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gaoau · 24 days

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if not reason, then the devil

to have a conversation with god, the greatest sinner walking this earth. talk to him, for He will listen.

pairing — fyodor dostoevsky x reader word count — 3.6k

( 1 corinthians 13:4-8 )

[name] sighs as they balance their cup of coffee on its saucer. scanning their eyes over the occupied seats, they find luck is not on their side this afternoon. there's a nice couple being attended to and another one chatting gleefully. business partners engaging in conversation, a foreigner by himself, and two friends chortling away. the tables inside are, unfortunately, just as busy. [name] fiddles with the strap of their bag in thought. it takes another defeated sigh, but they decide to simply head back to the counter and have their drink to go.

just as they turn to walk back into the shop, a voice calls out to them, "i've got an open seat here," is all it says. [name] throws a glance over their shoulder. it's the foreigner. he's looking them right in the eye, a friendly simper on his lips. "if you'd like to join me," fyodor prompts, gesturing to the empty chair with his palm.

from the ushanka, [name]'s first guess is that he's russian—or at least some kind of slav. not that it matters. when it comes down to it, he seems to be horribly anemic and probably wouldn't pose much of a threat. they contemplate their options for another brief moment. with a shrug, they choose to take his kind offer.

"thanks." they smile at him, setting down their cup across from his. "sorry to bother."

he closes his eyes when he chuckles, "ah, you japanese people, always so apologetic." the comment pricks [name] in the back of their head. it's not necessarily offensive, but it does feel like payback for their own stereotyping thoughts. fyodor notices their fleeting frown. funny foreigner. "feel free to get on with your homework. i won't disturb you." he takes a sip from his cup of tea to emphasize his words.

[name] says, "thank you," and starts pulling out their laptop from their bag. loose papers and a few pens so they can finish their work with a deadline around the corner. they waste no time in swiftly typing away on their keyboard, checking over their notes to build their essay.

it's two paragraphs later that they flicker their attention up to the friendly foreigner who offered up his solitude. what a lucky guess this nameless man made to know this was homework.

their fingers continue typing on instinct as they carefully analyze fyodor. he's got one earphone in, eyes closed, taking an occasional sip from his drink. he politely grins at the waitress when she comes over to refill his tea. but he's very quiet and distant. [name] can tell—people-watching, one of their many habits. aloof, smart, making sure to reserve his energy. it's interesting to find with one glance that he bites his nails until he bleeds. for how collected he appears to be, it's certainly an interesting quirk.

when he feels [name]'s attention return to their screen, fyodor opens his eyes to assess them in turn. conversational, focused, and they act surprised every time they remember they have a cup of coffee to sip from. they use quite the messy handwriting to scribble down abbreviations and unfinished words. from the few characters he can properly read, they appear to be interested in criminology. how arrogant for a human to attempt to study the same brain that taints them with sin.

how innocent.

fyodor allows four minutes and thirty-seven seconds of silence to pass by between his new subject and him. the song on the radio changes while the waitress leaves after refilling his cup. he takes a sip from his tea and then stares at his reflection. "ah, danse of the knights…" on the code sheet inside his brain, the cannibalism plan is going accordingly. he hums to himself, pleased with this foreseen course of events.

just as he thought, [name] reacts to the unprompted sound of his voice. they halt their typing and turn their head up to look at him curiously. fyodor makes sure to hold eye contact. inviting, he raises his brows, carefully wrapping the strings of their brain tightly around his fingers. it takes them a second to bite. there's a faint crease on their forehead, hesitant to engage in conversation past their ingrained politeness. but he expects more from them than this.

when they reach for their pen and relax their shoulders, fyodor knows he's got them right where he wants them. "it's not every day you see foreigners around here," they start, a smile painting their face, "everyone usually sticks to tokyo." a light-hearted chuckle tumbles from their tongue. quicker than anticipated.

