- The Florida Board of Education on July 19 unveiled its new state academic standards for social studies
- The document states that students should be taught ‘how slaves developed skills, which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit’
- Kamala Harris told a Florida rally that students were taught ‘enslaved people benefited from slavery’: CNN’s commentator said the uproar was ‘fabricated’
By HARRIET ALEXANDER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 20:53 EDT, 23 July 2023 | UPDATED: 10:37 EDT, 24 July 2023
A CNN Republican commentator has condemned Kamala Harris for speaking out against Florida‘s new school curriculum, saying her anger at the course discussing how slaves ‘benefitted’ was misguided and calling the scandal ‘fabricated.’
Harris was in Jacksonville, Florida, Saturday and condemned the new curriculum, which was unveiled on July 19.
The Florida Board of Education’s new state academic standards for social studies states that students should be taught ‘how slaves developed skills, which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit’.
Harris said teaching students that slaves benefitted from being enslaved was abhorrent.
But Scott Jennings, a political commentator, Harvard lecturer and PR expert who served in the George W. Bush White House, said Harris was wrong, accusing her of ‘making something literally out of nothing’.
‘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,’ he told CNN.
‘This is a completely made-up deal.’
Jennings claimed the outrage over the curriculum, approved by Florida Governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, was unwarranted.
‘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 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.’
On page six of the 216-page document, it states: ‘Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.’
It also states, on page 17, that teachers discussing race riots such as the Tulsa Massacre should talk about black-on-black violence, and note ‘acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.’
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Florida Governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis attacked Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for their focus on his policies in Florida
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Ashley Allison, a Harvard professor and CNN commentator (right), disagreed with Jennings
The Florida Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, said in a statement the new standards were unacceptable.
‘These standards are a disservice to Florida’s students and are a big step backward for a state that has required teaching African American history since 1994,’ the union said.
The NAACP called the curriculum ‘sanitized and dishonest’.
Derrick Johnson, president and CEO, said: ‘Today’s actions by the Florida state government are an attempt to bring our country back to a 19th century America where black life was not valued, nor our rights protected.
‘It is imperative that we understand that the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow were a violation of human rights and represent the darkest period in American history. We refuse to go back.
‘The NAACP has been fighting against malicious actors such as those within the DeSantis Administration for over a century, and we’re prepared to continue that fight by any means necessary.
‘Our children deserve nothing less than truth, justice, and the equity our ancestors shed blood, sweat, and tears for.’
Ashley Allison, a member of Sunday’s CNN panel, said Jennings was wrong.Harris calls out DeSantis for trying to re-write historyLoaded: 0%Progress: 0%0:00PreviousPlaySkipMuteCurrent Time0:00/Duration Time3:47FullscreenNeed Text
‘I think at this panel we could all agree that slaves did not benefit from slavery,’ she said.
‘Even if the citation said, ‘Well, they might have gotten …’ they didn’t have a choice, so that is not a benefit. Slaves did not have the freedom to choose, like Ron DeSantis said, maybe they could have become a blacksmith. Not when they didn’t have the choice to become a blacksmith.
‘And so that was what Kamala Harris was saying.’
Allison said that the curriculum had to be seen as part of DeSantis’s ‘war on woke’, and his presidential campaign.
‘And I hope in this moment when we have such a contentious political environment that we could all agree that slavery was not a good thing and slaves did not benefit. And then we could move on,’ she said.
‘But the problem is, the governor who is the second in the polls for the Republican nomination won’t do that.’