Don't Know Much About Slavery
On DeSantis, history, half-truths & promising career paths.
Lately I’ve been frantically adding those heat-dome cities to my weather app to feel a little better about summer in Austin. Like Las Vegas? 112 degrees. Tucson? 110 degrees. Sure, it’ll be 103 here until Christmas but at least it’s a “dry heat.”
Oh really? Tell that to the runner who just collapsed in the street outside my house. I know I should have gone out to help but that would’ve meant leaving my air conditioning bubble and I am but a delicate flower.
And even though Florida remains in the double digits, I still wouldn’t want to live there. First, Tommy Bahama shirts. Second, the compression socks epidemic. Third, one-time presidential candidate Ron DeSantis.
Under DeSantis’s stunning and undervalued leadership, the Florida Department of Education approved new curriculum standards concerning African American History. Apparently the way it was previously taught was in alignment with “woke” policies. There wasn’t even one chapter devoted to the underrated benefits of slavery.
According to DeSantis, the existing curriculum “only presents half the story and half the truth.” Like, not everyone was enslaved, just the Black people. And, slavery wasn’t all bad, just the parts about it being the greatest injustice in our nation’s history.
Incidentally “half the story and half the truth” is a perfect description of the Bible. I know this because after reading it over and over I just ended up tearing out the Old Testament.
Is he serious with all this? What school did DeSantis attend, the Tampa Academy for Entitled White Men? (It’s actually pretty hard to get into. The essay’s a killer.)
The revised curriculum is a direct result of last year’s law that regulated the teaching of race in schools, where children should not be taught to “feel guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” due to their race, color, sex or national origin. In other words, don’t let white kids know how bad things were. Slavery’s, like, a total downer.
Opponents to the approved standards say that the curriculum essentially rewrites historical facts, including the bit about “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
Why, that changes everything! Slavery was essentially an apprenticeship! I can feel my psychological distress melting away!
DeSantis doubled down on his doctrine of the little-known historic slave career building program, telling CNN that the curriculum will “probably show some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life.”
Let me get this straight. An enslaved person who is forced into hard labor might actually “parlay” that experience into a fulfilling career. So, really, they should be grateful for the opportunity.
Naturally the members of the Florida Department of Education who designed the curriculum don’t see the problem. Who are these people? For one, these people are MaryLynn Magar. Identifiable by her classic sweater set apparel.
Orwellian at every level.
OK the Old Testament is the only part of the Bible that actually IS true, or worth believing anyway. Talking snakes and shit. The New Testament is just the same boring ass story from different perspectives, like Sliding Doors.