"The Teaching of US History" Topic

"CNN political commentator Scott Jennings called out Vice President Harris on Sunday over her claim that Florida's middle school curriculum included lessons on how enslaved people "benefited from slavery."

CNN "State of the Union" host Dana Bash asked the panelists about how Democrats have been calling for Harris to "get out there more." 
"What is amazing to me [is] that how little Kamala Harris apparently has to do that she can read something on Twitter one day and be on the airplane the next to make something literally out of nothing. This is a completely made-up deal. I looked at the standards, I even looked at an analysis of the standards, in every instance where the word slavery or slave was used, I even read the statement of the African-American scholars that wrote the standards – not [Florida Gov.] Ron DeSantis, but the scholars," he said.
"Everybody involved in this says this is completely a fabricated issue and yet look at how quickly Kamala Harris jumped on it. So, the fact that this is her best moment, a fabricated matter, is pretty ridiculous," Jennings continued."

I guess maybe I would use the anti-indoctrination clause to protect against the re-introduction of the Lost Cause narrative.

What specific instances in Florida schools were recorded on video of teachers telling white students they are responsible for slavery? Be specific, you can link them if they actually happened.

I think you have to show that a teacher is causing discomfort to a white student or students, as I understand it.

Did this indoctrination part of the law undergo legislative review to confirm it was necessary? Public hearings? How was the need determined? Do theynhave clear and definite data showing it is addressing public welfare? Maybe all this did happen, but who knows with all the politics.

Were the black scholars who help write this concerned about indoctrination? What were their reasons? I don't know much about the process down there. Not enough info, really, but feels like too much big government involvement.

Debating you is a waste of my time.

The same could be said for both of you…

I guess maybe I would use the anti-indoctrination clause to protect against the re-introduction of the Lost Cause narrative.

The link offers a good explanation of the issue:

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Does anyone know or understand who writes curriculum for public schools in the different states?

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It is a political process and dominated by interest groups. Given how divided we are, a Contentious political process. Which is why public schools will be less and less important. You do not want me teaching your kids, and vice versa.

Though I'd enjoy team teaching with you. Kids love listening to two teachers arguing with each other.

No, they don't. They want to learn and having two teachers 'arguing with each other' in front of the students is counter-productive.

We were in teaching teams in middle school, but the teachers taught their subject in their own classroom. It wasn't a tag team.

Why is it counter-productive? Don't you want to teach them critical thinking?

They want to learn …

Whatever gave you that idea? Well, maybe 10% do. The rest are only there because the law and their parents require it.

I have stifled Charge, who I have come to believe does not argue in good faith. But for others:

1) Slavery is unquestionably evil. It did (and does) great harm to any society which practices it. In the case of the pre-Civil War south, it did severe damage to all, to the slaves themselves first and most and also to others. The defense of slavery as a positive good, which the south shifted into as a response to the abolitionists, produced a closed-minded society in place of what had been intellectually vibrant, as well as having serious economic drawbacks.

2) The analogy is far from exact, but is helpful nevertheless. The worst of plantations operated as prison camps, and may reasonably be compared to them. (The big difference is that most men and women in prison are guilty of crimes, while such is not the case in slavery.) Now, you "never" want to be in prison. (That is not quite true: men will tell you "if I were not in prison I'd be dead", and mean it.) But while prison is ALWAYS bad, just HOW BAD depends on various factors. It especially depends on the character of the guards and wardens. Most are doing their jobs within an oppressive system and are indifferent to its effects on inmates. A few are genuinely concerned about the welfare of their inmates, and do what they can to alleviate suffering, within a system that does not make that easy. And some are cruel and can make an already bad situation into hell. And the inmates have no control over what sort of guards and wardens have authority over them. Plantations were the same way.

