Reverse CRT: Florida Upstages Texas In History Class Teaching About Slavery

The policy of mandating the teaching of the "benefits" for people enslaved during this nation's history.

 

It really doesn't seem like you read the thread?

 

The idea that teaching the subject must include helpful skills learned by enslaved folks during their period of slavery is a supposed positive side to slavery. It is offensive, dishonest, and not accurate in any significant way.

 

This is is a very important aspect of it. The fact that a small amount of folks (in addition to having their freedom taking, a lifetime of being dehumanized, beaten, stripped of dignity, not allowed choice, or self determination also...) learned some blacksmithing is placing exponentially greater emphasis on that than is accurate to the picture of slavery. Not only is it offensive to mandate that, it weakens the accurate study of the historical practice of slavery.

That simply isn't one of the most important aspects of slavery. Yet, now it is being mandated.

 

I’m scratching my head here at why a state that actually passed something called the “Stop Woke Act” targeting schools can’t get the benefit of the doubt on this.

 

I think this is a big part of it. Here's what truly bothers me about the narrative they are teaching in Florida.

America was built on the foundation of slavery, which is a big part of its success, and enabling the American dream for others. It was the land of opportunity and plenty, BECAUSE of slavery which created enormous wealth and profits, and helped turn American into a power. All that free unpaid work used to build wealth that got handed down and create wealth for others, of which slaves never got any benefit from.

If you want to teach that slaves got some skills they learned in forced servitude, then talk about the above as well. Talk about how to this day, many of the injustices of slavery has never been redressed.

 

Ya know, they had trades in Africa. Carpentry, metalworking, weaving, construction, and anything else you might do in the Antebellum South. Maybe some high-tech stuff you'd need to be in an industrial capital in Europe or North America to get trained on. But whatever craftsmanship they had in the agrarian Southern US, they had in Africa. To pick on that one tidbit, is it even defensible to say they had more access to tradesmanship in slavery than they would have had in the but-for world in their native countries? Because if they didn't actually have greater access, then it is about as useful as pointing out that slaves learned to walk.

But, that's a digression. Honestly, I would not have been happy with Florida's board of education curriculum for history regardless of what was in it. We have somehow got to a point where the State is dictating an official history and people quibble over the details instead of objecting to the entire enterprise. We made public schools to establish a baseline of education for everyone, even those who couldn't afford it. But it has been hijacked as a vehicle for mass indoctrination, especially history class. Yeah, its taxpayer funded, but state education agencies need to let go of the reins on the curriculum. Whether it's DeSantis' white apologetics, Texas' stranglehold on textbooks, or the official adoption of the 1619 Project, a free society should not submit their children to government propaganda. Let the teachers teach their classes.

 

Could you imagine the outrage the right would have if the shoe was on the other foot. The right complains about indoctrination and grooming, and "Dear leader" vibes but are all too happy and accepting when a right wing gov't dictates what gets taught.

 

Here's the main point and then reasonable line of inquiry.

If you have a limited time to cover the complex history of slavery in the United States for students in a public high school would one of the issues you made sure was part of that curriculum that a small minority of all the people enslaved got benefits from skills they were forced to learn which could have been been used later?

And if you felt that was one of the most important things to make sure was included in the curriculum, doesn't it make sense for people to ask why?

 

This I absolutely agree with. If we are not going to just scrap public education in toto, at least leave the curriculum to the teachers. Get the government out of our lives as much as possible.

 

Forced labor may be common in US food system: study

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-...labor-may-be-common-in-u-s-food-system-study/

press release for the study:

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/996283?

the study:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-023-00794-x

 

TIL that Native Americans were *exported* as slaves:

By the end of the seventeenth century, the Indian slave trade—especially in the Southeast—exceeded the African trade: before 1715 more Indians were exported from Charleston than Africans imported from West Africa."
― from "The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History (The Henry Roe Cloud Series on American Indians and Modernity)"​

https://read.amazon.com/kp/kshare?a...Id=K4B144PX8NNF63345G2Q&reshareChannel=system

 

That's a good thing to know. It is important to note that it only lasted a comparatively brief amount of time.

But neither this nor the current slave labor that exists in the world today changes any of the facts regarding the mandating that students learn about the skills picked up during a population's forced enslavement.

I'm curious why you guys are shifting the discussion to something not really in contention or relevant.

 

"only lasted a comparatively brief amount of time."​

the holocaust only lasted six years. the middle passage just a few weeks. it is important to note these things.

 

Yea those were terrible things also. This is a tangential issue though. How does it relate to the topic of this thread?

 

Oh the irony.

 

Correct and agreed.

Still doesn't explain why you are posting this since it isn't really relevant to the topic at hand.

 

The skills needed to advance the Nazi war effort through manufacturing and resource extraction.



Only good Nazi is a dead Nazi.