Haven't you heard? Ron DeSantis' Florida is teaching students that slavery actually benefitted slaves -- an authoritarian and racist whitewash of an evil institution. That's the story many on the Left have been indignantly peddling over the last few days, led by Vice President Kamala Harris. She lobbed the allegation on social media, then traveled to Florida to make her point in person. Her point is a repugnant, politically-motivated, racial lie. We'll explain why below, but first, here's Harris energetically challenging President Biden for the title of racial-demagogue-in-chief:
Extremists are pushing forward revisionist history. They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us, and we will not stand for it. pic.twitter.com/ipCXuGjWTw
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) July 20, 2023
Extremist so-called leaders want to erase history with lies. We will not have it. pic.twitter.com/zo79c3M0v5
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 22, 2023
She's lying, passionately and intentionally. In the second clip, Harris makes a string of false and misleading claims. The decries "book bans," echoing a popular talking point recently regurgitated by former President Barack Obama (whose administration once famously argued in favor of book bans at the US Supreme Court). Setting aside the flurry of book bans led by 'progressives' in her own state, Harris is deliberately ignoring the fact that the highest profile so-called book ban in Florida involves material so explicitly pornographic that local news outlets couldn't show the images displayed during the governor's press conference about the issue. Harris should be asked whether she supports sexually explicit images in grade school libraries.
She also invoked the state's "don't say gay" law, repeating a misnomer coined by activists. The core of that law bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for K-3 students, and it's widely popular. An updated version of the law expanded it to cover K-12, with age-appropriate exceptions in settings like health and sexual education classes. Does Harris believe gender identity should be taught to six-year-olds by public school teachers? Will she ever be asked questions like this, or will she just dishonestly bloviate, unchallenged, from behind a podium? Then there are the new slavery assertions, in which she accuses "extremists" of seeking to "replace history with lies" in order to "gaslight" the public. In fact, she is the extremist lying and gaslighting about history, in order to whip up racially-tinged fury among under-informed voters, entirely for political purposes. It's shameful.
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At National Review, Charles Cooke details what he describes as "a brazen lie. It’s an astonishing lie. It’s an evil lie. It is so untrue — so deliberately and cynically misleading — that, in a sensible political culture, Harris would be obligated to issue an apology:"
The list [of slavery-related required instruction points in Florida's curriculum] is extremely long. That’s because, pace Harris, there’s a lot in there. If you are able to read it and conclude that the single reference to slaves developing skills (which I’ve bolded) is indicative of the narrative direction of the course, rather than a tiny (and correct) part of it, then you are beyond saving and you deserve to live your life as an ignoramus. There is simply no way of perusing this course and concluding that it “gaslights” people or whitewashes slavery. Among many, many other things, it includes sections on “the conditions for Africans during their passage to America”; “the living conditions of slaves in British North American colonies, the Caribbean, Central America and South America, including infant mortality rates”; “the harsh conditions and their consequences on British American plantations (e.g., undernourishment, climate conditions, infant and child mortality rates of the enslaved vs. the free)”; “the harsh conditions in the Caribbean plantations (i.e., poor nutrition, rigorous labor, disease)”; “how the South tried to prevent slaves from escaping and their efforts to end the Underground Railroad”; the “overwhelming death rates” caused by the practice; the many ways in which “Africans resisted slavery”; “the ramifications of prejudice, racism and stereotyping on individual freedoms”; and “the struggles faced by African American women in the 19th century as it relates to issues of suffrage, business and access to education.” Many of these modules apply to Florida specifically.
Others have noted that the rigorous, comprehensive curriculum was crafted by scholars, including black experts, some of whom have pushed back publicly against the sort of criticism being spearheaded by the Vice president:
Want the truth on Florida’s African American History Standards? See statement below from experts who crafted them.
— Alex Lanfranconi (@AlexLanfran) July 20, 2023
“Any attempt to reduce slaves to just victims of oppression fails to recognize their strength, courage and resiliency during a difficult time in American history.” pic.twitter.com/7pR8GBFu2l
Harris and company aren’t claiming that the one sub-note was poorly worded, but that this is part of an intentional effort to cover up history and downplay slavery. A claim so conspiratorial & absurd that I find it hard to believe anyone pushing that line is acting in good faith.
— AG (@AGHamilton29) July 22, 2023
Harris et al are mendaciously cherry-picking a single sentence in a 216-page document as somehow representative of Florida's efforts to teach children about black history, including the evil stain of slavery. It's breathtakingly misleading and grotesquely unfair and inaccurate. That single sentence is a minuscule fraction of what the curriculum calls for. That minuscule fraction also happens to be factually true. The governor's press secretary points to an encyclopedia published with the impriumatur of Oxford and Columbia universities' scholarship. The relevant passage:
A system of apprenticeship emerged that further developed the skills of enslaved craftspeople while enriching slaveholders. Slaves were apprenticed to cabinetmakers, silversmiths, goldsmiths, printers, and engravers. In some cases these skills created benefit for the slaves; some were able to purchase their own freedom, and others fled, assured of their ability to earn a living.
The point is not that slavery was a beneficial jobs or skills program for enslaved people. No one is saying that, and no one believes it. The point, made at the margins of a much broader discussion, is that in some cases, slaves exploited their skills for personal benefit, including shedding the shackles of slavery. This minor note shouldn't be over-emphasized in the wider context of slavery, of course, and Florida's curriculum doesn't do that. The people doing the over-emphasizing are Kamala Harris and her leftist cohorts. They're distorting reality on purpose -- not to fight gaslighting, but to gaslight. Not to defend history, but to attack it. Not to preserve truth, but to score cheap partisan points. And they're doing all of this by means of stirring misplaced racial grievance. It's appalling. Florida Democrats are piling on, demanding that the state's Hispanic education commissioner (who's aggressively fighting back against these smears) resign, while their allies in the teachers unions preen on television. They're shameless hacks:
Not only did the teachers’ union sit in on our workgroup’s public meetings, but they COMPLIMENTED the new African American History Standards.
— Alex Lanfranconi (@AlexLanfran) July 21, 2023
All of this is simply political theater.
Florida’s new standards comprehensively teach the whole truth about our nation’s history. https://t.co/dYatZMjv8p
I'll leave you with DeSantis responding directly to Harris' performative, fact-allergic outrage:
.@RonDeSantis responds to @VP's stunt and lies in Florida today:
— Bryan Griffin (@BryanDGriffin) July 21, 2023
"Look that may have worked in the past—nobody's buying their nonsense anymore... All she's doing is ignoring the responsibilities that the administration has... They're dropping the ball."
Reverse the decline.… pic.twitter.com/KQaba2jPHL
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