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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   3642 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 23, 2023

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Here is the link to the education standards, and here is the primary section they are getting angry over. It isn't even saying that "slavery benefited blacks" per se, it's saying something much more defensible:

SS.68.AA.2.3 Examine the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing, transportation).

Benchmark Clarifications: Clarification 1: Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.

This isn't even wrong. Here is, for example, a page from George Washington University saying the very same thing:

Slaves had many noteworthy skills and talents which made plantations economically self-sufficient. The services of slave blacksmiths, carpenters, coopers, shoemakers, tanners, spinners, weavers and other artisans were all used to keep plantations running smoothly, efficiently, and with little added expense to the owners. These same abilities were also used to improve conditions in the quarters so that slaves developed not only a spirit of self-reliance but experienced a measure of autonomy. These skills, when added to other talents for cooking, quilting, weaving, medicine, music, song, dance, and storytelling, instilled in slaves the sense that, as a group, they were not only competent but gifted. Slaves used their talents to deflect some of the daily assaults of bondage. They saw themselves then as strong, valuable people who were unjustly held against their will rather than as the perpetually dependent children or immoral scoundrels described by so many of their owners. Indeed, they found through their artistry some moments of happiness, particularly by telling tales which portrayed work in humorous terms or when singing satirical songs which lampooned their owners.

Richard Toler was trained as a blacksmith during slavery and later went on to try his hand as a carpenter and stonemason. He could also play the fiddle but recalled that he and his people were always treated poorly on the plantation:

https://www2.gwu.edu/~folklife/bighouse/panel19.html

But when Florida's education system says it, it's problematic and three million inflated hitpieces need to be written about how terrible Florida and Desantis is, despite the fact that educational institutions like GWU have explicitly taken the very same perspective. Politics is the ultimate mind-killer. I suppose you could make a coherent argument that if the picture being painted of slavery is primarily a positive one the Florida standards encourage teachers to lie by omission. Except it's clearly not doing so, because in a section right afterwards:

SS.912.AA.1.7 Compare the living conditions of slaves in British North American colonies, the Caribbean, Central America and South America, including infant mortality rates.

Benchmark Clarifications: Clarification 1: Instruction includes the harsh conditions and their consequences on British American plantations (e.g., undernourishment, climate conditions, infant and child mortality rates of the enslaved vs. the free). Clarification 2: Instruction includes the harsh conditions in the Caribbean plantations (i.e., poor nutrition, rigorous labor, disease). Clarification 3: Instruction includes how slavery was sustained in the Caribbean, Dutch Guiana and Brazil despite overwhelming death rates.

And in another one:

SS.912.AA.1.9 Evaluate how conditions for Africans changed in colonial North America from 1619-1776.

Benchmark Clarifications: Clarification 1: Instruction includes both judicial and legislative actions during the colonial period. Clarification 2: Instruction includes the history and development of slave codes in colonial North America including the John Punch case (1640). Clarification 3: Instruction includes how slave codes resulted in an enslaved person becoming property with no rights.

It's funny, because the critics are claiming that Florida's education standards are presenting a "sanitised" view of history, while in reality the people who want a sanitised half-truth to be painted are the critics themselves, who would readily strip demonstrable historical facts out of the record to support their political project.

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It's funny, because the critics are claiming that Florida's education standards are presenting a "sanitised" view of history, while in reality the people who want a sanitised half-truth to be painted are the critics themselves, who would readily strip demonstrable historical facts out of the record to support their political project.

Likewise. I see lots of leftists posting memes about how only monsters ban books, and how those who sanitize history are on the wrong side of history, etc. And I'm constantly thinking, "Oh, now you're against this, in this one specific case? This is exactly what I've been saying about you and the rest of the leftists for the past decade." But they don't even see it, they can't even fathom their own hypocrisy.

Yep.

There's no conflict between teaching that chattel slavery is a morally indefensible institution, and that in spite of this the owners still had incentives to develop the slaves' skills.

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