3) But self-interest is a powerful force, applying both to owners and to slaves. Even indifferent planters might see the benefits of slave marriages, producing offspring and discouraging runaways. You may read the chapter on slavery in Sowell's MARKETS AND MINORITIES; some slaves worked in conditions where escape was relatively easy (lumberjacks are an example) while others possessed scarce skills. These categories tended to get better treatment, often even including wages, because workers may respond better to positive incentives than to negative ones. STATUS matters, and it matters at least as much within an enslaved population as within a free one. (One of my mentees in prison was a sex offender, while the other was a bank robber; their status among the inmates was immensely different.) Slaves often saw service at the Big House as desirable in terms of status and also material conditions. Being a skilled blacksmith -- which most plantations would have -- likewise conferred high status. And when slavery ended, the skills remained.

3) Christianity was and IS immensely important to African-Americans; it is one of the glories of their culture, producing unique insights and powerful music, among other things. Phillis Wheatley no doubt spoke for many in seeing her acquired faith as God's great blessing. But it was a blessing transmitted by whites, to start with. The Christianity mitigated the oppression, without making it benign. And the faith remained after the slavery ended.

4) The above is simple truth, based on facts. And a curriculum ought to teach these truths. There seem to be some who are either unwilling or incapable of moving past point #1 above. That is foolish, and when done for political purposes, it is wicked.

In the end, no slave was free to leave of his own accord. Any advantages he might have been granted could only be conferred by his master. This in itself renders the gamut of conditions under which the enslaved toiled meaningless, IMO.

All men are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights, including Liberty. There was no enslaved but not too badly category without the right to liberty.

We do not bear guilt for the actions of people long ago, only our own. So we can teach the truth of history with all the inspiration and discomfort that entails.

As for the gifts of Christianity and music, they might have made being enslaved more bearable, but the idea that you could practice Christianity, were endowed with rights by the Creator, but have those right denied by certain men could not really be seen as Christian or somehow reconciled to the truth.

The gift of music was all the sweeter for the despair and perseverance that inspired it. It was returned to us ten-fold in its rich lessons. Today we all celebrate it together. A reminder perhaps.

In the end, no slave was free to leave of his own accord. Any advantages he might have been granted could only be conferred by his master. This in itself renders the gamut of conditions under which the enslaved toiled meaningless, IMO.

No. I doubt they were meaningless to those who received them. MANY advantages are received by grace of someone else. And I guarantee you that men who have been in multiple prisons have a keen appreciation for advantages they receive sometimes, even though (or ESPECIALLY! -- that caveat makes no sense to me) they cannot leave of their own accord.

I was allowed to have a party once a term for my class. I was allowed to bring in an outside fast food dinner for each man -- WAY better than what the prison served. The fact that they were prisoners made them appreciate it more rather than less.

"There was no "enslaved but not too badly" category? Are you saying the CONDITIONS of slavery are irrelevant? That is simply wrong. (Go and read Genovese's ROLL, JORDAN, ROLL.) I SAID slavery is always bad; but HOW bad remains an important question not to be simply dismissed.

AS to Christianity and slavery, no, go back and read Paul. Start with his letter to Philemon. Paul considered slavery as IRRELEVANT. We are all free in Christ -- master and slave alike -- and also BROTHERS in Christ, master and slave alike. We are also all slaves, but we get to choose our master -- God, or sin. Sin PAYS its slaves; the wage is death. But a slave to God is adopted into the family and so no longer a slave.

If I am introduced to a black Christian man he will typically call me "Brother John" or "Brother McBride." (White Baptists do this too.)

Sorry, Tort (and I respect your views very highly) but you are opining here on what you do not understand.

Ahistorical standards for teaching:

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The assertion is not that slaves benefitted FROM slavery but rather that slaves were sometimes able either to win (by their own efforts) or to be given (by grace of someone else) some advantage that made them better off while still remaining slaves. That is, they were advantaged WITHIN slavery. Just as my students, while remaining prisoners, were advantaged by being able to learn from my classes.

Those who are determined to make this into a political weapon will deliberately ignore the distinction, unless they are too stupid to see it.

On Being Brought from Africa to America
BY PHILLIS WHEATLEY

'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
"Their colour is a diabolic die."
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.

But what would she know? You think she considered turning down freedom? While still thanking God for being involuntarily transported to America? She was not blessed BY slavery but yet infinitely blessed by her enslavement. This paradox (that suffering can be redemptive) is a central tenet of Christianity.

