Florida Schools Will Teach How Slavery Brought 'Personal Benefit' to Black People
By: Allison Quinn (The Daily Beast)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty
Middle school students in Florida will soon be taught that slavery gave Black people a "personal benefit" because they "developed skills."
After the Florida Board of Education approved new standards for African American history on Wednesday, high school students will be taught an equally distorted message: that a deadly white mob attack against Black residents of Ocoee, Florida, in 1920 included "acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans."
Dozens of Black residents were killed in the massacre, which was perpetrated to stop them from voting.
According to members of the board, that distorted portrayal of the racist massacre is factually accurate. MaryLynn Magar, a member of the board appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, said at the board's meeting in Orlando on Wednesday that "everything is there" in the new history standards and "the darkest parts of our history are addressed," the Tallahassee Democrat reported.
The majority of the speakers who provided public testimony on the planned curriculum were vehemently opposed to it, warning that crucial context is omitted, atrocities are glossed over, and in some cases students will be taught to "blame the victim."
"I am very concerned by these standards, especially some of the notion that enslaved people benefited from being enslaved," state Rep. Anna Eskamani (D-Orlando) said, per Action News Jax.
"When I see the standards, I'm very concerned," state Sen. Geraldine Thompson said at the board meeting. "If I were still a professor, I would do what I did very infrequently; I'd have to give this a grade of 'I' for incomplete. It recognizes that we have made an effort, we've taken a step. However, this history needs to be comprehensive. It needs to be authentic, and it needs additional work."
"When you look at the history currently, it suggests that the [Ocoee] massacre was sparked by violence from African Americans. That's blaming the victim," the Democrat warned.
"Please table this rule and revise it to make sure that my history, our history, is being told factually and completely, and please do not, for the love of God, tell kids that slavery was beneficial because I guarantee you it most certainly was not," community member Kevin Parker said.
Approval of the new standards is a win for the DeSantis administration, which has effectively sought to create a new educational agenda that shields white students from feeling any sense of guilt for wrongs perpetrated against people of color. The Florida governor signed the "Stop WOKE Act" last year to do just that, restricting how issues of race are taught in public schools and workplaces.
In keeping with the administration's crusade against "wokeness," Education Commissioner Manny Diaz defended the new standards against criticism, saying, "This is an in-depth, deep dive into African American history, which is clearly American history as Governor DeSantis has said, and what Florida has done is expand it," Action News Jax reported.
Paul Burns, the Florida Department of Education's chancellor of K-12 public schools, also insisted the new standards provide an exhaustive representation of African American history.
"Our standards are factual, objective standards that really teach the good, the bad and the ugly," he was quoted as saying Wednesday by Florida Phoenix. He denied the new standards portray slavery as beneficial.
Although education officials say teachers are meant to expand upon the new curriculum in the classroom, critics say teachers are unlikely to do that for fear of being singled out and possibly punished for being too "woke."
The Florida Education Association, the state's largest teachers union, called the new standards "a big step backward for a state that has required teaching African American history since 1994" in a statement after Wednesday's vote.
Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, also condemned the new curriculum, saying in a statement: "Our children deserve nothing less than truth, justice, and the equity our ancestors shed blood, sweat, and tears for."
"Today's actions by the Florida state government are an attempt to bring our country back to a 19th century America where Black life was not valued, nor our rights protected. It is imperative that we understand that the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow were a violation of human rights and represent the darkest period in American history. We refuse to go back," he said.
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Some of us were on top of this months ago, or even a few years ago.
The opposition to "critical race theory" , and the laws that have stemmed from that opposition are intended to present American history in a false way, in order to preserve the fantasy that racial discrimination in America has been a minor blip in US history.
It's all about feelings
Emphatically. These fools talk so much and react so much that they don't even bother with how ridiculous they look on paper! It is time for people to call the republicans and conservative "movement' out for the stupid and dangerous SHIT they are perpetrating on themselves and their children. Talk about the next generation being dumb asses as far as history goes. With this kind of education in Florida, it won't take long before a FOREIGNER will have a better grasp of U.S. history than republicans.
All of this it treatment by some conservatives who want to fight about everything liberal in the country; and, now they think they have the political wherewithal to just wage dumb and lame policies at the state level because of states rights (and back up at the SCOTUS).
As Guy Benson said about the histrionics of people like Kamala Harris:
There really are only 2 options here:
Anyone who's read the standards and still believe option 1, is not a serious person.
Did any white group in the United States suffer as a permanent slave?! Then don't attempt to inform me or other blacks that all and all slavery was a "school' or "vocational program" set of "instructions" put in place by states resembling 1696 South Carolina for dark savages (as blacks and indians were called).
And by the way, I can't wait and the Jewish people had better listen up. . . when Florida gets around to 'reclassifying' anti-Semitic acts in the U.S. as instructional and healthy for a small, simple, people
read what i wrote again. Your nonsensical straw man clearly demonstrates you’ve been bamboozled by dishonest media and politicians. Your post exemplifies why Harris can lie so brazenly. Her fanclub just parrots the nonsense back with no regard for reality.
I am providing a link to this rather long document on the Florida standard which are overall okay and indepth:
This "standard" is of concern (outrage):
This standard we are gathered on NT to review (above) is unnecessary to elaborate on separately, because no whites were legally or institutionally instructed at the 'point' of a whip and loss of their person to get a positive "education."
So, while it is a "given" it ain't a mitigating circumstance to articulate that something positive came out of a legal crime against people who all things considered should have been free to cast their own futures in the so-called, "land of the free."
