Steven JP Dionne: Censorship is a tool of a racist society

To The Daily Sun,

There has been a lot of conversation these days pursuant to HB 1255 and censorship.

This is a terrific piece of creative legislation; the author uses the word "advocate" vs. educates (BS). Peel away all of the superfluous vernacular, the last verse of paragraph two reveals the sinister intent of this piece of gesetzgebend. "Such prohibition includes but is not limited to teaching that the United States was founded on racism." Not "advocating" for, no, simply teaching the truth, is prohibited.

To ignore the facts is one thing, to teach our children a fabricated version of American history is an insidious plot, equal to those of history’s most hateful regimes.

One recent comment expressed the concern 1255 would "stymie inquiry", a gross understatement. This bill's intent is to completely suffocate the truth of American history. Designed to never teach our children, white Europeans nearly exterminated an entire race of North American natives. Stole their land. Kidnaped their children, to be assimilated in the whiteman’s school. Never to learn, the entire southern agro-economic system was dependent on the enslavement of kidnaped Africans. Never to learn white industrialists during late 19th and early 20th centuries hired armed security guards with the express intent of gunning down strikers, who dared to insist on fair wages and safer working conditions (a.k.a. the Pullman Strike in Chicago, and Pennsylvania coal fields). What flag-waving American would dare suggest the U.S. economy was and is being built on the back of the disadvantage and working class?

Today, the application of racism is far more sophisticated. Prior to the impact of COVID, wages in this country flatlined, for over a decade. During the same period, corporations continued to amass record profits, the highest retained earnings in history, borrow money at the lowest rate ever realized and paid the lowest percentage of taxes in history. Yes, economic discrimination is racism in a different suit coat.

I must admit reading certain writings about HB 1255 has been educational. For instance, I never realized the Democrats are a bunch of "segregationists". Funny, I could have sworn, it was a New England "leftie" who authored the '64 Civil Rights Act.

I’m certain the (1,200) extremist, U.S. hate groups tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Office are just packed with liberal lefties.

It must have been terribly frustrating for "liberty-loving conservatives" to have witnessed socialist Democrats breaking down the doors of democracy last January. I feel your concern, "Jim Crow" Democratic administrations, running around south of the Mason-Dixon Line, attempting to recreate a racial apartheid south.

Tragically, Censorship 1255 is not the only meritless legislation currently floating around our state house, the "gestank" of a single authoritarian/autocratic party running state government is oppressive.

Regardless of which side of one’s mouth utter the words, mandating the exclusion of any facet of education is censorship. Simply, censorship is a tool of a racist society...period.

Steven JP Dionne

Laconia