"well, i have business here." he sets his cup back on its saucer. the clink of ceramic against ceramic marks the start of a timer. "i knew japan wasn't welcoming of foreigners, but i didn't think you'd try to kick me out like that."

[name] laughs, "oh, it's not the foreigner part." they smile softly as they glance down at his hands. with their pen, they make a vague gesture towards his fingers. "i usually steer clear of nail-biters."

fyodor blinks, brows rising. he takes a look at his own hands. it's true that his nails don't have a very healthy appearance. they seem brittle and they are, but he admits this is a strange observation on their part. it's perfect.

"you don't look like you get overwhelmed easily, so i'm guessing you do it out of understimulation." it's a smart guess. fyodor leans back on his chair to get comfortable. fidgeting with their pen helps them lay out their thoughts properly. "those are usually the worst type of nail-biters," they finish their assessment with a polite grin.

"that's quite accurate. are you pursuing psychology?"

"minoring. i'm studying criminology."

he knew that. he managed to gather that much from the unreadable scribbles on their notes. this interest in criminals they seem to have makes fyodor want to laugh out loud. they're studying criminology and they're having the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to converse with a terrorist—albeit unbeknownst to them. he has high hopes that [name] will provide exactly what he wants. with the strings looped around his fingers, he tugs.

"interesting…" he lets silence hang for a second. then, "what can you say about me? apart from the understimulated nail-biting, of course."

surprise washes over [name]'s face instantly. "are you a criminal?" they're skeptical.

"let's say i am."

"hypothetically." they're naïve. they stare into his eyes. fyodor simply offers them a simper. [name] nods to themself. "alright, hypothetically. let's say you've murdered someone. how have you done it?"

"i haven't"

their eyes narrow. "i get it." they're naïve, but they're not stupid. "you'd make somebody else do it for you. are you confident in your manipulation skills?"

"very."

"okay…" their voice drifts in thought as they process the information. profiling requires observation, from the smallest of mannerisms to the strongest inflections. "makes me wonder why you wanted me to sit here," they mumble under their breath.

but fyodor hears them clearly. "entertainment, of course."

"then i'll try to live up to your expectations," they chuckle, leaving their pen among their papers. "i'll take a guess and say the ends justify the means for you." [name] stares into his eyes with careful attention. he nods. the victorious grin that spreads over their lips is instinctual. "yeah, checks out. i chalked up the fact that you called out to me when no else did to you being a foreigner, but you knew i'd entertain you. you're not only confident, but also smart, observant, and awfully calculative."

fyodor tilts his head only slightly, harmless. he wears a gentle smile. "why, thank you."

"now your turn." they've found something better than a pen to fidget with. "i'm helping you kill time here." they've found an interesting profile in the wild to pick at. "are you waiting for something?"

"that's right. some comrades are working on the next step of our plan."

"plan? what's that?"

"we'll get there," he dismisses. for someone who doesn't quite share his intellect, [name] is surprisingly elusive. there's not much fyodor can read in hunches. they hum in response. the strings around his fingers loosen the closer they get. he sits up straight again. "let me ask you something else. as someone who's analyzed many different criminals' brains, i'd assume, what's your view on them?" fyodor tugs.

[name] follows without question. "they're… interesting. they usually come from abusive backgrounds; both psychological and physiological trauma play an incredibly huge part on what they do and how they react."

"terrible, isn't it?"

a shrug makes their shoulders jump. "sure. i think what they do is even more terrible. i understand the brain works differently for everyone, and their trauma is very much real, but i don't have any sympathy for horrible people."

"oh. how forward of you. a little mean, too."

"well, suffering isn't really an excuse."

"i agree, i agree," fyodor hums, nodding. he plays with [name]'s strings, looping their attention around his finger to bring them closer. his lips curl up into a grin. "then, what do you think of wiping them out?"

