just won by 20 points, damn near, and that's the largest margin in modern history in Florida. But what we are seeing increasingly is that Florida is not like the rest of America, and the rest of America, and we're talking about Republicans' mind. These aren't sure. These aren't general polls. He's doing crappy and these are Republican polls. They are saying we don't understand why you are so obsessed with transgender people, for instance, and this book banning stuff. I think most

normal people from both parties aren't excited about that. So he keeps resetting and keeps resetting this week. He decided to target a prosecutor in our neck of the woods. I think to maybe shift it to law and order because anti woke is getting them about 5% in some of the polls in New Hampshire. So this is an active desperation. He's just thirsty to try to change the conversation. All the press has been negative for really not just this week, but for months on end about

this campaign. Right. It was like a reset reset. He finally did like a hard reset, replaced his campaign manager for crying out loud with a man with zero, zero national campaign experience, his chief of staff from here in the state of Florida. The guy who basically all the shitty ideas and the Florida f***ery that we're exporting has come from basically this guy who's now running the campaign. But I think you're right, ultimately the product itself, the candidate himself sucks, but

talk to me about the reaction this week to Monique Morelle, a woman who was elected with what nearly 67% of the vote. Let's talk about this anti-democratic governor. Let's talk about what 60% of central Floridians voted for rent stabilization. You had 60% plus of conk, republic folks in Key West vote against cruise ships. And then the Florida Republican Supermajority Legislature overturning democracy. And once again, we have an authoritarian, a wannabe tinpot dictator removing a woman for the second year in a row and removing a democratically elected in a free and fair election prosecutor from office.

Desperate, no? And if you think about, I always ask people, pretend you're not Florida for a minute. We know we're a banana republic. Pretend you're reading about a third world. And you read about some dictator who decided that a local mayor or governor was elected and that dictator just decided you know what I don't like that person who was elected by the people who live in that town and they decided to remove them for office I think most Floridians most Americans would

consider that nuts but I got to tell you we've been doing it a lot more in this state and I've historically taken a stance against it, even when it was unpopular in your neck of the woods down in South Florida, I don't think the sheriff down there, Scott Israel was a great guy. I don't think the election supervisor, Brenda Snipes was a terribly competent election supervisor, but the way to get them out of office is democracy. You wait till the next cycle and you let people vote. You don't let dictators or authoritarians remove them. And right now there's nothing criminal

charged about Monique Borrell. But speaking of criminal, if you want to draw a comparison, I think you're Billy, you're somewhat familiar with another politician from Arneck of the Woods, Joel Greenberg. This was Matt Gaetz's buddy, our tax collector. We wrote story after story about mouth-free mouth reasons it inappropriate things Rondis and his let this guy in office he didn't get kicked out of office by any state officials it wasn't until the feds came in with a wire fraud stalking sex trafficking charges on the same as with okay with that elected official being in office but this prosecutor I think there's some there's gonna be a distinction there that's going to

have a tough time selling on most. So Scott, we have an elected official down here, a city commissioner, Joe Corroyo. He's a registered Republican, but he isn't a nonpartisan local commissioner. This guy was convicted by a federal civil jury mind you of violating the constitutional rights of constituents, weaponizing city government, the police department, code enforcement to attack a political rival. 67 million dollars was the judgment against him. And it was unequivocally found that he violated the United States Constitution.

He violated his oath of office. He violated the state constitution. People besieged Governor Ron DeSantis just a couple months ago to remove this guy from office. This was a bipartisan effort, mind you. I've never seen more unanimity in Miami-Dade between Republicans and Democrats than on the issue of getting Joe Corroyo out of office. The feedback from the governor's office was, well, he hasn't been charged criminally

yet. I wondered, well, Andrew Warren, the state of Torrean Hillsboro, and Tampa area was not charged criminally, and he was a duly elected and removed from office by the governor, Monique Morelle, was duly elected and she is not, as you just said, not been charged criminally.