Paul wrote to early Christians (some of whom were slaves) DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT! It is trivial in comparison to sin and salvation. BUT, he adds, if you do happen to get a chance to be free, of course you should grab it!

It is a different way of thinking from modern secularism -- though perfectly familiar to well-instructed Christians still today.

This discussion seems about played out – I do not think anyone here is going to change anyone's opinion and we have veered rather far afield of the original issue, which was Florida's shiny new teaching standards.

I have absolutely no issue with doc mcb's assertion, which seems kind of facile to be honest: of course some slaves were relatively better off than others and yeah, sure, some may found their experiences as slaves useful. After all, under the right circumstances almost any experience, no matter how ghastly, may prove useful. What I do have an issue with, is that the alleged benefits some slaves may have received as a result of their bondage needs to be highlighted when teaching young students about "the slave experience." I know that it's an invidious comparison, but imagine teaching children about Hitler, say, and having to mention that his anti-smoking campaign saved many lives, some of them perhaps even Jews. Or that he really liked his dogs. Or whatever. Regardless of the intent, regardless of the historicity of the claim, it's going to come across less as an effort to recognize historical complexity than as an attempt to create a softer, less monstrous Hitler. There is, or was, if I remember correctly, a Jewish musician – Eric Vogel -- who honed his craft entertaining the guards at Dachau and so survived; were I to tell that story in a class, my point would not be that he "benefited" from his experience in the camp, even were that in some twisted sense true.

Are we just ignoring Phyllis? Of course we are. Doesn't fit the narrative.

I do agree that age and maturity matter. But I'd absolutely teach the Wheatley poem in a middle school history class. For one thing, it is REAL, unlike much of what is being said in the current political hit job.

Christianity was and IS immensely important to African-Americans; it is one of the glories of their culture, producing unique insights and powerful music, among other things. Phillis Wheatley no doubt spoke for many in seeing her acquired faith as God's great blessing. But it was a blessing transmitted by whites, to start with. The Christianity mitigated the oppression, without making it benign. And the faith remained after the slavery ended.

Christianity produced African American music? How come it never produced much powerful White music?

So, the people doing the oppression weren't Christians? Or was part of the lesson of Slave State Christianity the whippings, the lynchings, the family separation, the forced illiteracy?

The assertion is not that slaves benefitted FROM slavery but rather that slaves were sometimes able either to win (by their own efforts) or to be given (by grace of someone else) some advantage that made them better off while still remaining slaves. That is, they were advantaged WITHIN slavery. Just as my students, while remaining prisoners, were advantaged by being able to learn from my classes.

Youre comparing slavery to your classroom? Hunh.

Those who are determined to make this into a political weapon will deliberately ignore the distinction, unless they are too stupid to see it.

The political weapon is Florida adopting language that uses "neutral" language which looks discriminatory and seeks to intimidate teachers with vague guidelines which allow them to punish attitudes or comments they don't like, rather like a commissar approach. Looks to violate the 1st Amendment clause against restricting speech. If defending the Constitution against government censorship is political, then…

The distinction appears to be let's look on the bright side of slavery. How do we know any benefits conferred onto to slaves werent accidental?

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Christians in the Old South used to say that Jesus never spoke against slavery as justification for slavery. Now we know where they got the argument about Secession from:

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Reviewing the work of the white churches, Frederick Douglass had this to say: "Between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference—so wide that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ; I therefore hate the corrupt, slave-holding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason but the most deceitful one for calling the religion of this land Christianity…"

I mean, I realize Frederick Douglass was no Phyllis Wheatley but the man had a point.

Doc, I was thinking only of the Declaration. No degree of slavery was acceptable based on that document. Even the most privileged slave, learning skills but not owning the tools or fruits of his labor, was still being wronged as long as he was deprived of his liberty. He was a commodity. Only his owner could grant him the self determination that is a core right of America's foundation.

I admit I was not clear. Liberty trumps all else. It is the self evident truth that hangs over every degree of slavery in those times.

