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.”
There is a reason slavers are a common villain trope in a lot of fiction. The idea that slavery is in any way good is generally thought to be a universally rejected concept. Way to undoubtedly show your cards leadership slavers of Florida.
To be absolutely clear, this is what all the groups demonizing “CRT” were fighting for. All the "well acshually"ing about how CRT was only a college course, etc etc, completely missed the point of the campaign. They’re not interested in facts. They want to legislate away any claims of racism by making it illegal to talk about facts.
Is it really that hard to say our ancestors had fucked up practices? Why even suggest slavery had upsides to it?
Because the GOP is keen on bringing it back
Fits right in with the GOP’s desire to bring back child labor.
Yes. The closer labor costs are to zero, the happier the average capitalist is.
Because they’ve benefited significantly from the results. Generational wealth for white Americans is significantly higher than black Americans because of this very thing.
They want to keep that flowing and avoid being told that they’ve had a leg up on almost half the population because of what their ancestors did.
Slaves (forcefully) developed skills to their (master’s) personal benefit! Florida could have a bright plan here to replace its immigrant workforce – imagine if the students were as skilled as slaves!
You don’t need skills like reading, mathematics, negotiating, or critical thinking! Abstract thinking? We live in the real world, not the abstract world.
So much student potential is wasted learning when it could be spent getting to the workforce sooner! You’ll have an income that never goes up, so it’s stable! You can’t count that high anyway! And you’ll have the same job for the rest of your life, so it’s stable! Who enjoys updating their resume, being interviewed, and getting rejected? Not me!