Of course, the OBVIOUS question would be this: Could these trades have been learned without slavery? I'll answer: Yes! And much more that was denied at the time too! Like reading and writing. And, building a cultural tradition of whole family life.
Exactly, bitch about the history being incomplete and then bitch about unnecessary facts being included.
I have no clue what the hell you are trying to say. Answer the question: What of your life was learnt by a governmental legal denial of your rights to be human or live in civil society? Those slaves had to do "agricultural work" up to and even if it KILLED them. There was no 'glory' in it! Slaves farmed whether or not they liked the smell of touch of dirt! And, it is understood that the white masters did not give a damn about whether he or she could handle their chores or die trying.
They served under force of law and human duress. A slave had to paint because Master said so, whether or not said individual volunteered-certainly was not paid to do so-or paint made him or her unhealthy or worse.
As NT conservatives have been going on about here lately: "Putting lipstick on a pig" makes for a pretty porker and yet the hog is free to take any offense over over an abuse of its lips, nevertheless.
Huh?
Who do you think said that there was?
So that is a "nothing" was learned by force of arms and a government systematically controlling your movements answer. Florida dropping that 'line' into its black history standard would resemble history books teaching that Hiroshima and Nagasaki prospered from having to rebuild after detonations of "Little Man" and "Fat Man" exploded and ruined a way of life. Or, that Jews have a homeland, because of what World War II serendipitous displacements and violence!
It's offensive, plain and simple.
Your comment assumes you are well informed about how slaves 'enjoyed' their labors ("professions") and the treatment off the plantation when they were not the benefactors of net profits or losses. That is, they had no claim to their 'clients' or their supposed career path.
Only a fool would think it okay to choose to do a great wrong so that a possible right can come out of it. And to that end, no whites volunteered to go into legal, permanent bondage under another white person. Why? Because they had rights and privileges to choose life and a living on their individual terms, even if it meant be a vagabond! That to, was a white man's right under the law! And nobody caught him or her and bound them to slavery to teach them shit.
What are you trying to say?
You learned nothing from white slavery in the United States because it did not/has not happened!
Who has attempted to do that?
On target as usual, I didn’t learn from something that didn’t happen.
It is a sad day in Florida or anywhere in the country when BS like this is the law.
Too bad that they don't teach one of the amazing incidents in the Civil War where black troops of the 3rd US Colored Infantry led by a black Sargent Major left St. Augustine and traveled 100 miles to Ocala, Fl. using the St. John River and marching through miles of swamp and forest to attack and destroy a supply depot for the Confederates and free 95 slaves and outrun the Confederate Cavalry back to St. Augustine. But that would show them as a superior force and that doesn't seem acceptable to DeSantis and his band of nut cases.
It's known as the ''Marshall Plantation Raid''.
It's a little-known part of the Civil War and a book was written last year by Bruce Seaman entitled:
To Succeed Where Others Failed: The Untold Story of the Marshall Plantation Raid
that would be a good lesson plan
Just wait. . . soon the Trail of Tears will be an official Florida school tale about raucous Indian nations pursuing their own futures in the Midwest. /s All done to defend how some white people took what was not theirs from people who did not want them to have it and worse refuse to give any of it back!
Perhaps some will as it is aligned to SS 68.AA.27
Isn’t that how some slaves purchased their own freedom, or bought goods for their family?
Bu see, like most of modern democrats, doing things like this is akin to escaping the liberal plantation of today. We can't have things like this happening in today's America, right?
We sure as hell can't teach our children that some slaves were freed and lived prosperous lives. That would defeat the narrative that being a slave 150 years ago is why many of them today are oppressed.
Citizens are repressed today because some conservatives are bothersome, tiresome, and loathsome panters and pursuers of a path that time may forget if they stop reminding us all of how it can return with the stroke of a pen. Case in point. Girls and women are being compelled to have babies they do not want and cannot afford all due to the PEN of a conservative governor and conservative judges and justices.
Some conservatives, get your lies straight.
Does structural racism continue? If yes, is it restricted to red regions only? If no, why do liberals tolerate it in blue regions?
What is your point? And why do you think it is appropriate to try to redirect the focus of discussion? By now, even a fool can see what MAGA conservatives are rather meticulously doing. Either you approve of it or you do not approve of what is happening there, there is no gray area for you to reside.
That you focus is usually very one sided.
Because I don’t believe that repression is only from conservatives.
I don’t approve of repression or structural racism. Do you approve of structural racism is it is in a blue controlled location?
That is untrue, you approve of what you condemn by ignoring, redirecting, or distracting from it.
What structural racism to you have as evidence for me to consider in "blue controlled locations"?
You are ignoring the deep historical and going structural racism in urban cities controlled by Dems for 150 years.
Too easy:
No one is forcing anyone to not have a child. You are being fed lies.
Sally Hemings
How are people today forcing women 200 years ago to have a baby?
Weird logic...
Madison Hemings, her son said that his mother “became Mr. Jefferson’s concubine” in France.
When Jefferson prepared to return to America, Hemings said his mother at first refused to come back. She then negotiated extraordinary privileges for herself and freedom for her future children.
Well, I will consider them in due course. This is not the time. As that appears to be beyond the scope of this discussion about Florida schools+slavery+personal benefits. But, it is noted that you tried to answer the question asked.
Bugsy, get a clue. I won't waste time with you about the obvious laws some conservatives in red states are passing into law. Besides, the statement is meant to be accepted, not debated here.
