El Paso, TX (June 25, 2021) Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Vice President Kamala Harris arrive to El Paso International Airport on Air Force Two. They spoke to the press briefly before departing the airport.
Kamala’s Evil, Astonishing, Brazen Lie
In a sensible political culture, VP Kamala Harris would be required to issue an apology.
Kamala Harris:
“Just yesterday in the state of Florida, they decided middle school students will be taught that enslaved people benefited from slavery,” she said at a convention for the traditionally Black sorority Delta Sigma Theta Inc.
“They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us, and we will not stand for it.”
Instead of issuing an apology, Charles C. W. Cooke at NRO reports:
NBC confirms that (Harris) will repeat the lie during a speech in Jacksonville.
Truth vs the Narrative
After accusing Florida of some type of weird dystopian book banning, the Left is now attempting to purge truthful history from the Florida education curriculum. Even with your pencil sharpened and your scorecard at the ready, you might have trouble keeping track of the untruths the Left, especially the U.S. VP, is perpetrating on Florida and specifically on Florida’s governor.
No other than Kamala Harris is accusing the state of Florida of teaching that slavery benefited slaves. What, you might ask, is the basis for Kamala’s claim?
A Dishonest Smear
One sentence out of 191 items in the curriculum about slavery, segregation, and racism, on required topics such as “how slave codes resulted in an enslaved person becoming property with no rights” and “how the demand for slave labor resulted in a large, forced migration” within the United States” is the basis for the dishonest smear.
Junior high classrooms are instructed to “examine the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing, transportation),” and an appended “Clarification” adds that this should include considering “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
Rudyard Kipling’s Moment
One of the choices to be made in teaching a large, complex, and traumatic human event, argues NRO, is whether to flatten American slavery into a simple just-so story or provide the detail and context necessary to bring it to life.
Just-so stories are fine for introducing history to very young children, but a full education goes further.
One such form of context is to teach how all the participants in major events experienced them and made their own choices. Human beings are remarkably resilient and resourceful. Throughout history, from the plantation to the trenches to the gulag, they have found ways to endure, create, and even flourish under the worst forms of oppression and brutality. It would be hard to tell the story of black, Jewish, Irish, or Polish culture and achievement – to pick a few examples, though one can find them among any culture – without stories of making the best of atrocious situations. Where does Kamala Harris think the blues came from?
Insultingly Darn Short Lessons
Kamala Harris:
“How is it that anyone could suggest that in the midst of these atrocities, that there was any benefit to being subjected to this level of dehumanization?”
Attorney Benjamin Crump:
“Our children need to be taught that slavery was evil and immoral point blank period.”
Tell the Whole Story
Rather, NRO would encourage a longer, truthful view: black American history should impart a sense that, while “slavery was evil and immoral, period, slaves nonetheless made choices for the benefit of themselves and their families.”
Indeed, until last week, progressives commonly argued that American history should include more examples of black agency in lieu of treating black Americans simply as passive victims. Reasonable minds can differ as to whether the acquisition of skills is the best example of this dynamic, but it is a well-grounded part of the historical record.
Instead, Kamala Harris claims that it is an “insult” to tell that story.
The vice president, stresses NRO, apparently takes her cues from the NAACP’s press release.
Harris went into full-demagoguery mode, claiming that “middle school students in Florida” are now required “to be told that enslaved people benefited from slavery.”
Numerous supposedly respectable media outlets ran with headlines suggesting that Florida was attempting to teach that slavery was actually good for slaves.
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