[name] blinks, brows raised, a mask of perplexity. "wipe?" fyodor stares into their eyes as they ponder. he considers this is the moment they fold and retreat, unable to handle his eccentric nature. but they reach into his brain and grip his mind tight. "yeah, we should get rid of them."

how beautiful it is, he thinks, to find a sinner with pure thoughts. someone who proudly wears bloodstains on their hand for the sake of a cleaner, perfect world. how wonderful, He thinks, to hear of a sinful saint walking among a sea of blasphemous eyes and experts in greed. they're a lack of natural chaos in a world of brute beasts, and like beasts he will make sure they perish. [name] shall be saved, he decides. He'll give them a different body; He'll rebuild their heart from the start.

carefully, he reels them closer. "then, i'll tell you about our plan."

"oh, enlighten me."

"this world, you agree, is rife with crime and sin."

[name] pauses briefly. then they nod. "not completely, but yes." they don't hesitate.

they do not hesitate. a faint frown pulls down on his brows. he worries they're too lost, led astray by false teachers. "it should be cleaned, right?" he knows they will nod in response. so [name] nods. fyodor leans back on his chair. "that is our plan. i'm going to end this wicked, sinful world. and i'm going to make it into what god meant it to be. a perfect world."

"god?"

"yes," he chuckles, "humans are far too foolish to even repent. the only way to save you now that you're this far gone is to return to him."

"you make it sound like repentance is necessary. not everyone is a sinner."

"of course they are. breathing, thinking, all of it is a sin."

"fine, but not every sinner seeks repentance."

"that's because you're lost." he offers [name] a grin, head tilting slightly and eyes closed. when he meets their gaze again, they're intently listening to his every word. they're tangled in their own brain. "not to worry, i'll make sure to hold your hand and lead you to salvation."

"what if we don't want salvation, though?" accursed words that they sigh; the same ones that rule with chaos and seduce the unstable. the broken cries that turn the world so blue.

"what could you possibly mean?"

"that as foolish and sinful as people are, it's that innate anarchy that makes humanity charming."

fyodor knows perpendicular lines meet only once at a single, lonely intersection. he knows they've met and they're only drifting farther apart. "ah, that's nothing but your mistaken belief." but He also knows lines can be bent.

[name] blinks, taken aback. "not that beliefs can be mistaken. they're beliefs, they're subjective."

a chuckle drifts from fyodor's tongue. he grins to himself as he takes another sip from his tea. "of course you'd think that." his voice is airy, weightless, a shepherd herding his stubborn cattle. the chime of his cup against the saucer rings like a warning bell. "and it's just like that, with those thoughts, that you fail to realize how your own beliefs and values blind you. can't you feel how it all leaves you hungry and lost and empty inside?"

"no."

fyodor's smile vanishes, fluttering like a feather and drifting in the wind. he glares through narrowed eyes at [name]'s mistaken beliefs.

"no, i can't." they glare back, not with defiance, but with pure-hearted ignorance. they're lost. "humans are funny; i think we're fascinating creatures. i mean, there are exceptions, y'know, some should simply just go, we'd be better off without them. but in being lost—as you call it—humans find themselves. for better or for worse."

"well, this is the age of idolized suicide. humans would rather cling to these empty feelings than accept help. that's the only way they believe they'll make it."

"and you think leaving people's lives up to thoughts and prayers will accomplish anything?"

"tell me, do you believe in god at all?"

"i believe in religion."

He sighs, "see, humans are so foolish, they want to believe in what they know won't make them feel helpless and powerless, even if they're aware that belief is mistaken."

"and what makes your belief true? why aren't you one of these sinful humans?"

the smile that creeps onto his lips promises joy to every soul that has been led astray. "i'm the savior that will free us from the chaos," He speaks with entrancing grandiloquence and charming confidence. with grace, he tugs at every string from [name]'s brain.

"but human nature is chaotic; why would you wipe it all?" they pull back.

fyodor hums in thought. he searches for a different approach, an idea that will snap their eyes open and shatter them so he can rearrange the pieces correctly. "have you heard about this phenomenon in which some people are born with special abilities?" he returns their question with one of his own.

