The recent kerfuffle over the proposed Florida AP course on black history should be embarrassing to all those who are attacking it. To recount, Ron DeSantis and his Department of Education rejected the original AP course because it was more about the left’s attempts to indoctrinate rather than to provide an unbiased account of black history. The revision was Florida’s own effort written in large part by scholars such as Dr William Allen, professor emeritus from Michigan State University. I met Dr Allen when I was invited by Liberty Fund to first write a remembrance of Walter Williams (https://www.aier.org/article/walter-williams-a-fond-remembrance/) and then to participate in a colloquium celebrating his life. Dr Allen was one of the participants. He was one of the most eloquent wordsmiths I have ever encountered. I was in awe of his intellect, his forthrightness and thinking.
To recount, Ron DeSantis was attacked for opposing the teaching of woke black history rather than the teaching of black history. No one explained why critical race theory, advocating for the abolition of prisons, queer black studies and black feminism were essential parts of black history. There was even a laudatory section on the Marxist anti-family Black Lives Matter. The left accused DeSantis as opposing the teaching of black history. One headline read “What is behind DeSantis push to erase black history?” This is another illustration that the media is fostering the lie that DeSantis opposes the teaching of black history. Historic black conservatives were excluded from the original AP course.
National Education Association president’s Becky Pringles defense of the AP curriculum “Black history is American history. DeSantis is stealing our students’ freedom to learn it” is sobering and shows precisely why we need to change our children being indoctrinated rather than educated in our public schools. Pringles ignores that contrary to the claims that Gov DeSantis is trying to erase black history, the governor annually awards winners of Black History Month student contests in Florida.
The blistering attack on the Florida revision was led by Vice President Kamala Harris who in a speech in Jacksonville attacked the new curriculum stating that it said that enslaved people benefited from slavery implying that the Florida curriculum was actually saying that slavery was good for black people. The one line read “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” One headline read “Florida’s public schools will now teach students that some black people benefited from slavery because it taught them useful skills, part of new African American history standards approved Wednesday that were blasted by a state teachers’ union as a “step backward.”
Dr Allen has been in the news and very vocal about how the criticism was misguided pointing out that slavery was odious but in a slave society not all slaves worked at menial tasks. There were blacksmiths, carpenters, cooks, craftsmen and even bookkeepers. Allen pointed out that the great Frederick Douglas was taught by the plantation owner’s wife to read and write. Allen when asked about that single line said “I think the sentence explains itself. Its grammar is certainly perfectly clear when refers to the fact that those who were held in slavery possess skills, whether they developed them before being held in slavery, while being held in slavery or subsequently to being held in slavery, from which they benefited when they applied themselves in the exertion of those skills. That’s not a statement that is at all controversial. The facts sustain it. The testimonies of the people who lived the history sustain it.”
As Dr Allen says, the statement is self evident and true. But in addition to Harris, two leading black conservatives agreed with her and attacked the sentence. They were Byron Donalds, Florida congressman and Tim Scott the junior senator from South Carolina. Why would they agree with Harris? It is for the same reason. The curriculum was assailed was because it was a chance to attack Ron DeSantis. Harris and the Democrats see DeSantis as a major threat to their power. Donalds is a Trump supporter while Scott is running for the Republican presidential nomination against DeSantis. Donalds and Scott are trying to undermine DeSantis’ quest for the nomination while Harris recognizes him as the Democrat’s biggest threat.
However, Donalds, Scott, Harris and all the critics have egg on their faces. All the critics were intellectually lazy and have embarrassed themselves. This because the AP course lionized by the left which was rejected by the state of Florida contained almost the exact same statement: “In addition to agricultural work, enslaved people learned specialized trades and worked as painters, carpenters, tailors, musicians, and healers in the North and South. Once free, African Americans used these skills to provide for themselves and others.”
Again, the only reason why all this nonsense occurred in the first place is that Ron DeSantis is running for president. Otherwise, there would haven’t been a peep of criticism – at least not by those with half a brain.
haroldblackphd.com 