Ultimately the conditions of slavery do not matter when it comes to liberty.
You are unjustly deprived whether whipped and beaten or exempted from such treatment to develop a skill. I'm not referring to degrees of advantage within slavery, rather degrees of deprivation within slavery, starting with being owned by another person.

Your convicted prisoners had committed crimes. They were held as a consequence of their own behavior under the justice system. You did good work. As in good works. But these men were not born prisoners.

I respect your faith, beliefs, opinions. I have a different view.

Lacking documentation, I am not sure of whether the process or content of Florida's actions here were implemented in good faith. I could be wrong. As I said at the beginning, there is something about the indoctrination clause that just sounds off to me.

I try to take the past seriously, on its own terms. Just as travel teaches us that not all the world is like our own patch, and just as learning another language helps you understand your own better, a historian wants to understand the thoughts, the values, the assumptions of past societies. And of past generations of our OWN society. There is little point in looking at past events and peoples through the lens of our own current culture and society.

This does not mean we AGREE or APPROVE of past cultures. But one cannot really do that, or DISAGREE or DISAPPOVE either, unless one first understands.

In the case of the south, it was self-consciously a feudal culture -- their popular literature was steeped in knights and ladies etc. DeToqueville saw them clearly, and accurately predicted both that civil war would come, as the feudal south could not coexist with the democratic north, and also that the stronger democratic culture would prevail. But if modern students do not grasp the significance of honor and family and chivalry and such, it is impossible to make sense of, say, Congressman Brooks caning Senator Sumner. Given his assumptions and values, he HAD to. We do not think that way, and I'm glad, but the job of the historian is first of all to UNDERSTAND.

The same applies to the black south. If you are not intimately familiar with the Book of Exodus, you will never understand the spirituals. The slaves took Christianity, made it their own, and also drew from it some different insights or emphases -- a major intellectual and spiritual achievement. Just as Job was made BETTER by his suffering, the experience of slavery made the transplanted Africans better. Doesn't mean the suffering is good, any more than the refining fire is good. But to have come through it with some of the crud burned away IS to be desired.

But the modern mind eschews complexity and ambiguity and paradox and anything requiring it to set aside its own assumptions and try to understand how people with quite different "givens" think about things.

Tort, of course i agree with all of that about the Declaration. I thought I had covered that in my first point. But what then? Having agreed that slavery is evil, and in conflict with our fundamental principles, what then? Is that it? Or do we then try to answer all sorts of other questions?

HAVE you read Genovese's ROLL, JORDAN, ROLL: THE WORLD THE SLAVES MADE? It is the single best book on American slavery. Because Genoves tries very hard to understand how they thought and felt and acted. (His work on the planters is also very fine.)

Genovese argued that the slaves mostly accepted the fact of enslavement -- there were few revolts and relatively few runaways -- while seeing themselves as entitled -- as the lower class within a feudal society -- to certain types of treatment from their betters. And they had some effective means to get what they thought was their due, or to retaliate when the planters failed to live up to their standards.

We have a hard time understanding that, as our democratic minds are based on radically different assumptions. But it is IMPORTANT to understand it (without agreeing with it) if we are to make effective use of the past as a means of understanding where we are today and how we got here.

In his book THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK DuBois has a chapter on the "Sorrow Songs", and he ends with these generous and hopeful questions:

Through all the sorrow of the Sorrow Songs there breathes a hope—a faith in the ultimate justice of things. The minor cadences of despair change often to triumph and calm confidence. Sometimes it is faith in life, sometimes a faith in death, sometimes assurance of boundless justice in some fair world beyond. But whichever it is, the meaning is always clear: that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins. Is such a hope justified? Do the Sorrow Songs sing true?
. . . . Your country? How came it yours? Before the Pilgrims landed we were here. Here we have brought our three gifts and mingled them with yours: a gift of story and song—soft, stirring melody in an ill-harmonized and unmelodious land; the gift of sweat and brawn to beat back the wilderness, conquer the soil, and lay the foundations of this vast economic empire two hundred years earlier than your weak hands could have done it; the third, a gift of the Spirit. Around us the history of the land has centred for thrice a hundred years; out of the nation's heart we have called all that was best to throttle and subdue all that was worst; fire and blood, prayer and sacrifice, have billowed over this people, and they have found peace only in the altars of the God of Right. Nor has our gift of the Spirit been merely passive. Actively we have woven ourselves with the very warp and woof of this nation,—we fought their battles, shared their sorrow, mingled our blood with theirs, and generation after generation have pleaded with a headstrong, careless people to despise not Justice, Mercy, and Truth, lest the nation be smitten with a curse. Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood. Are not these gifts worth the giving? Is not this work and striving? Would America have been America without her Negro people?