If you think girls and women are volunteering to have babies they would have aborted, then for this thread-I'm okay with that.
Sure you will.
I'm declaring this story from the Daily Beast to be BS.
There is no way on earth that any textbook teaches that slavery taugh job skills.
I want to see the evidence!
I looked through the section about black history in Florida schools, and while it does have numerous references to black people who accomplished a lot and are certainly good role models, I didnt see anything in there about what day to day life was like for a plantation slave, people who were forced to work sunup to sundown 6 days a week , often picking cotton or some other crop.
And there probably were slaves who learned trades such as carpentry, or cooking, but had no where to apply these skills for their own benefit, (Slaves were basically fed food on the level of gruel) , unless they were the relative few who were lucky enough to be alive when emancipation finally came.
That's not fair, John!
So you must have read the entire outline then- instead of taking a minor snippet out of context.
It doesn't state slavery was a good thing. Some slaves did learn trades. So did indentured servants. I don't see anyone arguing that indentured servitude was a good thing. Of course it is rarely mentioned in history books.
Here is what I caught my eye.
The racist bastards! how dare they try to teach anything positive about African Americans!/S
Or this wonderful context that so many overlook.
They are actually teaching about the use of slavery in the rest of the world. Leftists everywhere will be utterly outraged that it just didn't magically appear in the US. That while the US purchased slaves it didn't actually capture and transport the slaves here. That would be the African tribes who traded the slaves to the Europeans; who then transported them for sale in the US.
They might actually teach a little bit about indentured servitude as well. That should startle a few leftists back into reality. That white Europeans sold themselves into indentured servitude. Their contracts could be passed down to their children to fulfill- if the parents could not.
So the text books were fair?
I didnt see anything in there about what day to day life was like for a plantation slave, people who were forced to work sunup to sundown 6 days a week , often picking cotton or some other crop.
Howard Zinn already did that. His book which was written as a textbook was used in American classrooms for decades. It uses the worms eye view of history telling it from the point of view of a slave or a railroad worker. That is slanted history as far as I'm concerned. History should be told from a bird's eye view without the nonsense about oppressors vs the oppressed.
When someone has to bring up white indentured servants in a discussion of race based slavery they have the lost the argument before it even starts.
Slavery in America, very early on, became based on RACE.
Get that through your head.
When someone doesn't recognize what indentured servitude is; how they were treated; and that it could last for generations in families- they don't know what slavery is; and shouldn't be commenting on it.
Get that through your head.
The utter ignorance of people like those we see on forums like this is scary.
Howard Zinn has very little to nothing to do with it. There are dozens of books about slavery available for general reading.
=================================================================
www.ushistory.org /us/27b.asp
Slave Life and Slave Codes [ushistory.org]
ushistory.org 4-5 minutes
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Interpretation of Slave Quarter, Carter's Grove Plantation, Williamsburg
Slave life varied greatly depending on many factors.
Life on the fields meant working sunup to sundown six days a week and having food sometimes not suitable for an animal to eat. Plantation slaves lived in small shacks with a dirt floor and little or no furniture. Life on large plantations with a cruel overseer was oftentimes the worst. However, work for a small farm owner who was not doing well could mean not being fed.
The stories about cruel overseers were certainly true in some cases. The overseer was paid to get the most work out of the slaves; therefore, overseers often resorted to whatever means was necessary. Sometimes the slaves would drive the overseer off the plantation in desperation. When slaves complained that they were being unfairly treated, slaveholders would most often be very protective of their "property" and would release the overseer.
Slaves who worked inside the plantation homes often had better living and working conditions than slaves who worked in the fields.
In some cases, a driver was used rather than an overseer. The difference between the overseer and the driver was simple: drivers were slaves themselves. A driver might be convinced by a master to manage the slaves for better privileges. Drivers were usually hated by the rest of the slaves. These feelings often led to violence.
Large plantations often required some slaves to work in the plantation home. These slaves enjoyed far better circumstances. Domestic slaves lived in better quarters and received better food. They sometimes were able to travel with the owner's family. In many cases, a class system developed within the slave community. Domestic slaves did not often associate themselves with plantation slaves. They often aspired to arrange courtships for their children with other domestic slaves.
This Slave Code booklet for Washington D.C., was published in 1862, only one month before Lincoln abolished slavery in the nation's capitol. More lenient than most states' slave codes, the District's code allowed slaves to hire themselves out and live apart from their masters.
As the Peculiar Institution spread across the South, many states passed " slave codes ," which outlined the rights of slaves and the acceptable treatment and rules regarding slaves. Slave codes varied from state to state, but there were many common threads. One could not do business with a slave without the prior consent of the owner. Slaves could be awarded as prizes in raffles, wagered in gambling, offered as security for loans, and transferred as gifts from one person to another.
A slave was not permitted to keep a gun. If caught carrying a gun, the slave received 39 lashes and forfeited the gun. Blacks were held incompetent as witnesses in legal cases involving whites. The education of slaves was prohibited. Anyone operating a school or teaching reading and writing to any African-American in Missouri could be punished by a fine of not less than $500 and up to six months in jail. Slaves could not assemble without a white person present. Marriages between slaves were not considered legally binding. Therefore, owners were free to split up families through sale.
Any slave found guilty of arson, rape of a white woman, or conspiracy to rebel was put to death. However, since the slave woman was chattel, a white man who raped her was guilty only of a trespass on the master's property. Rape was common on the plantation, and very few cases were ever reported.