So what is actually, in your opinion, the standard here, what is actually the criteria for Ron to understand where you and I are engaging on a fool's ear. Because we are trying to apply some sense of logic or consistency where there is not one other than part other than the obvious one, which is sort of partisan ideology. There's another South Florida example, though, Sheriff who were placed up, Scott Israel. He was found to have, I think I've got this right, lied on his application. Yes. And there were a lot of people who said,

well, you can't keep a law enforcement guy. And office, he's still there last I checked. Yeah, there are no consistent standards. This seems to be a way to try to grasp its straws when virtually everything he's done has failed. The slavery, the Prager you, I don't know if you guys have watched any of these bananas videos. They're kind of like if school house rock had a baby with David Duke.

We just talked about it. We have like cartoon version of Christopher Columbus telling kids like their main lesson about slavery is I'm writing this down, quote, being taken as a slave is better than being killed. But that's the lesson we went. School children and a flip, none of this stuff is playing well, not among black conservatives, not along to anybody.

So now we're shifting to vote prosecutors, I guess. But what Ron is trying to do is is trying to find his Mexican wall moment. He's trying to find something that, because he's winning here, so the non-sent, the stuff he does, don't say gay, the trans stuff, he wins here. It's so he's thinking to himself, wait a minute. So this has got to work nationwide too.

So he's trying to find his, get rid of the Mexicans moment. His one thing that will connect with that base that will get behind, it's not working. I think you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. They are genuinely flummoxed. Every sort of xenophobic crap they have. They're going for all of it, man. Let's go. Yeah. It's going over gangbusters in Florida and they're sort of perplexed by people in Idaho and New Hampshire and Iowa aren't buying it. The hookline and

sinker. I think is it's desperate. It's thirsty and it's weak. That's the thing, it's weak. And they're gazing at the White House saying, I want all of that butt. That's why, and it's clear right now, the Republican Party for what it is. They just want a strong man, right? That's what they want. They want an authoritarian, not like a make-believe one. He's like the Disney World authoritarian.

Who does he go? He punches down at women and people of color's like the Disney World authoritarian. Who does he go, he punches down at women and people of color and immigrants and Disney World? Which everybody loves. He's gotta be telling himself though, it worked for Trump. Why isn't it working for me? Yeah, because Trump is still there.

You can't out Trump Trump. So his only chance, I think originally, team to Santa was like, okay, there's a good chance he's gonna get locked up or get convicted. And then Trump's like, I don't care, I'm still running for president. And I think that's what, the standard sort of like had a meltdown.

They're like, oh my God, he is gonna run for president. Any might win the primary. Right, I think Trump is Cuban, by the way. Why do you think that? He paid a prostitute to not tell, so his wife wouldn't find out that he was cheating on a guy who'd arrested for that. He got arrested for stealing shit from work,

taking it back. I'm telling you, he lives in a handle. Ah! Ah! Donald Trump is Cuban. I just have two things to say about that. Pum-o-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d Come on in, Scott! Scott, Max, well, you gotta read him, the Orlando Sentinel fantastic stuff. It's like a wildlife documentary covering,

but it's like Nat Geo at this point. You just like, you need on Australian accent and just talk about like just the absolute backwards and craziness of. I just wish some of the breeds I covered were going extinct, but yes. Magatav, you got to get extend, but yes. I'm a bit... Magatav. You can go to the right, Meatball. I'm a bit...

I'm a bit... I'm a bit... I'm a bit... I'm a bit... I'm a bit... Will you remember earlier this year when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Department of Education basically canceled the AP black

history class because it was, I don't know, to Jewish maybe I'm not exactly sure what the complaint was, but last week the college board, which is the nonprofit education organization that administers AP advance placement courses and the SAT announced that the Florida education department quote effectively banned AP psychology in the state by instructing Florida superintendents that teaching foundational content on sexual orientation and gender identity is illegal under state law. End quote because of the so called don't say gay law. And then the state seemed to reverse course announcing that you could teach it, quote, in

its entirety in a manner that is age and developmentally appropriate in order to comply with the law. But now, at least a half a dozen school districts and counting across the state have said that they will not, in fact, offer the course. The public school district in one of those counties, Brevard, said outright that it was abiding by the education department's initial guidance of last week, saying in a statement, quote, in essence, if we don't teach all the content, our students will not receive AP credit. If we do teach all the content, our instructors will violate the law.