"Here we have brought our three gifts and mingled them with yours"

What were the gifts of the whites that DuBois sees the Negroes as mingling with their own three?

'There is no upside to slavery'-Will Hurd.

It should be noted (again) that the draft of the Declaration of Independence abolish slavery. The three states of the lower South-the two Carolinas and Georgia, objected and refused to vote for the Declaration until 'the offending paragraph' was taken out.

Independence first, abolish slavery later.

I try to take the past seriously, on its own terms. Just as travel teaches us that not all the world is like our own patch, and just as learning another language helps you understand your own better, a historian wants to understand the thoughts, the values, the assumptions of past societies. And of past generations of our OWN society. There is little point in looking at past events and peoples through the lens of our own current culture and society.

I am sorry but the past and other, contemporary cultures are not the same. Someone trying to exonerate the antebellum South might want this to be true but it isn't. It's just the opposite for the everyday American citizen, they should analyze and judge the past, especially our past which is still with us today. Otherwise, how else are we supposed to learn from it?

It is evident that allowing past bad behavior to feel good about itself is to allow those supposedly past principles to exist among us today. There are far too many Confederate "History" supporters who demonstrate the exact same social approach to the USA today. Thus, it isn't like they are thoroughly modern and only view the Slave South as an historical antique to be enjoyed but put aside, rather they appear to give it status today as a moral viewpoint, the same as any other viewpoint.

The State of Alabama, a former Confederate State with an outstanding legacy of racism and slavery is now defying a SCOTUS court order to redraw voting districts. This behavior is disturbingly similar to both pre-civil war and post-civil war Slave State behavior.

You keep speaking about the current society being a complete break from past with Antebellum Southern behaviors write-off-able as quaint, unconscious and innocent. But how do we account for its evolution into Jim Crow and now this current resistance and commitment to both racism and discrimination? It seems that to excuse the past is truly to be doomed to repeat its mistakes. Or maybe there's some who dont think they were mistakes?

Are we to ignore Alabama's behavior as a coincidence or can it be traced to a deep denial to not only admit that past behavior was both corrupt and immoral but a hunger to re-adopt the same stance today?

This is the result of not judging the past, especially our past. Thus, in some ways, this carefully crafted lie that we cant judge our past comes across like a sickly-sweet cover to pretend to honor our history but in reality deploy it as a model to continue today behavior they knew to be wrong back then; to normalize it.

In the case of the south, it was self-consciously a feudal culture -- their popular literature was steeped in knights and ladies etc. DeToqueville saw them clearly, and accurately predicted both that civil war would come, as the feudal south could not coexist with the democratic north, and also that the stronger democratic culture would prevail. But if modern students do not grasp the significance of honor and family and chivalry and such, it is impossible to make sense of, say, Congressman Brooks caning Senator Sumner. Given his assumptions and values, he HAD to. We do not think that way, and I'm glad, but the job of the historian is first of all to UNDERSTAND.

But "Understanding" in this case is not only a one way street, it is self serving. For instance, do you excuse Soviet purges or starvations? Is Soviet communism something you can celebrate as part of the beautiful tapestry of history that we cant judge because the past needs to be understood and it is wrong to simplify it with our monolithic modern sensibilities?

It would seem that both the antebellum South and the Soviets need to be understood and studied with complete dispassion and understanding with all the attendant rationalizations and absence of judgement.