In the first place, indentured servitude for a period of time is not the same as race based slavery passed , by law, from generation to generation.
You dont know what you are talking about.
Starting with those who buy the Bull Shit that any school is teaching that slavery is good, which is the premise of the left on this one.
Evidently, some of us will have to fact check every hoax that comes down the road on this site:
Florida's Board of Education came out with their new Black History curriculum. It covers the darkest parts of American history. It covers all of the terrible conditions of slavery that we all know. In this case it does teach history from the persectie of the slave. The course teaches how some slaves were able to use their experiences under their brutally harsh conditions to make their lives better. The slaves didn't just pick cotton. Some performed various trades such as blacksmithing, carpentry, tailoring, painting ect ect. The cousre teaches that slaves acquired certain skills which could be applied to their personal benefit. In no way is that teaching that slavery was "good."
The two men who wrote Florida's Black history curriculum..... two Black PhDs ...are standing by it!
"In a statement provided to Reuters on Thursday, William Allen and Frances Presley Rice, members of the working group that developed the new guidelines, said the language on skills was meant to show that those enslaved were not merely victims.
"Florida students deserve to learn how slaves took advantage of whatever circumstances they were in to benefit themselves and the community of African descendants," they said.
Education Commissioner Manny Diaz also earlier defended the proposal: "As age-appropriate, we go into some of the tougher subjects, all the way into the beginnings of the slave trade, Jim Crow laws, the civil rights movement and everything that occurred throughout our history."
Well, when would you and the rest of MAGA like to start your "bird's eye" service as slaves? Saying stupid shit simply because you can is valueless and harmful.
Humans who were not allowed to marry; not allowed to read or write, not allowed to keep a stable home, had the the living daylight beat out of; and told they were beasts of (white) burdens, sexually assaulted by white masters and mistresses ("first husbands; first mistresses" to slaves they abused), could not interact with whites the country over as equals.
Such a reckless comment as this one makes a mockery of the meaning of the words, "freedom" and "liberty." Something some conservatives surely like to wrap themselves in when they can before outside onlookers.
What specifically do you object to in 4.1.3 ?
Do you find that standard to be inaccurate?
Look again:
"that shields white students from feeling any sense of guilt for wrongs perpetrated against people of color."
Why should White students of today feel any sense of guilt over events that they never were a part of?
How do the Black students of today gain anything of value from this sad history. How does it prepare them to succeed in today's competitive world? Doesn't this kind of teaching just perpetuate racism"
No one gains anything except the Democrat Party which keeps their power by perpetuating victimhood, racial tensions, and creating new white apologists.
There is no reason for students today to feel personally guilty.
Maybe not but their parents need to pay reparations.
We cant have white children "feeling unease" about US history.
Why not just tell kids what happened, and teach them that we hope they will make sure nothing like it ever happens again?
I dont get all the handwringing about white kids feelings. They can take it.
I think its really more about the parents and grandparents feelings, you know the ones who were some of the ones that committed all this racism .
Absolutely. Every American should pay full reparations to every slave they've ever owned.
If a "moderator" wants to cancel this as "meta", so be it...
IMNAAHO, defending slavery is trolling. It is WRONG, historically and morally. If NT allows such evil, it's complicit.
I agree with Bob. Besides it's July 21 and I haven't had one ticket this month
Who here has defended slavery?
Exactly no one.......
Disingenuous questions are also a form of trolling.
Answer it.......................
Nothing disingenuous about my question. You not only stated that some here have defended slavery but also NT was allowing it. Have you flagged the defensive comments? Why won’t you expose them now?
Disingenuous......
Still can’t find those comments that you referenced?
[deleted]
Where are the actual standards? We’ve all seen this play out before. The progressive rush out a partisan narrative that isn’t supported by reality.
Remember how foolish progressives looked over their claims about texas vs the reality?
I see John provided the actual standards above. Thanks for that. After reading them, I can see why the left wing organizations covering the story don't provide the links to them.
Square these standards (taken pretty much at random) with the hysteria about "whitewashing history":
The whole brouhaha is gaslighting of the highest order from the left. The standards extensively covers slavery, the civil right movement, discrimination, Jim Crow etc...
Some slaves were trained in the skilled trades, that's an undisputable fact . Why is truth so scary to progressives? It's not a defense or justification of slavery.
I saw a lot of things in there about blacks that backed the American revolution, and other forms of slavery around the world, (I personally think it is highly inappropriate to act as if slavery in ancient Rome has an equivalent bearing on slavery that was instituted in America. We are teaching American kids, and slavery in this country became entirely based on race, which in turn led to hundreds of years of racism.) I saw things about white abolitionists, I saw something about black scientists and other notables.
I didnt see a single word in those descriptions about what it was like to be a black slave in America, nor anything about the cause of the Civil War, nor much about the 100 years of racial oppression after 1865. Nor much about Reconstruction.
I'll have to look back through it and see if those things are there.
The word racism does not appear anywhere in what you just copied and pasted.
If you were a slave who was trained as a blacksmith in 1835, what earthly good did that do you? You couldnt make any money from the talent, although I suppose if you were really good you might get a little better treatment than the unskilled slaves.
The idea that they were trained in a way that personally benefited them is offensive.
The word racism does not appear anywhere in what you just copied and pasted.
Does it need to be every other word? How do you imagine these subjects are taught without mentioning racism?
But to allay your fears I scrolled up a few standards and voila:
Some slaves bought their freedom with the money they earned working on the side or by saving the small percentage of the wages they earned that their owners allowed them to keep.
whoop de do
Hell if a rebuttal John, hell of a rebuttal.
