Florida Schools to Tell Kids Slavery Benefited Black People

[Dill]

(07-30-2023, 01:23 PM)GMDino Wrote: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/florida-work-group-not-agree-controversial-parts-states-new-standards-rcna96490

A majority of the members of the Florida work group that developed new standards for teaching African American history opposed the sections that have recently drawn criticism, including that middle schoolers be instructed that enslaved people developed “skills” that could be used for their “personal benefit,” three members of the work group said.

The members, who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal, told NBC News that the majority did not want to include that change or a requirement that high school students be taught about violence perpetrated “by African Americans” when learning about events like the Ocoee and Tulsa Race massacres.

Yow this is terrible. 

As I suspected, people intent on reducing or spreading "blame" are behind the offensive remarks, and possible the inclusion
of the "slavery-everywhere-in-all times-and-places" thrust as well.

When students study the Holocaust, they should learn that some Jews also perpetrated violence against other Jews.

(07-30-2023, 01:23 PM)GMDino Wrote: While most members of the group have kept a low profile, Presley Rice and Allen have spoken out.

“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,” they said in a joint statement after criticism began to mount last week. They mentioned blacksmithing, shoemaking, fishing, teaching and tailoring as examples of skills enslaved people developed. “Florida students deserve to learn how slaves took advantage of whatever circumstances they were in to benefit themselves and the community of African descendants.”

In a post on her Facebook page Saturday, Presley Rice said: “It saddens me to observe how falsehoods are being perpetuated now by some people with questionable intent, using cherry-picked language, taken out of context, to undermine the fact-based Academic Standards crafted by the Workgroup I was a part of, due to my decades-long quest to have the full, unvarnished history told about African Americans.”

And this is the spin. 

A "full, unvarnished history" on this principle might include a segment on how slave owners could rape slaves at will, but Black men sometimes raped white women too. We need "ALL the facts." 

Why limit this to U.S. history? No one ever mentions that Jews may have learned some skills in camps that were useful after they survived
their intended extermination. Presenting them as just victims of oppression ignores their strength, courage, and resiliency. 

The majority of this curriculum does seem to me good and "fact-based," it's just that the contested language plants seeds of considerable distortion for teachers who know how to nurture them.