"i've heard a few things here and there, but i've never met anyone with one. though, with the strange things that have happened in this city, i can believe it."

"well, i'll let you in on a secret." he leans closer towards [name], lowering his voice. effectively, they mimic him without question. they stare at him, ears pricked, and fyodor grins to himself. at their core, they're quite simple. "i'm an ability user."

they frown to themself for a second. they find it hard to believe a feeble, anemic man like this could possibly have any sort of power. funny foreigner. "really, now?" funny foreigner. he really does look like he'd topple over like a house of cards if they touch him. but they stay close to listen to anything He has to say. "and can you disclose what it is or is that, you know, confidential?"

"you don't believe until you see?"

"i guess you can say that. words are just words."

"well, it's nothing impressive, really. i can simply read minds." he shrugs, dismissive, as if it were an every day thing. then he looks [name] dead in the eye, grinning. "i am, in fact, rather anemic, since you were wondering."

their brows jump. "oh, my bad. yeah, that was rude, sorry about that." as He chuckles to himself, ready to carry on with his proselytizing, [name] hums. "you might wanna look into iron supplements for that."

it's for half a second that surprise flashes over His eyes. he blinks blankly at them before letting a chuckle tumble from his lips. [name] admits they don't know how these supernatural abilities work, but they do know how to read human reactions. from his raised brows to his amused laughter afterward, they wonder how much truth there is behind his words. he clearly did not read ahead of their comment.

with a welcoming grin, He makes sure they don't stray too far away from his hand. he pulls from the strings tight. "you can ask, i don't mind," he reassures. his intellect gives way for his lies to pass off as truths. without allowing them a word, he responds to their unspoken thoughts, "your brain lights up before you even have a thought, which is what my ability allows me to read. i simply choose when to activate it, otherwise it'd be overwhelming to hear everyone's brains lighting up."

"i see…" they nod their head, following along with His explanation. then they lean back on their chair, looking into his eyes with interest. "so what's that got to do with anything?"

"these abilities, these inequalities, they're the most chaotic and wicked sin to have ever tainted humanity."

[name] nods in understanding. "so… because there are people like you, with singularities different and therefore unequal, they are sinners?"

"correct."

"and you want to wipe this sin clean from the earth?"

"precisely, i will."

it takes a second for [name] to properly process all of His preaching. how fascinating to hear his convictions. "then… you'll wipe and remove yourself from this world too, right?" how wonderful to listen to anything He has to say, however nonsensical it may sound.

"i'll spill whoever's blood. it's all for the world as it's ought to be." but fyodor smiles.

"do you believe in god?"

"of course. if you let yourself be guided by his hand, you too can reach salvation."

"then why are you trying to become him?"

it's their own heresy, fyodor thinks, that traps and stains them. with each of their responses, they slowly earn the awaiting flames of salvation. He will relinquish them from all their sins.

"i'm not," He answers, "i simply see all these lost lambs, desperate to try and run, going in circles straight back to the slaughter, and i can't help but pity them. you're even endearing to a point." He softly smiles with promises of freedom. "i must guide you to the right path on god's will."

a pondering frown pulls down on [name]'s brows. they stare Him right in the eye as they ask, "and is leading people to this right path really all that great?" their question hangs in the air while fyodor stares back. quietly, His smile fades. [name] waits for His answer, for anything He can come up with to convince them of His righteousness. "you'd sacrifice even yo—"

"no," He cuts them off, "i am that great."

[name] is speechless, letting each of His words seep through their skin and invade their bloodstream. everything He says is nothing but nonsense and they don't believe any of it. whether it is salvation or damnation, it does not matter, because He speaks of unreal ideals. but they become charmed by his grandiloquent speeches. He is incredibly self-important and undeniably delusional, but [name] can only find it beautiful.

time seems to freeze while the two stare at one another. fyodor grins as He gives the strings of [name]'s brain one final tug. it's the last push they need to fall completely into the right path He has carved for them. salvation awaits them. by His hand alone, He will take them from the mud of their own mistaken beliefs and build them back up correctly.