It’s in SS.88.5 and SS.88.5.1 - 7 , page 103
OK Drinker, that's enough.
Pointing out liberal ignorance is not allowed here.
LOL.
Did I get the number wrong?
The Civil War (the result of secession) started because Abraham Lincoln was elected president, and everyone knew that Lincoln and the Republican Party were anti-slavery.
The only way teaching "states rights" as a cause of the war would be at all acceptable is if it is explained that the states rights in question were the right to own slaves and get them back from the north if they had escaped.
Do you think Florida intends to do this?
Did you mean to ask yourself?
Which of these standards asserts that States Rights was the cause?
Does that sentence seem ambiguous to you?
No, it was one of many causes.
Have you ever read the southern states declarations of secession? Each of the seceding states published an explanation and justification for secession that were presented to the various state legislatures. Invariably they cite Northern interference with slavery as the reason for leaving the Union. Some of the language does invoke "states rights", but it is always the "right" to choose to own slaves, and the right to retrieve runaway slaves from the north.
The claims that there are "many " causes of the Civil War are an attempt to rewrite history and/or frame it in a way that makes slavery seem less important.
The next standard in that grouping “Analysis the role of slavery in the development of sectional conflict”.
Of course slavery was the principal reason and that’s how I read their grouping of subordinate standards in the civil war grouping.
There in a nutshell is the argument that the civil war was caused by "states rights".
The 'other' reasons listed are all a subtext to the issue of slavery. All of them. Do you dispute that some people say states rights was the cause to take the onus off of the souths desire to continue owning slaves?
Which of the Florida standards contained that?
How many of these critics, do you think has made the time to glance or what the criticize?
There is no reason to teach states rights as a cause of the civil war, unless it is put in the context of states rights meaning the desire of the state to assert the right to continue to own slaves.
Agree, that’s why SS.8.A.5.2 , SS.8.A4.1 , SS.912.A, and SS.912.A.3 and SS.912.A.2.1 are important.
How effective and comprehensive is the African American studies K-12 in Illinois?
Which time are we talking about?
You still haven't answered the question of why it is so important to teach today's young people about this past racism and slavery.
What positive values are being taught?
You dont think treating all people equally is a positive value?
There is racism in this country TODAY, let alone 150 years ago. It started in Virginia in the middle of the 17th century and continues until today. That is 370 years.
Agree, there is a political party that was built on it, and to this day feel a segment of society is inferior and needs to be helped in every aspect of life. from college admissions to employment.
What makes you think racism started then? Didn’t battles with native Americans start earlier?
Henry Gates wrote that Juan Garrido became the first documented black person to arrive in what would later become the U.S. when he accompanied Juan Ponce de León in search of the Fountain of Youth in 1513, and they ended up in present-day Florida, around St. Augustine.
In 1565, the Spanish brought African slaves to what is now St. Augustine, Fla.
Indeed, it was those violent blacks that attacked the whites with ballots. Any fucking moron can see that the blacks were partially responsible for their own murder. Expecting to vote, WTF was wrong with them? /s
I suppose you could be upset by that standard if you can't read. Words have meaning.
Yes, words do have meaning so once again for you....
The Ocoee Massacre is included as an act of violence against African Americans. The idea that the standard imputes blame on blacks is dishonest gaslighting.
Even if the standard is too nuanced for you to follow, use common sense. Merely be teaching the massacre, the undisputed facts will demonstrate what happened. Unless you can point to an approved textbook in Florida that lies about what happened, then the facts speak for themselves. You need to layer conspiracy upon conspiracy to believe otherwise.
that a deadly white mob attack against Black residents of Ocoee, Florida, in 1920 included "acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans."
No gaslighting at all, as you can plainly see the ''"acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans." The word ''by African Americans places part of the blame on the Blacks for having the audacity to think that they could vote in Florida in 1920.
This a wonderful example of willful ignorance on your part with a total absence of common sense thrown in as a side dish.
Lol. Not if you can read. Ocoee is specifically named as part of a larger list of acts of violence that will be covered. Ocoee is an act against of violence against blacks. The standards don't assign any blame to blacks for the massacre. That's your imagination projecting what you want to see.
Again, if you believe in this conspiracy, show the textbook that will claim blacks were partially to blame for the massacre. If what you say is true, there has to material containing it distributed to students. Where is it?
Yes, the human race historically has been vary tribal and has been willing to exert violence on those outside of the tribe.
As stated above the standard will as quoted ''that a deadly white mob attack against Black residents of Ocoee, Florida, in 1920 included "acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans."
I never stated that text books stated that blacks were to blame for the killing at Ocoee. That would be your imagination inventing what you want to prove.
That’s true.
Here’s the thing about history, though: Many things are true. But only select things are relevant to teaching an understanding of our past.
You can always find good things in a bad situation or bad things in a good one. The same goes for historical people. The classic example might be the (now debunked) observation that Mussolini made the trains run on time. He didn’t, but even if he had, is that even in the Top 10 of things you’d want to teach about Mussolini or Fascism?
Similarly, the literacy rate in Cuba, under Castro, was always said to be quite high. But is that why we study Castro and Cuba? Does it even matter that literacy is high when you’re only allowed to read government propaganda?
History is not always heroic, nor is it always tragic. It’s both. History textbooks - good history textbooks - should seek to shape relevant facts into a useful narrative that provides a broad understanding of how our nation and people got to where we are now.