Do you agree with this, do we give everyone a pass, Stalin, the Soviets? Are all their behaviors to be treated as a viewpoint, just like any other which can neither be condemned nor learned from?

But the modern mind eschews complexity and ambiguity and paradox and anything requiring it to set aside its own assumptions and try to understand how people with quite different "givens" think about things.

And the reactionary mind will contort itself beyond recognition to both rationalize and keep alive unacceptable social attitudes from the past because it wants them to continue to exist and operate today.

Great Dubois quote Doc. I would have to answer your question if I was in your AP history class perhaps, but I would need some time. Objectively there is no doubt that white people did good things even amongst the harm and we are not keeping score in any case. If I had to pick three things it would be hard to decide, but it's a good exercise in reminding us that we are the sum of many parts, good and bad.

The notion that the self-evident truths are the absolute starting point and foundation for who we are supposed to be has always been my go to. We and our ancestors have wandered off the trail many times. We have always had a great talent for fooling ourselves. But we have the guidance to fall back on.

I myself believe the Declaration to be the single most important part of what it means to be an American. Its natural rights theory is "then" incorporated in the Bill of Rights (was actually penned in 1776 just before the Declaration by George Mason in the Virginia Declaration of Rights). McClay and McBride stress the Declaration throughout our LAND OF HOPE curriculum. We have, for example, Wilson's speech disparaging it and Coolidge's passionate defense of it, as documents for kids to read and debate. And of course its incompatibility with slavery was seen immediately, e.g by Jefferson (whose oppo to slavery was largely based on its pernicious effects on WHITES). The kids will read TJ's analysis of the evil of slavery, as well, from NOTES ON VIRGINIA.

HOWEVER, as a Christian I must use older and equally true concepts -- imago dei, and Paul's epistles, and so forth. Strictly speaking we humans have rights OVER the rest of Creation and against one another as fellow image bearers, but we have NO rights against our Creator. Any more than the clay has against the potter.

I have a fine book of essays by Chinese intellectuals, Christian and non- -- addressing the great issue, is it necessary to become an American in order to be a Christian? And of course the answer is still NO, just as Paul showed it not necessary to be a Jew to be a Christian, and Patrick and others showed it not necessary to be a Roman to be a Christian. MY two faiths are a universal and therefore international Christianity, and an American exceptionalism devotion to individual natural rights and limited government. I would die for either, but the first is infinitely more important.

(Btw, our curriculum also (for middle school) includes the "sorrow songs" with DuBois' analysis, as well as a good number of song lyrics throughout. We will encourage kids to watch videos of the various songs. Arlo Guthrie's "Shenandoah." Suzy Boggus' "Sweet Betsy from Pike." Etc.

AND the "Boll Weevil Song," contrasting Brook Benton's nightclub version with Tex Ritter's on the Grand Ol Oprey -- which may be the WHITEST thing ever done.

As to DuBois' question, he was writing when UB Phillips' AMERICAN NEGRO SLAVERY was the standard text. (Published 1910 iirc) Phillips saw the plantation as a school in which slaves learned civilization, including Christianity. Phillips admitted the analogy was flawed by the fact that it was a school from which no one ever graduated.

(My prison experience was in a medium security prison that was run as a school -- it had a curriculum -- and men DID graduate within it and then from it. Even some of the many murderers.)

Off topic, but I did a unit on Flannery O'Connor, and we read "A Good man Is Hard To Find" (featuring the Misfit, a murderer) and the murderers in the class GOT IT far better than my high school kids ever did. "She'd have been a good woman if there had been someone there to shoot her every day." When I taught it to an adult Sunday School class at my church half of them did NOT get it.

If you ever get a chance to teach in a prison, do it: the best classroom experiences I ever had.

Phillips' rosy picture was challenged by Stampp's THE PECULIAR INSTITUTION circa 1960, portraying the plantation as prison camp.

Genovese, in 1974, opined that where Phillips only glimpsed a little bit of the truth, Stampp was looking in the wrong direction.

Reading all three books qualifies you to have an opinion about plantation slavery. If you only read one, make it Genovese's ROLL JORDSAN ROLL.

