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   From: nowomr@protonmail.com   
      
   [Are Dagos white?.  Don't think so.]   
      
      
   DeSantis doubles down on claim that some Blacks benefited from slavery   
   Kevin Sullivan, Lori Rozsa   
   Washington Post   
      
   Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is intensifying his efforts to de-emphasize   
   racism in his state's public school curriculum by arguing that some Black   
   people benefited from being enslaved and defending his state's new African   
   American history standards that civil rights leaders and scholars say   
   misrepresents centuries of U.S. reality.   
      
   "They're probably going to show that some of the folks that eventually   
   parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life,"   
   DeSantis said on Friday in response to reporters' questions while standing   
   in front of a nearly all-White crowd of supporters.   
   Florida Governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis speaks   
   during a press conference at the Celebrate Freedom Foundation Hangar in   
   West Columbia, S.C. Tuesday, July 18, 2023. DeSantis visited South   
   Carolina to file his 2024 candidacy for president.   
      
   DeSantis, a GOP presidential candidate who is lagging in polls against the   
   front-runner, former president Donald Trump, and is trying to reset his   
   campaign, quickly drew criticism from educators and even some in his   
   party. He has built his campaign for the Republican presidential   
   nomination on attacking what he calls the radical liberal policies of   
   President Biden and the Democratic Party, but the latest remarks could   
   alienate Black voters just as the GOP tries to court them.   
      
   Former U.S. representative Will Hurd of Texas, who announced last month   
   that he was joining the race for the GOP nomination, blasted the idea that   
   enslaved people were able to use slavery as some kind of training program.   
      
   "Slavery wasn't a jobs program that taught beneficial skills," Hurd, the   
   son of a Black father and a White mother, tweeted. "It was literally   
   dehumanizing and subjugated people as property because they lacked any   
   rights or freedoms."   
      
   DeSantis, however, is continuing to defend Florida's new curriculum, which   
   covers a broad range of topics and includes the assertion for middle   
   school instruction that "slaves developed skills which, in some instances,   
   could be applied for their personal benefit."   
      
   DeSantis said he "wasn't involved" in writing the new teaching materials,   
   which took effect this week. But he credited "a lot of scholars" with   
   creating "the most robust standards in African American history probably   
   anywhere in the country."   
      
   Civil rights leaders, educators and others have expressed revulsion at the   
   idea that enslaved people benefited from the experience.   
      
   As Biden's running mate, Vice President Harris has stepped up her attack-   
   dog role, and on Friday traveled to Jacksonville to assail DeSantis's   
   policies in his home state. She emphasized that slavery involved rape,   
   torture and "some of the worst examples of depriving people of humanity in   
   our world."   
      
   Florida State Rep. Fentrice Driskell, a Tampa Democrat who last year   
   became the first Black woman to become House Democratic leader, called   
   DeSantis's latest remarks a continuation of his "assault on Black   
   history."   
      
   "Let's really dissect what he's saying here," she said. "He's saying that   
   to be ripped away from your homelands and brought to another country   
   against your will, or to be born into the atrocity of the dehumanizing   
   institution that was slavery, that those horrors are some way, somehow   
   outweighed by the benefit that you get a trade. Are you kidding me?"   
      
   DeSantis issued a statement Friday saying, "Democrats like Kamala Harris   
   have to lie about Florida's educational standards to cover for their   
   agenda of indoctrinating students and pushing sexual topics onto   
   children." His campaign did not respond to an email on Saturday requesting   
   comment.   
      
   Some on the right defended DeSantis, including Fox News host Jesse   
   Watters.   
      
   "No one is arguing slaves benefited from slavery," Watters said Friday on   
   his prime time show. "No one is saying that. It's not true. They are   
   teaching how Black people develop skills during slavery in some instances   
   that can be applied for their own personal benefit."   
      
   Biden campaign co-chairman Cedric L. Richmond attacked DeSantis's defense   
   of the new Florida curriculum as "disgusting." He added in a statement on   
   Saturday that it was "a symptom of the extremism that's infected the   
   Republican candidates running for president. There's no debate over   
   slavery. It was utterly evil with zero redeeming qualities."   
      
   Marvin Dunn, a professor emeritus at Florida International University and   
   author of "A History of Florida: Through Black Eyes," said DeSantis would   
   gain no political advantage from his argument because "it is so outrageous   
   that people are going to reject it."   
      
   "These children know in their hearts and in their minds that slavery was   
   evil," he said.   
      
   "One of the main things about slavery, beyond the physical damage that it   
   did to people of so many generations, was that it prevented people from   
   becoming what they could have become," he said.   
      
   "So what if you became a carpenter or a blacksmith or a good maid? Your   
   chances of that were not determined by you, it was determined by somebody   
   else. That's not a rationalization for enslavement."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)