It shouldn’t cherry pick irrelevant facts to excuse atrocities. It also should not use the same technique to needlessly diminish important people who contributed to the growth of our country.
There are people in this country, a lot of them, who would prefer that schools not teach that the founding fathers owned slaves, nor that neither Jefferson or Washington, or numerous others , freed their slaves in their lifetime.
It is a constant battle to have such information included in public school history plans for kids.
A few years back a survey showed that half of Americans do not understand that the disposition of slavery was the cause of the Civil War.
There are always people who want to hide their heads in the sand, and they have to always be opposed.
That sounds very uncomfortable and dangerous.
And that’s fine, but we don’t learn about Thomas Jefferson - to cite one example - because he owned slaves. I have no problem talking about it, but it should not be our main focus. Similarly, the most important thing about Christopher Columbus is not that he was shitty to the natives. For some people, that’s all they want to talk about.
Jefferson was very much a man of his times. He should be a great vehicle for explaining the moral quandaries of that period.
Sally Hemings was in-law, slave, and mother to some of Jefferson's children. That's history.
Yes she was, describe what a 5th grade class should take away from this fact.
Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and was the third president of the United States. He should always get appropriate credit for those things.
He also owned 300 slaves or more for most of his life, and did not free them upon his death. He was a bigwig in Virginia for almost all of his life , and Virginia was the hub of slavery at that time. His slave owning was a big part of his life, something with which he concerned himself every business day.
I think that kids should be taught that Jefferson played a big role in the founding of the United States, but that his slave owning makes him inappropriate to be an ultimate American hero or role model.
I agree, school studies shouldn’t identify heros or role models.
History is not simple.
People are complex.
Was anything Jefferson did illegal?
Huh?
The curriculum doesn't actually say that Slavery brought personal benefit. Why do journalists do this?
On the topic of cherry picking data to mislead people, Charles Cooke had a perfect rejoinder to those gaslighters like Kamala Harris who think the takeaway from the Florida standards is to teach kids that " they decided enslaved people benefited from slavery". He copied and pasted every single mention slavery, slaves, abolitionism, civil rights, and African Americans in the document.
Where is the "instruction" that the father of this country owned slaves?
Where is the instruction that the man who wrote the Declaration Of Independence owned slaves?
Is there an instruction about lynching?
Is there an instruction about the one drop rule?
Is there an instruction about redlining?
Where is the instruction about the Tulsa Massacre?
Is there an instruction about blacks being kept out of professional sports until after World War 2 ?
Where is the instruction about slavery being the cause of the Civil war?
Is there an instruction about "Black Power" ?
Good questions. Where is there an international history? Where is there a history of how European slave traders got African slaves? Where is the comparative analysis between North American, Caribbean and South American slavery?
I saw this as I scrolled up
I've read the guidelines. I'm not going to go over them again to find every specific word you want. For those who've read the guidelines in good faith, Cooke's point is irrefutable:
"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"
Actually, I think all that stuff is in there.
I really dont care. Kids need to be taught about racism, so we can put an end to it.
Conservatives do not want the history and application of white racism taught.
Good God!
Evil is not to be condemned in any place unless it is condemned everywhere??
Florida is (at least for the moment) part of the United States of America. The history of Jamaica is of less immediate concern.
Is that really a question?
Are you US centric? World history isn’t important?
Pathetic...
Not so much else you would do better than a one word response.
Your two statements in the same comment are incongruent.
So basically we've got a full scale melt down over about 2 sentences.
Could is doing an olympic amount of heavy lifting here.
Is slavery really the hill?
Tampa Bay Times Editorial
-
Florida history lesson: Slavery as an unpaid internship?
Here is why Florida’s new guidelines for teaching African American history need some work.
By Tampa Bay Times Editorial Board
Jul 21, 2023 07:39 PM
Should American slavery be considered an unpaid internship of sorts? That’s absurd and offensive, but it’s not an outrageous question, given Florida classroom guidelines adopted this week by the State Board of Education. We wish we were kidding.
The guidelines of the new “African American History Strand” say that classroom instruction should include ”how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
It’s just one phrase, but given the political climate in Florida, skeptics are closely monitoring every sentence, wondering why it’s in the guidelines about teaching African American history and worrying how slavery’s full story will be taught in Florida’s classrooms. And they should. The GOP leadership of the state has brought such scrutiny upon itself, and the level of trust is low.
The guidelines also say that teachers’ lessons should “examine the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing, transportation).”
Fair enough. Some slaves did, in fact, perform trades and learn skills. But these guidelines de-emphasize the back-breaking, life-shortening fieldwork on the cotton, rice and sugar cane plantations as “agricultural work,” just one of many “trades.” In all cases, this was forced labor required of Black people who were enslaved. That should never be downplayed.
Trying to humanize slaves and showing school children that enslaved people had inner lives is important. But teaching students that enslaved people could acquire skills doesn’t really do that or help students explore anything about their hopes, their dreams or their fears. In fact, teaching that their skills could sometimes be “applied for their personal benefit” rather misses the point. It runs the risk of making slavery seem somehow more benign than it was.
Yes, some slaves were skilled artisans who could earn wages and buy a few things of their own. But they never owned their own bodies . They belonged to the slave master.
Think of the enslaved Sam Williams , a skilled ironworker in Virginia in the mid-19th century. When he surpassed the iron production quota required of him by his owner, he earned money that he used to buy his wife a pair of buckskin gloves, a shawl, a silk handkerchief and other presents for his four daughters, his mother and father. A valued and skilled artisan, he still never learned to read and write. He was a family man with a full life. But a slave.