[name] opens their mouth to retort, but the waitress interrupts before they can say anything. "another cupful, sir?" she asks politely. His empty cup signals the end of their timer.

fyodor mimics her expression, answering, "no, thank you." the waitress leaves with a nod, and He turns back to the lost lamb across from Him. in His earphone, the music playing on the radio changes. bach's st. matthew passion. "now's the time," He mumbles to himself. without another word, He gets up from his seat.

[name] blinks up at Him. their brows bend in a disappointed grimace. "you're leaving already?"

"i'm afraid we'll have to end our conversation here. it was quite delightful, i must admit." He offers them one last smile. may they swallow up their sorrows, knowing soon He will bring upon them the day the earth shall die.

"oh, of course. it was… very interesting. food for thought."

as He stands, looking down at them on their chair, fyodor chuckles to himself, "i'm glad." He offers [name] His open hand, staring into their eyes with an inviting gaze and a warm simper. it takes them a second before they react and reach for the hand of judgment. "i never caught your name, by the way," He comments off-handedly, giving them a firm shake of acknowledgement.

"oh, i'm [surname] [name]."

"Fyodor Dostoevsky."

"it's a pleasure."

"the pleasure is all mine."

this is His farewell. with one last smile, [name] lets His hand disappear from their fingers. it feels cold—it feels like they just shook hands with the devil Himself. they've signed their name on His contract. fyodor nods His head as a goodbye before promptly heading for the exit. [name] watches Him; they witness his crime and His punishment as He's arrested.

they stare at their cold palm, wondering why God didn't kill them when He had the chance.

( proverbs 27:6 )

note — and you might be wondering agosu what the fuck. and idk bro the wolves were stronger so in all seriousness, i do like fyodor. im sorry bones hates him and draws him so ugly but his brain is shaped like a tesseract and i cant perceive more than three dimensions so its fascinating. i like him more than i like dazai cause misanthropy is always a plus in my book. i wanna have a chat with him over tea and hope he kills me by the time were done a few things. uhhh im not religious but i had to research bible verses for this. i used only three. look them up if youre interested. (proverbs 27:6 in the footnotes, 1 corinthians 13:4-8 in the title, and 2 peter 2 somewhere in the narration i dont remember.) also this has some influence from dazai osamus kakekomi uttae, if youre interested in that. i used crime and punishment against dazai, so why not return the favor for fyodor :tom: speaking of, the fic title is a quote from rodya in crime and punishment. its the depressed russian equivalent of "fuck it we ball" cause bro skipped out of his apartment to go commit a double homicide thumbs up emoji i think thats it. this took me more than a month cause it tried to kill me on multiple occasions. drink water have day

—あごす (agosu) • 2023

#if not reason then the devil #bungou stray dogs #fyodor dostoevsky #fyodor dostoevsky x reader #fyodor x reader #bungou stray dogs x reader #bsd #bsd x reader

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yuri-alexseygaybitch · 2 months

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Bi*Ware "most hated character" lists literally are just:

- non-white person (especially Black/brown women)

- extremely racially-coded non-human character that can basically be described as "space/fantasy Asian/Muslim/Jew/Slav"

- character with slightly more emotional complexity than Wonder Bread

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slav-every-day · 5 months

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#my best friend actually also had her first date today #and as she has told me many times #she is absolutely Normal about it #(that’s code for it went well and she’s slightly freaking out about that)#slav #slav every day #voltron

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renonv · 5 months

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Im on fucking cold meds and going insane and Slav posting but these characters are flavio coded to me

#There’s not a lot of captain vrungel screenshots of the agent but he came to me in the dream last night #GENIUS DETECTIVE FOREVER FAVE WILL LITERSLLY DRSW FLAVIO SS HIM

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vladdyissues · 6 months

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Please give us som Vlad headcanons!!! :)

Oh boy, you're gonna wish you'd never asked 😆 Long post ahead

🎧 Vlad is a huge fan of 80s synth-pop and new wave. Depeche Mode, The Cure, The Smiths, Duran Duran, Tears For Fears, Pet Shop Boys, a-ha, and New Order, to name just a few.