Therefore, we will not offer AP psychology at any of our high schools this year. And this is repeating all over the state, which of course was the intent of the law to create confusion and fear and dissent. Rachel Chapman is an award winning 17 year veteran psychology teacher at Freedom High School, appropriately named Freedom High School in Orlando, Florida and Central Florida. She teaches AP Psych in Orange County,

which is the eighth largest school district in the entire country and the fourth largest in the state of Florida. Rachel, are you afraid of the legal ramifications? If you teach this class that you've taught for nearly two decades, are you risking your career? Are you risking your freedom? Could you be arrested in the free state of Florida for teaching AP psychology? Currently, yes, the way that the law is stated, it talks about age developmentally appropriate, but that's not defined. So if we cover that content, then we could be arrested. We could lose our

teaching certification, which would mean we wouldn't be able to teach anymore in this state of Florida. Hey, Billy, why didn't you do your homework? Why don't I want my teacher to go to jail? I mean, I mean, this is so absurd. Were your kids' product of the Florida public school system? Yes, they were. Crop as I was. I'm in a functioning illiterate. I hope they receive a better education. I'm actually kidding.

The Miami-Dade County public school is actually pretty fantastic when I was a kid, but that also was like what, 30 years ago? For crying out loud, I mean, this is absolute utter insanity. Let me ask you this, Rachel, what, why does sexual orientation and gender identity have to be included in an AP psychology course?

When we look at psychology in general, we look at the study of psychology, it covers a broad range of topics. An AP psychology is what is known as a survey course. So the entire course has little bits and pieces of all of psychology in order for the students to get a well-rounded viewpoint of what psychology is in totem.

If we start taking out bits and pieces, then it's not psychology anymore. And a huge part of human development is identity, not just identity of your culture, not just identity, of your age group, not just identity of the country, living in a language you speak, but also the identity you have in regards to your personal gender and sexuality. So it ceases to be the subject that you're supposed to be teaching.

I mean, you can't just go in and kind of the well, the governor can have a line item veto on the curriculum because then it ceases to be the curriculum. Florida is experiencing, as we're about to embark upon a new school year. It's worst teacher shortage in history, one of the worst, if not the worst in the entire country. I believe it's now the Florida Education Association estimates 8,000 teachers short as of right now. And then they estimate another 6,000 vacancies for support staff.

Some districts like Monroe County down in the keys are forced to use virtual learning again going back to home. No, no, no, no. No, no, no. To ease the shortage because teachers are quitting, they are retiring, they are resigning, and it doesn't strike me as a lot of people are running to be hired and fill in these positions. Rachel, what is the impact that this is having, that you're experiencing, I don't know, of your school and your district from colleagues and for your students?

It's very difficult. There are kids who went to open house, who didn't have a teacher to go and meet. There are students who have holes in their schedules because we don't have enough teachers to fill in those positions. We have schools where they'll be relying on substitutes. If we can even guess substitutes to fill in those positions until they can find somebody.

So the shortage is real, it's a big deal, and students are the ones who are going to be hurt by it because they're not going to be getting the education that they deserve from the very beginning of the school year. Why, in your opinion, is this happening? It's very complicated. There's a couple different levels. In Florida, there is a compensation issue where our compensation has kind of been compressed because we had law saying we need to increase the starting salary, but that didn't increase

the veteran salary. So there's a lot of veterans making really close to what brand new teachers are making. And so that just waited a lot of people from staying in when they could have stayed in for longer. And if I'm not mistaken Florida still ranks 48th and teacher pay in the United States. Yes, it's very low. And as you know Florida is one of the the states where we're being hit the hardest by inflation. So that further compresses our salary and makes it so it can't go very far. Another issue, of course, is the current climate and culture where there's a lot of demonization of educators were called names and on the internet.