Much good can come of teaching details and nuances of slavery, such as Mr. Williams’ story, discovered through ledgers kept by the iron forge where he worked. An accomplished teacher could bring a slave’s humanity alive. Think of Frederick Douglass, who was 20 years a slave and nine years a fugitive until English friends raised $711.66 to buy his freedom in 1845 after he was already a famous orator, author and abolitionist. As a boy, he had seen bloody whippings of fellow slaves. He was taught to read by a woman who inherited him and had never owned a slave before. He became a strong man who helped to build sailing ships. When he had the chance to escape, he took it. Though he had learned skills as a slave that could be “applied for (his) personal benefit,” the thing he wanted most was to be a free man. Widely considered the most photographed American of the 19th century, he never smiled in a portrait because he wanted to fight the popular myth of the “happy slave.” That’s why a single phrase in Florida’s educational guidelines can be so fraught. Sensitively used, “personal benefit” might help build a more complex picture of an enslaved person’s full life. But it could easily be seen as a ham-fisted attempt to minimize the horror of slavery.
Indeed.
air enough. Some slaves did, in fact, perform trades and learn skills. But these guidelines de-emphasize the back-breaking, life-shortening fieldwork on the cotton, rice and sugar cane plantations as “agricultural work,” just one of many “trades.” In all cases, this was forced labor required of Black people who were enslaved. That should never be downplayed.lift
Lol. This is pure projection. I'm glad you've moved on from claiming the standard was a lie, but this is still made up trash with no basis in the actual standards. The phrase about some slaves learning skills is literally one phrase out of thousands in the standards. Given the the massive scope of material covered in a year long course, it's what, about twenty seconds of classroom time, if that? The standards covers the lives of field hands as well and there is nothing in them that minimizes their existence.
uch good can come of teaching details and nuances of slavery, such as Mr. Williams’ story,
Don't tell John that. Nuance and facts are apparently a white power conspiracy and acknowledging Mr. William's existence is "gaslighting."
Why progressives want to erase slaves who weren't fieldworkers out of existence is beyond me.
There is no logical explanation for why the state of Florida would approve a lesson plan that asserts that slaves were taught skills they could use for their personal benefit.
DeSantis will pay a price in the general election for such crap , if he makes it that far.
No one outside Florida and or MAGA trusts DeSantis at all.
So, you think in Florida, that they shouldn't be taught that slaves were taught skills that they could use for their personal benefit?...
It says some slaves learned skills that they were able to use for their benefit. That's undeniable.
The reason comes straight from your own hand picked source: Much good can come of teaching details and nuances of slavery, such as Mr. Williams’ story,
Why would anyone do that?
What I want to know is if Florida will teach kids that slavery was based on racism and was expressed as white superiority.
Do what? Teach history?...
Ah, but being ultra-hateful is a quality among MAGAs.
I like that the MAGAs feel free now to lift their dirty skirts exposing their nasty ugly hateful underbellies to everyone. People are sensitive to that kind of nonsense. The gop has already alienated women, minorities, the LGBTQ, students, teachers, unions, real patriots and all thinking persons...
Who is left to vote for their hateful crap?
That Dr. William Allen is just another Uncle Tom.
what a bunch of nonsense
garbage like this is why we need accurate teaching of history in schools.
this young lady offers about a dozen excuses as to why American chattel slavery was not that bad and/or someone else was worse.
Example of her "points" - some Revolutionary War generals freed their slaves. And?
And she appears to be quite proud of herself.
Generally, real progress starts with small steps.....
This isn't about Florida, but it does a good job of explaining why history class-books are important:
Good video.
Will Hurd stated it perfectly:
That somebody has to literally say this to their fellow citizens about slavery just displays how far out these MAGA(ns) accept/wish to be.
At 215 pages of Social Studies Academic Standards, and the critics have only found one out of hundreds to complain about. Seems like the Academic Committee did a very respectable job.
Thats all well and good, but DeSantis has other ideas
DeSantis found it useful to double down on the objectionable section of the standards. He knows his audience , doesnt he?
Some slaves were were ‘hired out’ for bricklaying, carpentry, etc. This controversial practice then had some benefits for slave:
- disputed the paternalistic argument that slaves couldn’t take care of themselves
- demonstrated resiliency and that slaves could be taught skills that previously were reserved for whites
- provided the slave some leverage with their owner
- slave could keep some of the earned money, some enough to buy their freedom, others could by goods for their family.
- slave might get a living and clothing allowance and much greater autonomy in these conditions
This practice was controversial at the time because of the benefits. The standard doesn’t argue that slavery was beneficial to the slave at all, it just describes a more complete picture of our terrible history.
Yup. Slavery was great for the slaves!
How do you live with yourself?
Which standard concluded that?
I don’t writes lies and try to better understand the complete picture. Try it sometime and it might turn your life around.
Tell the truth Bob, you haven’t bothered to inform yourself by actually reading these standards.
Love you righteous outrage, sanctimonious attitude and your uninformed assumptions.
Pathetic...
Keep on with the one word responses, they are a real timesaver.
Yup
Now only one 3 letter word, you go boy.
OK!
Really man? Is slavery the hill?
You are smarter than this, don't succumb to sunk cost.
You’re almost there.
?
?
Dude, just say slavery wasn't a jobs program. Don't dance around like there were some benefits.