So no one can have or express an opinion on slavery unless they read books that you recommend?😂

Of course anyone can have and express an opinion on any subject, including those one knows little or nothing about. But one becomes ENTITLED to an opinion which others ought to respect only after one has become familiar with both the basic evidence, the facts, ad also with the main competing narratives based on those facts. In the case of slavery on plantations in the US, those books (and a few others) are the required reading.

I was trained in seminars in which everyone did the required reading and then gathered to discuss and to debate it. The professor and other students quickly grew impatient with anyone who plainly had NOT DONE the assigned reading. That was your ticket for admission.

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Who is Dr. William B. Allen? He's taking on Kamala Harris over Florida Black history curriculum

William B. Allen, 79, is a conservative political scientist and author from Fernandina Beach, Florida. He has written several books including 'George Washington: America's First Progressive' and 'Rethinking Uncle Tom: The Political Thought of Harriet Beecher Stowe.'

He was the former chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and is now a member of Florida's African American History Standards Workgroup.

"It is the case that Africans proved resourceful, resilient, and adaptive, and were able to develop skills and aptitudes which served to their benefit, both while enslaved and after enslaved," he said.

In a previous statement with fellow member Dr. Frances Presley Rice, Allen also denounced critics' attempts to "reduce months of work to create Florida's first ever stand-alone strand of African American History Standards to a few isolated expressions without context."

"Florida students deserve to learn how slaves took advantage of whatever circumstances they were in to benefit themselves and the community of African descendants," they argued.

'Entitled' to an opinion?

This sounds like elitism and is nonsense.

To an opinion that others should respect. Not necessarily agree with, but take seriously. If one is opining on matters that have a factual basis, being reasonably conversant with the facts is required.

I think Allen is not being truthful when he says the only criticism he has heard came from Harris. Unless he is not listening to what is being said around the country.

The FLA Board of Ed. Is chaired by two white men, has no black members, and only one former teacher. The rest are business people. These appear to be appointees, not elected. I don't call a plumber when my car doesn't run.

Again, I am going to hope that the "no indoctrination clause" is for real. Indoctrination using the Lost Cause narrative has gone on for well over a century and still has proponents. It has made me feel uncomfortable for decades because I knew it was misleading. Teach the truth, no guilt, and if some kids are uncomfortable, it's a good time to talk.

More on the lies being told about the Florida standards:

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Asked why the course contains the one line that has been cherry-picked by critics, one of its architects, Professor William B. Allen — a black man who was born into segregation in Florida — offered up an observation that, in any other context, would be unobjectionable: While America's millions of slaves were most certainly victims of the most abhorrent violence, domination, sexual assault, and more, they were not only victims, but people. Is this controversial now? At Oxford, I had a professor who liked to say that "Abraham Lincoln wasn't the only man alive who had agency, you know." His exhortation — always — was to remember that, however subjugated a man might be, he remained an individual rather than an automaton, and that to acknowledge that is not to endorse the disastrous circumstances in which he has been forced to struggle, but to recognize his humanity.

Bottom line: the Florida history standards are good, in fact excellent, and the attacks on them are mis-representations, cherry-picking and out of context snippets, and politically motivated.

Tort, any "narrative" might be called "indoctrination" by those who prefer a different one. The secret is to give students competing narratives, show them how they draw on the same facts (assuming they do), and help students evaluate the alternatives. Were I still teaching a survey US, I'd give students both the LC narrative (and explain why it was useful in re-uniting the war-torn nation) while also giving them the criticisms of it. GONE WITH THE WIND for example, conveys a great many truths; it also omits or ignores some other truths. Indeed, writing a pro- and con- critique of the film would be an excellent assignment.

When I was an undergrad history major at Rice, and in their honors program, everyone was talking constantly about "revisionism" and which historians were "revisionists." It was quite exciting. There had been an "orthodoxy", a generally accepted narrative (of which the Lost Cause was part), during the first half of the century, and now it was breaking down, rather like a huge iceberg being slowly chipped away or eroding in warmer currents. This process has continued until the old orthodoxy barely remains, but new orthodoxies (slavery as the sole cause is one) have emerged. And so it goes.