🎵 On a similar (quarter) note, music from the late 70s and early 80s is still difficult for him to listen to because it reminds him of the years he was pining for Maddie, the accident, and being hospitalized. Mid-80s music and beyond, when he began to take his life back and build his wealth and power, is his "good old days" music.

🎹 Another music headcanon: In Familiar, I hinted at Vlad being a pianist. I think he'd look pretty hot playing a saxophone, maybe even a trumpet. And Martin Mull is a pretty good guitarist and singer, so Vlad also having those talents would be really cool. But I like to believe that Vlad plays the geekiest, dorkiest, nerdiest, most Slav-coded instrument of all: the accordion. Just imagine him torturing Danny and Sam and Tucker with polka music and ballads about cheese while on a camping trip. Maybe Wulf howling in agony from somewhere in the woods.

🧀 Yeah, he’s basically the negaverse equivalent of Weird Al.

👂 Vlad got his ear pierced in the mid-90s.

🔥 Despite being a fire specter ("having a fire core", to use the phandom terms), Vlad loves the cold. Winter is his favorite season, Christmas his favorite holiday. A bit of a spoiler for either chapter 13 or 14 of Familiar: Vlad is a superb ice skater.

💔 Besides his mother, Maddie was the only woman Vlad ever loved.

🐄 Vlad grew up the son of a poor Wisconsin dairy farmer. His mother was a first-generation Romanian* immigrant. He was the first member of his family to go to college, and on a full scholarship. He has no siblings. (*I may adapt Vlad’s nationality depending upon the story/art/situation, but generally I like to HC him as Romanian, which you can see on his backpack here in this AU.)

👊 Vlad was a victim of bullying in his teen years. Because of his first name and his ethnicity—not to mention his appearance and disposition: skinny, gangly, "ugly", shy, nerdy, poor—Halloween was always a miserable time for him: getting pelted with plastic vampire fangs in the hallways at school; cruel nicknames like "Count Vladislob" or "Vladis-louse"; racist remarks about his Romani mother; "Bleh bleh! I vant to suck your bluud!" It was awful.

✌️ Because he spent so many years being made to feel ashamed of his unusual name, when he became rich and successful after obtaining his ghost powers, he put his name and initial everywhere. V for Vlad.

🏈 Vlad got his love of Green Bay from his father. Apart from a shared surname, it was one of the only two (2) things he and his dad had in common.

🔧 Working on farm machinery like tractors and hay balers was the other. Vlad and his dad would often fix the farm equipment themselves rather than hire a mechanic—mostly out of necessity. Vlad is still pretty good with a monkey wrench, though in college his focus shifted from engineering to physics after meeting Jack and Maddie.

🚀 Vlad grew up in the sixties. Space race, the moon landing, the Cold War. Every kid his age had space fever. Vlad was no exception. His bedroom walls were a collage of stars, rockets, shuttles, astronauts, and cosmonauts. Yuri Gagarin was his hero. He wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up. (Just like Danny.)

🩸 I mentioned this on another post, but I'll add it here, too: Vlad's obsession with gaining more power stems from the trauma and weakness he experienced when he was hospitalized. He made a vow to never be that helpless again.

🪦 Both of Vlad's parents were dead by the time he got out of the hospital. He was estranged from the rest of the Masters family and therefore had no one to turn to.

👶 Because of this, Vlad became obsessed with having a family of his own. Ironically, the accident sterilized him. He will never be able have biological children.

🍪 Some of Vlad’s happiest memories are baking with his mother. He had (and still does have) quite a sweet tooth—and a penchant for cooking.