Some people have been calling educators as a whole groomers. And I know a lot of educators where they just don't want to deal with that anymore. And so they're leaving the profession. My son during COVID, those virtual dozen, man, I would walk into his bedroom and there'd be two TV screens up on the right would be his zoom class and on the left was Call of Duty and he'd be under the desk like low key play and and I'd be like Lorenzo, what are you doing? He's like that the entire class is in the

game with me. So man, well, Call of Duty is also not an inaccurate depiction of the public schools in this country today either. Rachel, you were speaking of course of the students. Reason for the season, right? That's why you do what it is that you do. You are there for them, and I know that you know this. Well, I mean, you're, you know, the staff at school, the teachers at schools, they spend more time with your kids in these years

than even you do. And the government has not only censored the curriculum, but the kinds of conversations you can have, one-on-one with these students. You are, I mean, this is just basic empathy, human interaction, the kind of guidance that children need. I'm not even children, teenagers, the people need when they're developing and at this age,

and they have questions, questions that even if they spend more time with their parents, they might be too scared to engage with. What is the feedback you're getting from some of your students about this moment in culture, about the idea that here they are on the eve of, you know, perhaps their senior year, their junior year, they're getting ready for, you know, to start preparing for college admissions, they need these AP credits and courses. How are they feeling? What are they saying to you? If you're allowed to have conversations

with them? A lot of them are afraid. We had, I was able to speak to a bunch of former students, and some of them still at the school, some of them not at the school, and the ones who are still at the school are very concerned because they want to have the best opportunity to get into a good college. They want to have the same opportunities as kids from any other state. And they are concerned that this is putting them at a disadvantage that any other school

is going to be looking at Florida schools, not as highly as maybe some other schools from other states where they haven't had these sort of restrictions. And these conversations are so important to have with the kids. Like you said, sometimes they're not comfortable talking with their parents, but sometimes they do become comfortable because they were able to talk about it with a teacher first. By limiting teachers, you're also going to be limiting conversations that they have at

home with their families because sometimes they just needs to run something by an adult that they know is going to care about them before they go to their own parents. Are the students talking to you at all about this moment in history, about the governor, about what the government's doing to the quality of their education and therefore the value of their diplomas, their reputation nationally when it comes to consideration for college, are they, is it for lack of a better term radicalizing them, are they, or politicizing them? I can say that there are a lot of students

who have recently in the past month gone and registered or pre-registered to vote who hadn't been interested in it before. So it is kind of triggering our response in a lot of students that maybe they weren't so interested in it before. So it is kind of triggering our response in a lot of students that maybe they weren't so interested in politics before, but they suddenly are right now. They're suddenly seeing how it might affect them.

Rachel Chapman, 17-year veteran public school teacher, the toughest job in the toughest place in the toughest time. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much for your service. I don't know how you wake up in the toughest time. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much for your service. I don't know how you wake up in the morning and get out of bed and fight another day. I mean, when all you want to do is go in and offer this to these kids, how do you do it? I mean, nothing like copious amounts of caffeine. How is it that you cope? It's the kids. The kids are amazing. They are incredible

little human beings. And when you see kind of the light goes on their eyes when they get something, when they learn something, it's really creates almost this this drug. You want to come back, you want that to happen again, you want to connect and you want them to learn. And when you see them enjoying the learning process, it really makes it easier to come in here,

forget everything that's going on in the outside world so that you can just have those moments in your classroom. Rachel, if you can't teach AP psychology this year or ever again, or for the foreseeable future, what will you do? What will you teach? For right now, we are moving to an alternative curriculum, something called Cambridge ACE, which is an international program created by Cambridge University in England. So the students can still have an advanced psychology class.

They can still potentially have college credits. The problem with the ACE program, though, is it's only doing the first year of a two year program. So a lot of out of state schools don't accept it for college credit. Wow, but the state of Florida public universities do, but the students who want to go out of state, they're having to sometimes choose to do something else or go to a private school

where they're able to take the courses they want. Once again, stuff that works in Florida and not working around the country, and it's mind boggling, you can't export a broken system. You can't build a crappy car, a crappier one than they build elsewhere and then make a living exporting that sort of thing. So perhaps the Florida of today is not the America of tomorrow and the adage will not prove true. In the meantime, thank God we have teachers like Rachel Chapman and thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for having me. comedian Will Lopez, Bay Club comedy at Lucali Pizza in South Beach. Every other Monday. Great comedy. In the before times when I got out to more comedy, you know, it's a funny comedy show in Miami. Get out of here, you serious? Absolutely.

