If there are Holocaust deniers, despite the overwhelming evidence, why shouldn’t the same be true of slavery, the original founding sin of the United States?
Some time ago, when Donald Trump was in the White House, with well-known friendships among white supremacists, the African-American rapper Kanye West was received in audience. Disseminator of anti-Semitic ideas, he also gave voice to one of the blasphemies that racists use. The rapper claimed that slavery had been a choice of blacks.
That an African-American said it endorsed extremist conservatives. The joke caused astonishment in general, not only among those affected, but many thought that the musician’s neurons were slipping.
His story sounded similar to that of a character in the film The Life of Brian, when the Romans ask him “crucifixion?” and he replies “freedom!”, only to laugh and clarify: “no, it’s a joke”.
Something much quieter, no joke, is what happened this week in the state board of Education (education?) of Florida, the state governed by the ultra Ron DeSantis, aspiring for the presidency in 2024 and with claims to rewrite a past that is still very present.
If this goes forward, in time, when a child is asked about slavery they will answer that it didn’t exist, that it was an opportunity for those people kidnapped in Africa, transported as cattle on ships, sold as horses, physically exploited on plantations, raped, humiliated, imprisoned or lynched if they tried to escape from what in Florida they intend to explain was actually a place to learn a trade.
Public schools in this state will teach students that many black people benefited from slavery because it taught them useful skills, such as a machine shop, a forge, or college.
This doctrine is part of the new African-American history standards approved under DeSantis’ anti-woke slogans, a theory despised by the teachers’ union, because it is a step backwards, and by many critics, including many historians, who alleged that “only half the story is told and half the truth”. This instruction seeks to “whitewash” slavery and omits key factors of the black experience in the US. The new guidelines include controversial language regarding how “slaves developed abilities, in some cases, that they were able to apply to their advantage,” according to the 216-page document devoted to social studies standards.
The vice president, Kamala Harris, so in doubt because of her public absence, ordered a radical change of her schedule and in less than 24 hours she improvised a trip this Friday, an action that usually takes days, to make a fiery speech.
“The extremists in this state are inoculating propaganda to our children,” he denounced in Jacksonville.
“We will not allow these politicians, who try to divide, to create unnecessary debates. That the slaves benefited from slavery… are you kidding me?” he said. “We all know what slavery entails. It involves torture, taking the child away from a mother, it involves some of the worst examples of dehumanizing people in our world. How can anyone suggest, in the midst of these atrocities, that profits were made by being subjected to this level of dehumanization?” he stressed.
DeSantis countered that it’s based on “facts.” The African-American Will Hurd, a former Republican congressman, answered him:
“Unfortunately, slavery was not a work program, but turned people into property without rights and without freedom.”