#annnd i think that's a good place to stop. for now #danny phantom #vlad masters #vlad plasmius #dp headcanons #meta #many of these ideas appear in familiar. so if they look ''familiar'' that's why #fic: familiar #asks

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 9 months

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The Daily Don

* * * *

President Biden to name national monument for Emmet Till and his mother.

The brutal torture and murder of Emmett Till followed by his mother’s decision to hold an “open casket” funeral changed America. In 1955, a young Black teenager, Emmett Till, was abducted and killed because a white woman accused Till of “whistling” at her and grabbing her wrist. (The woman later recanted the accusations during an interview for a book.) Till’s nearly unrecognizable body was pulled from a river, where it was weighted with a 75-pound cotton gin fan secured to his neck by barbed wire. Nearly 250,000 people walked past his casket, and hundreds of thousands more saw photos of Till’s mutilated body in his casket.

Two white men were charged with the murder and acquitted by an all-white jury. The defendants confessed to the crime a few months later in an interview given to Look Magazine—for which they were paid $4,000, a hefty sum in 1956. Having been previously acquitted, they could not be tried again for murder because of the Constitution’s double jeopardy prohibition.

Emmett Till’s murder and his mother’s bravery in holding an open-casket funeral galvanized the nascent civil rights movement and helped to inspire a generation of civil rights leaders, including Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. On Monday, President Biden announced that he is declaring three sites as a national monument to Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley. See NYTimes, Biden to Name National Monument for Emmett Till and His Mother. (This article is accessible to all.)

President Biden’s actions come at a moment of renewed overt racism in America. Florida’s new history curriculum includes prompts asking students to consider ways in which slavery “benefitted” enslaved persons by giving them skills they could use after emancipation. See Florida’s State Academic Standards—Social Studies, 2023. The linked document includes the following “benchmark” standard (on page 6):

Benchmark Clarifications: Clarification 1: Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.

The proposed “benchmark clarification” is a stunning revision to an institution where white owners profited from forced labor by enslaved persons. To suggest that any part of that forced labor was “beneficial” is a cruel and dishonest whitewashing of a vile institution. But Ron DeSantis nonetheless defended a “pro-slavery” curriculum that his culture war unleashed in Florida. See The Independent, DeSantis defends Florida curriculum that suggests slaves benefited from forced labor.

But the Academic Standards linked above are far worse than the media portrays. The issue is not a single snippet—the language quoted above—it is the entire approach to teaching the history of slavery in the United States. I invite you to review pages 5 through 10 of the Academic Standards, and you will discover that much of the curriculum is devoted to describing slavery in Africa, Europe, and Asia—apparently to make the disgusting point that “everyone else was doing it.” For example, the “benchmark clarifications” on page 9 include the following:

Benchmark Clarifications: Clarification 1: Instruction includes how trading in slaves developed in African lands (e.g., Benin, Dahomey). Clarification 2: Instruction includes the practice of the Barbary Pirates in kidnapping Europeans and selling them into slavery in Muslim countries (i.e., Muslim slave markets in North Africa, West Africa, Swahili Coast, Horn of Africa, Arabian Peninsula, Indian Ocean slave trade). Clarification 3: Instruction includes how slavery was utilized in Asian cultures (e.g., Sumerian law code, Indian caste system). Clarification 4: Instruction includes the similarities between serfdom and slavery and emergence of the term “slave” in the experience of Slavs. Clarification 5: Instruction includes how slavery among indigenous peoples of the Americas was utilized prior to and after European colonization.

All of the above smacks of a white-racist defense of slavery in the US. Thankfully, Joe Biden is resisting the effort by the right to erase America’s shameful history of slavery and Jim Crow laws that enforced a system of apartheid for nearly a century after the Civil War.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

#Emmett Till #The Daily Don #Robert B. Hubbell #Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter #racism #Benchmark Clarifications #Academic Standards #monuments

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