How long? It's been six years, six and a half years. How congratulations. Not counting improvs, which is part of the reason why this is such an incredible comedy town. So many great people have come out of here. And that count in COVID. Not counting COVID.

Right. We were closed for COVID. Well, you survived a pandemic then. And I count in COVID. Not counting COVID. Right. We were closed for COVID for a long time. Like, survive a pandemic though. Yeah, that's impressive. Sure. Because I used to get out a lot in the before times pre-pandemic. And that was one of my favorite local comedy shows.

It's just like a fun scene. Dude, great. Rachel Wolson was on it. People that you've had on the show as your guest comics have all appeared through Neri, Brittany. You know, we've got Marcelo Hernandez who's now on SNL.

You used to do our show. You're hilarious. Yeah. But Monday nights can be challenging, but it gets packed. Yes. And it gets fun. It's not one of those like weird comedy nights

when you're like sitting in a place, mining your own business, having a drink, and all of a sudden there's like a pop-up comedy night that annoys people. Right. People are into it. People love it. To me, it's like the closest Miami comes to the seller in New York because people come there to work out stuff. It's very

intimate, very small. You know, 30 people, it's packed and you know, it's it's just phenomenal and it's and it's a free show that the pizza is incredible and it's just I'm glad that we get to put together a really good show for people on a Monday, which is amazing. And strike that great balance of just like local talent, you know, cold shirt. And then you get names and I'm like, oh shit, he's got a national tour of acts. Yeah, we've had a lot of great national people come through.

Absolutely. At Will, the MIA, or at Stardust, one official, and E official for his band, which we'll talk about in a minute. Thank you for being on and guest hosting the podcast. Well, you and I have a history. I mean, there was a sorted our brief but bitter affair. Absolutely. You are a guest on my podcast. I don't remember this. It was a win-win radio. It was during art battle. I know win-win radio. Like,

six years ago, Untitled was the name of the event. Amazing. The event was called Untitled. I'm supposed to remember this. Anyway, it's called entitled. You were gonna be like, where were we? On South Beach, in a big white tent. You were my guest, right? And I called Winwood Radio, I told him, I'm bringing Billy Corbin, and he's gonna be my guest.

And one of the interns texted me on the side, and said, look man, I'm a really big fan. Is it okay if I take his lanyard and I make something on it? And you know, presented to him. And I'm know, present the tomb and I'm like, okay cool I'm like, maybe she went to the you maybe she's a big cocaine cowboy fan. I don't know so we get the cane fans We go cave Miami we get to the front door and you walk in and she's looking at me And she's looking at you and she's looking at me and she's completely like has this weird confused face on them Like what's wrong? And then she showed me the lanyard that she wanted

to present to you. It was Billy Corgant from The Smatching Pumpkins. The best part of it was you and your reaction because you were so great about it. You were so gracious. You just, it happens all the time. That's what we walked away. And you just under your breath looked at me and said, not the the time. That's what we walked away. And you just under your breath looked at me and said,

not the first time. Yeah. On the moment the hair, that's the difference. And I gotta tell you, so Billy Corgan got at Billy on Twitter. Sure. And I guess I don't know if he was an early adopter or an investor or what happened,

but like he got at Billy. But here's the thing, when you wanna tweet at Billy Corgan, people go at BILLYCOR. And then my no but my no it's awesome for it. At Billy is him you have to stop there. So if you keep going you get me. I would auto fill back in the day. Pre-blue.

