I’m sure there are people who’ve read my posts in this thread and feel I’m defending slavery. For the record, I’m not and I don’t think you are either.
But I feel this Florida program is designed to provide misleading information about slavery. Calling it false information is more debatable. And I can’t think of any good motives for doing that.
I skimmed through the document in question and looked at many of its other standards and clarifications, and taken as a whole, it didn’t give me the impression that it was designed to provide misleading information about slavery—though it might possibly give such an impression to someone who has more expertise and/or has read it more carefully than I. Hence I’m curious about the accuracy and intent of the one bit we’ve been focusing on here in this thread.
That one bit is the personal benefit part? Can you explain how that could even happen?
How could those now-skilled enslaved people benefit? If the answer is, say, fewer beatings or better food from the master, that seems like a dubious, ancillary benefit. They could never benefit from the actual skills.
That’s what I want to ask the people who wrote the document. I want to know what they had in mind—and whether it was something they just pulled out of their asses, or something that’s technically true but misleading, or something that’s genuinely worth knowing about.
It sure seems like this curriculum is bending over backwards to make American slavery seem like just one part of an entire panoply of indentured systems.
Clearly, in an effort to not make the white kids feel bad about the racist legacy of America, they are planning to arm them with “yeah, well, Europeans were indentured servants too!”
As already noted, there is a vast chasm between that role and the status of slave.
Additionally, it must be emphasized how expressly and vociferously racist that America has long been towards black people. They have been singled out in this country for a specific and targeted form of abuse, which is distinctly different than all of the other racism and bigotry that has marked the country’s history.
This can’t be ignored.
Although, when I think of skills learned by slaves, I’m reminded of Hercules Posey, an enslaved cook for George Washington. He was such a good cook that he was able to sell his food and earn money. And, with these great skills and the chance to toil for the father of the country, what did Mr. Posey do? Why, yes, he escaped to freedom.
Or; there’s the letter from a slave to his former master - who begged for his return -where the freedman lets him know just how much his labors were worth
A lot depends on whether it’s the similarities or the differences that get emphasized.
They had in mind that their they’re of this woke indoctrination and CRT stuff and want to protect the white kids’ feelings. I mean, where have you been? Remember when Giuliani’s campaign message was Verb Noun 9/11? DeSantis is worse – his is Woke Woke Woke.
Yeah, the context isn’t exactly subtle. The quiet parts are being shouted out loud these days. Florida is nobody’s idea of a place where an open debate of ideas occurs. Remember New College? The public college that was basically the subject of a hostile takeover by the state? That wasn’t a long time ago. That was within the last year.
This isn’t even a new dog whistle. This one existed well before any of us were born. It’s just a toned down version ‘slavery brought civilization/religion/enlightenment to those benighted heathens’. There’s reason people invoke Jim Crow. It’s the same tactics and strategy, updated for modern sensibilities.
Just because the language isn’t explicitly racist doesn’t change any of that.
It’s almost like the last decade didn’t happen. They’re really, truly not being subtle, no matter how softly the language is being couched. The dog whistles are just plain whistles now as long as you are willing to listen.
Anyone that doesn’t understand how this is just another verse in the, very old, ‘Modern day African Americans should stop complaining about slavery and be thankful we rescued their ancestors from Africa and provided them free room and board (which they didn’t even pay for so just who owes who reparations?) and full time employment!’ is, apparently, blissfully unaware of the multi-generation attempt to rehabilitate American chattel slavery.
If I didn’t type so slow…
Well, let’s think this through.
The curriculum instructs teachers to teach about a system whereby people came to the United States and did a period of unpaid labor in order to learn beneficial skills.
Then, the curriculum instructs teachers to teach about the beneficial skills that slaves - who were unpaid labor - learned.
It sounds to me like they are mandating a curriculum where both become different versions of the same scheme.
Some owners allowed some slaves to keep a portion of what they earned for such skills when they used them, with the owner’s permission, for others; and a few even managed to save up enough to buy their own or another’s freedom.
Here’s a couple of cites:
That however required the permission of the owner, who was in no way required to allow it, and who could revoke that permission (and any promises) at any time. And very few enslaved people had the chance to do this. ETA: If the idea is for the curriculum to present this as common practice that most slaves had access to, that’s entirely off the wall.
Yes. I think I also noted above the strong implication that people who started off in Africa would have had no useful skills that they’d learned there; and the further implication is that enslaved people born in the USA would also have learned no skills if they’d instead been born, and stayed, in Africa. People in Africa knew and could do a shitload of stuff.
No shit:
Yes, it does sound like a strawman. That’s why we quoted and linked to the exact quote in the curriculum that says that.
Forget wrought iron in Jamaica, how about steel in Tanzania – 2,000 years ago?
But carbon steel had been made long before either Kelly or Bessemer. One of the oldest and most sophisticated methods was that of the Haya people. They’re an African tribe in what is Tanzania today. The Hayas produced high-grade carbon steel for about 2000 years.
…
The key to the Haya iron process was a high operating temperature. Eight men, seated around the base of the kiln, pumped air in with hand bellows. The air flowed through the fire in clay conduits. Then the heated air blasted into the charcoal fire itself. The result was a far hotter process than anything known in Europe before modern times.
Sure, I know this. But that isn’t nearly as relevant vis-a-vis African skills and European slavery as the fact that all those lofty Imperial wrought iron edifices rest directly on the backs of contemporary African skills. .
If you’re a teacher in Florida, and one of your kid’s parents came to class on “Meet the Teacher” night wearing a “Moms For Liberty” T-shirt, are you going to be emphasizing the similarities or the differences when you get to that unit?
That’s really what this is about - provide a nice, safe, anti-woke curriculum for teachers to use who want to keep their jobs, and thus don’t want to stray too close to “indoctrinating or persuading students to a particular point of view inconsistent with the principles” given in the law, to mildly paraphrase the law in question (see section 3 of the passed law, available at https://fda.fsu.edu/sites/g/files/upcbnu636/files/Media/Files/HB7/Chapter%202022-72%20Laws%20of%20Florida%201000.05[1].pdf , near the bottom of page 11).
I’ll add they have a really fascinating section 4:
(4) The State Board of Education shall develop or adopt a curriculum to inspire future generations through motivating stories of American history that demonstrate important life skills and the principles of individual
freedom that enabled persons to prosper even in the most difficult
circumstances. This curriculum shall be known as “Stories of Inspiration”
and made available to schools to implement the requirements of subsection (3).
I posted previously in this thread about “teaching the exception” and this is a really good example of it. This curriculum is going to be focused on those people who overcame injustice through an exclusively individualist framework. In doing so, it will distract from - if not completely paper over - the systemic issues that keep others, even those with “important life skills” who adhere to “the principles of individual freedom” from being able to prosper.
Apparently some states have already enacted that into law, giving the rapee OJT training in motherhood regardless of the rapee’s age.
Actually it’s to protect the God bless the Confederacy feeling.
Next up from the Florida school board… It wasn’t slavery. It was a tourist visit.
Wasn’t there some public figure who, a few years ago, expressed a belief that there was a positive aspect to the fact that slaves were actually getting free transportation to North America? I thought that there was some such controversy.