There are two kinds of 'revisionism.'

The first is one that has found new factual material that hasn't been used before.

The second is one that distorts history because of an agenda.

And slavery was the cause of the Civil War whether or not some accept it.

That Florida curriculum is written in the wake of the Dont Say Woke Law or whatever sloptastic name is guaranteed to get the afflicted all excited that theyre putting a stop to reverse discrimination.

It's not just about one phrase in the curriculum. It's about other carefully crafted items and about what has been left out such as glossing over Reconstruction and Jim Crow and making statements that Colonial America only had 4% of the World's slaves without giving any reference or year. Something like that suggests that the whole world was doing it but somehow they only picked on the poor downtrodden Southern Slave owner.

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Many of these are Dinesh DSouza talking points that slaves were better of under slavery and I am suspicious that his doctrines have leached via the governors office to those who set the curriculum.

It's telling that the law obsesses over not making white children feel badly about slavery and maintains that the way to combat racism is to never mention it and pretend it doesn't exist.

I find it heartening that a former Confederate State and bastion of racism could do such a 180 degree turn and suddenly become hypersensitive about the subject of race discrimination. I would love to understand how Florida experienced this revelation over the evils of racism.

Additionally, this worry doesn't address why teachers cant mention white enslavement of blacks in predominantly black schools. Florida appears to have a quite large segregated school community.

No one has submitted any studies proving that mentioning that whites enslaved blacks has a deleterious effect on the health of white children. It certainly doesn't seem to have been a problem teaching white students about white people being superior to blacks during the 1850s (Or was that the 1950s?)

It probably is closer to the truth that rather than shield white students from mentioning whites enslaving blacks, its a way to make sure they dont feel its wrong long enough for certain secret elements to recruit them to the righteousness of the old timey ways. Basically, it's a "Give Hate a Chance" law.

But if i really is important to stress the importance of learning skills as a slave perhaps, following doc's comparison of his classroom to slavery, during Confederate History Month Florida's classrooms could make all white children slaves of black children and teach them some skills.

Kevin, no, most revisionism comes from askiing new questions of the same material.

And of course you cling to your orthodoxy, as do we all.

But do you believe in multiple causation? It is a widely accepted principle in historical investigation.

You don't seem to understand what historical revisionism is. Perhaps this will help:

Definition of historical revisionism:

1.'Historical revisionism pertains to the act of altering historical facts for benevolent or malevolent reasons.'

2.support of ideas and beliefs that differ from and try to change accepted ideas and beliefs especially in a way that is seen as wrong or dishonest.

I've seen both types used in the writing of history. One is used to enlighten, the other being agenda-driven by ignoring or changing factual material to follow a personal agenda.

As an example, the Lost Cause narrative is revisionism of the worst sort.

Well, that isn't how my professors used the term. I guess they hadn't read your definition.

ALLEN: Permit not to give you Kamala Harris' motives. They're invisible. I don't know them. We can all have suspicions there's a dishonest purpose afoot. But what's more important than that dishonest purpose is the truth, and this curriculum is devoted to telling the truth whereas Kamala Harris has retailed a lie. Now, it may only have been a falsehood the first time she stated it, but when you repeat a falsehood, it becomes a lie.

WATTERS: Tell her right now what specifically this component of the slavery course teaches.

ALLEN: Well, permit me to have Frederick Douglas tell her. He wrote an autobiography in which he described how the mistress of his slave owner began to teach him to read. She pulled back the curtain through which a glimmer of light showed before the master made her close it. But that glimmer of light was enough for Frederick Douglas to illuminate a bright flame that he exploited to his benefit and his country's benefit thereafter. Such examples are numerous, and they are detailing the stories of those who suffered the indignity of slavery time and again.

And quickly permit me to say, what this curriculum is about is having people who lived the experience, who lived the history, tell their stories. And nothing is more important than that we never, ever erase the stories that people who lived the stories tell. No one has a right to interpret before first understanding the stories as the people who lived them understand them themselves.