The misinformation campaign surrounding Florida's Social Studies Standards
Vice President Kamala Harris told a demonstrable lie the media is repeating
"Have you read it? Have you read it? You haven't read - you haven't read it, so I'm just making that clear,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis told a reporter in response to a question if there were “beneficial aspects to slavery.”
The question by the unidentified reporter centers on Florida’s Social Studies Standards and was likely prompted by Vice President Harris’ recent comments about those standards.
"They want to replace history with lies," Harris said at a July 21 speech in Jacksonville, Florida. "Middle-school students in Florida [are] to be told that enslaved people benefited from slavery."
“Anyone who actually read that [the standards] and then listens to Kamala would know that she’s lying,” DeSantis told the reporter.
DeSantis went on to tell the reporter that standards “make it very clear about the injustices of slavery in vivid detail” and the section Harris has made an issue out of delves into skills obtained “in spite of slavery - not because of” and that “AP course has made that same point."
The standards are very comprehensive. The document is 216 pages long and slavery and African American history span the first 25 pages.
Here’s the single line item from which Harris plucked to base her false comment:
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One of the members of Florida’s African American History Standards Workgroup was Dr. William B. Allen and he’s spoken publicly debunking the vice president’s comment. Allen is a professor emeritus at Michigan State University.
In a recent ABC News interview, Allen, who is Black, refuted Harris’ claims, saying the standards "never said that slavery was beneficial to Africans.”
As noted earlier in this article citing the actual standards, he is correct.
"What was said, and anyone who reads this will see this with clarity, [is that] Africans were able to develop skills and aptitudes which served to their benefit, both while enslaved and after enslavement,” Allen told ABC News.
Allen was asked if the standards should be changed and he said no, and any changes "would be effectively to erase people's history.”
"My great-grandfather is someone who … was enslaved here and whose own resourcefulness, resilience, and adaptiveness was certainly instrumental in producing for his family, his descendants, the ability to prosper here in this country,” Allen said. “Hence, from his resourcefulness, we derive benefits. I think anyone who would try to change that language would be denying that great-grandfather … made any contribution."
Apparently, ABC News only aired a small portion of the interview with Allen. More clips and context were posted on Twitter by DeSantis’ press secretary Jeremy Redfern.
"I think every intellect can understand the language written if people will only take the time to read it,” Allen said of the standards. "And it's only those who don't take the time to read it who will misstate it."
Given the recent comments by the vice president and which the media parroted into questions for DeSantis, it is clear they all have some reading to do.