So I would get all that some of them are very nice, but some of them on Sunday after wrestling or something yet something to do with some wrestling league. And after that people would be like, on Sunday night, you're like, at Billy Corbin, like, stop messing with Daisy. I'm like, what the hell are you talking about? Apparently it was like some like wrestling thing that was happening on Sunday nights, and they would give me shit for Billy Corbin giving shit to Daisy, but I have like, in my phone, you'll see, I have a whole arsenal of like,

Billy Corbin gifs that I reply to people on Twitter who think that it's me. So that would be total nonstop action at TNA. TNA. Are we allowed to say that on the program? It's an acronym for Total Nonstop Action. Thank you. Thank you for reminding me. Don't say TNA.

Is that the law here in the TNA? Don't say TNA. So total nonstop action. So will you or not just to. See you in Florida. Total non-stop action. So, will you or not just to stand up? Communion. No, I am not. You diversified. I diversified.

Your bowl as well. I'm in your an AP psychology teacher. I'm an AP teacher. Out of work. Out of work. I'm a musician. I'm proud to say that. I've been a musician my entire life.

That's where really my heart and my soul is. And that's what I started comedy after my band broke up. And then COVID hit and that's when I started playing music again. What's it in your band? Star Dust 1. Star Dust 1 is the capsule that Major Nelson was in in Idream of Genie when he came down landed on the island. And that's what we're kind of doing.

We're playing like old school rock, like 90s alternative rock. And like imagine getting in a time machine and going back in time and playing that kind of music with today's technology, like recording and studios and production houses that can make something sound really big and great, and it's been a lot of fun. It reminds me of the time where I decided

that I was gonna write a play, and I was like, well, the money's not in document or filmmaking, the real money's in the theater, right? And so you decide like the real money isn't in sand of comedy, the real money isn't. I was the lead singer, Wahido was, I was touring around Latin America, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, planning for the 20,000 people in Mexico. Then, you know, hey, now I'm doing this. Thanks, Napster. So I had to answer. Right. So I took up stand of comedy-up comedy because I needed some sort of creative outlet.

And that was going gang busters and then COVID hit. I realized and woke up and said, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. And me and the rest of the guys in the band quarantined ourself at the Gibson showroom and started writing and wrote a record and now I'm a musician again. And it's awesome.

Signed to inter-cat records. It's an independent distributor here in Miami. They pay for all the videos and recording, and it's really having the time of my life. Where's the Gibson showroom? Gibson showrooms in Winwood. It's like right off Miami Avenue, North Miami Avenue.

Nice house, that space. It's an incredible space, and it's... I want to send my condolences to the entire Levitard family, because that place was really special. David, it's all of his artwork was in there and we wrote our entire album surrounded by Libel artwork. So it's a really amazing and incredible and comically perfect location.

That was very nice. That was very nice. It's hard to recover from that. I had to end the show last week with, you know, the brief kind of eulogy for Libo, and because I was kind of after that, I was sort of done. It's emotionally taxing. And for everybody here, obviously,

that was very nice. And I talked about like how artists feel emptiness, right? Like it's in their silence and you fill it with music. There's an empty wall or a canvas and you fill it with art or life or color or, you know, but it's very much a part of yourself. So like and everything that inspires you winds up on that recording or on that can.

It didn't inspire you. It didn't inspire you. Oh, absolutely. Big bang boom was a big thing that was behind the drums. And yeah, so while staring at that as I was helping write all the songs on this record, and doing comedy too, it inspires that as well. Like I love the fact that I can do,

I just love being creative. I love, I'm probably the only human being on this planet that can claim to have opened up for the Ramones and Andrew Schultz. Like it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a mic drop. Yeah Schultz. Like it's a... It's a mic drop. Yeah, well yeah, it's kind of it but it is something that I'm proud of and something that you know I'm gonna do for the rest of my life. It's just a happy to be called a creative and happy to be called a creative from

Miami because the city inspires in the cities an amazing place to be. Thank you for being here. Will Lopez here is a music video from Will's band Stardust 1 for the song Someday Soon Written in the Gibson Showroom in Miami's Again The same as if you'd never gone What a way to end I'm hanging in your way so long I can't let go It won't let me out Just wish that turn into the madness

Please, please, please, beg There are dreams Someday soon I will be the reason I will be the reason Forever thing I do Be the reason, I won't be the reason Forever think I do