Earlier this year, Florida sparked national controversy when it revised its public educational standards to include content that whitewashed the history of slavery. These changes to the state’s public school curriculum were one of many seemingly anti-Black policy changes in the Sunshine State over the past several years. Now, one Democratic state senator is trying to ban Florida from painting a positive image of slavery.
IIRC, the common argument is that modern Black Americans have great opportunities by virtue of being in America. Without slavery, they would have been born in Africa.
This is ludicrous for a variety of reasons. It’s the same kind of thinking that leads to people saying your relative died “because of God’s plan”, as if suffering always has a good reason to it.
Yeah this argument fails because it subverts the context slavery existed in with a modern notion of American exceptionalism, and applies it in a transhistorical fashion to events in the past.
IIRC, the common argument is that modern Black Americans have great opportunities by virtue of being in America. Without slavery, they would have been born in Africa.
This is ludicrous for a variety of reasons. It’s the same kind of thinking that leads to people saying your relative died “because of God’s plan”, as if suffering always has a good reason to it.
They overlook the destabilization of Africa that went on during colonialism that led to its current state
The lesson Florida is teaching is that slaves learned ‘useful skills.’ They don’t say who those skills were useful to though.
Yeah this argument fails because it subverts the context slavery existed in with a modern notion of American exceptionalism, and applies it in a transhistorical fashion to events in the past.