Slavery wasn’t a jobs program.
The ‘hiring out’ of slaves had some benefits, see 17.1.3
Hiring out slaves benefited their owners!
The owners got paid, but slaves did not...
So what? All topics being equal (I can not read content details that comes later), one complains about what is glaring, eh?
This "personal benefits of being a slave" is a slap on the face. If being a slave is a proper way to learn a trade/skill then white people ("everybody") in the period should have had their asses beat, tortured, and possessed by a "MASTER" to get some of the "benefits"!
Was something in 17.1.1 confusing?
Who has claimed proper? I didn't see anything about the in the Standards, have you?
Sounds like America today...
Obviously.
"Rule number one of labor relations is that disgruntled workers can be a detriment to productivity, and many masters who hired or hired out enslaved people recognized this. As a result, hired slaves might be granted certain advantages and autonomy that wouldn’t have otherwise been available to them."
"In 19th century Virginia, iron works, grain production, coal and gold mining and tobacco factories boomed, creating a demand for skilled workers. Slave hiring proved to be an economical and efficient way for these businesses to quickly fill positions and by the middle of the century, they “had to compete to engage enough slave workers each year,” Oast explained."
"In some cases, this gave enslaved workers the opportunity to leverage their value as laborers and assert their autonomy. Where there was a high demand for workers, skilled slaves were often able to influence hiring decisions, and according to Oast, “sometimes urban slaves were even permitted to make their own hiring arrangements without the involvement of their owners, a practice called self-hire."
"Such forms of compensation gave enslaved workers a degree of independence and economic power that undermined some of the paternalistic social structure of slavery"
"A rare option was "self-purchase" (the term itself revealing the base illogic of slavery). In 1839 almost half (42%) of the free blacks in Cincinnati, Ohio, had bought their freedom1 and were striving to create new lives while searching for and purchasing their own relatives.
How did enslaved blacks acquire enough money to purchase the freedom of themselves and their families?
I'll take that as agreement that slavery was not the proper way to learn a trade/skill.
Huh?
You made the point that slavery wasn’t a proper way to learn a skill. I agree but I don’t know who advocated that it was. I don’t see that in the standards we are discussing. Where did you see it?
If you agree with the point I made: '. . . slavery is not a proper way to learn a skill' then don't continue to belabor this with superfluous questions about the point per se. The point has been settled. Move on.
Slavery was s-o-o-o wonderful!
No, the issue was having a skill ever beneficial to the slave, that is what the is about. Do you now agree that sometimes it was?
Says you. Can you get back to your one word or one emoji answers?
It goes without saying that a skillset or several of them for diversification purposes is beneficial in a capitalist nation. Acquiring a skillset is NEVER unbeneficial, in general. It's a plus. How a slave learns a skill and what one is permitted to do (wide or narrow) with his/her skillset is at issue. I repeat YOU did not learn your skillset at the point of a MASTER whipping, kicking, stomping, and verbally abusing you. Nor did I learn my skill in any manner similar to the "training" of slave laborers. There were in fact laws against people of your race being whipped, kicked, stomped, and possibly even verbally abused depending on what was said (different times-different statutes).
It is highly probable that every white person in the slave era freely learned a skillset of his or her, mainly his choice. That is, you would have been given a profession but instead assented to a choice.
Slaves were compelled to labor. Like of labor was his or her choice-to enjoy or to suffer. Either way, it was a compelled status in society.
Thus, Drinker of the Wry, it is ignorant to come with a revisionary statement that touts such force of arms training was in fact meant to benefit slave "recipients" for their own good. Why? Because benefits of slavery or a slave was not the motivation of the masters.
Furthermore, we can know skillsets for slaves were not the interests of masters, because the slave was not allowed to profit and was hampered by law and policy when it came to 'excelling' at becoming independent businessmen/women.
Slave 'benefits' were a side-effect of being slaves. For every slave was forced to have one "profession" or several according to the needs of the masters!
please let Kamala know.
Why repeat the obvious?
I said nothing about “meant to benefit slave”
Filler is all you got, friend Drinker?
What do you mean by filler? Do you think that people only have one thing?
A list of names of blacks that supposedly benefited from slavery produced by the Florida Board of Education (all DeSantis appointees) list among them Booker T. Washington most people have probably heard of him hopefully.
Well, the real truth is that Booker T. Washington didn't acquire skills while enslaved since he was freed at nine years old and worked in the salt mines, coal mines and as a house boy and at sixteen years old enrolled in Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia. Later in life, he founded Tuskegee University and served as its first President.
If DeSantis and the Florida Board of Education are going to defend their position they had best do some honest research instead of trying to bullshit their way through it.
An egregious mistake, maybe now his name won’t make it into the lesson plan.
It seems that many of the others named as benefiting from slavery were an invention of the simple minds of DeSantis and the Board of Education.
When trying to cover up their incompetence they simply lied. Seems par for the course in Florida.
More than an egregious mistake since they repeated it numerous times in their release of names. Most of us would call it a lie and I'm sure it would be much more honest to have Booker T. Washington name mentioned not as a prop but for all of his accomplishments without the ''benefit'' of being enslaved.
I don’t know why they didn’t simply go to the documentation for ‘hiring out’, the critics should do the same.
C'mon guys, slavery was just a jobs program that got a bad rep. The intention was always pure.
That is exactly what democrats said when the declared war on the Union.
And that view was defeated by northern Republicans.
I see what you are trying to do, and you know that if you push it one inch farther I am going to destroy you . So what is your point?