• sugar_in_your_tea
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    1 year ago

    You’re twisting it again. Nobody is arguing that slavery was a good thing for the slaves, the argument is that freed slaves were able to use the skills they gained to make a life for themselves. Given that there’s ~65 pages before this detailing the terrible conditions slaves lived in, it’s absolutely ridiculous to see this as anything other than a transition to reconstruction-era US.

    The message kids should and will likely take from this isn’t that slavery was somehow good, but quite the opposite. It was a terrible atrocity, and the people enslaved were just like you and me. But these weren’t unskilled people, when freed, they were able to jump in and engage in the economy. The success here was limited, not because of their lack of skill, but because of intolerance.

    And it’s not the final chapter in the discussion on slavery either, there are more references to it later, such as on pages 125-136, give or take. So the point of mentioning the skills slaves gained isn’t to somehow justify it, but to set the stage for future discussion on issues black people experienced afterward, and why the Civil Rights movement needed to happen.

    I think it’s important to discuss as many aspects of an issue as possible. Just look at discussion of US foreign intervention in US schools, we almost never mention the negatives associated with it, and instead the US is painted as a savior in most cases, but we ignore things like crimes committed by US soldiers. Schools shouldn’t be a place to push an agenda, but to educate in a way that teaches kids to see that each issue has multiple sides.

    • Laticauda@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If you genuinely don’t see the issue with what’s happening here then I’m not going to waste any more energy arguing with you. What they’re doing here is dangerous, even if you’re too blind to see it.

      • sugar_in_your_tea
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        1 year ago

        I’ll wait to see how it ends up being implemented.

        What I see here is certain groups wanting a specific agenda pushed (I’m guessing the group that wants reparations), and Florida is resisting that. And if they stick to keeping the narrative as neutral as possible, I’m on board. I’ll keep an eye on the news for this coming school year and see if there’s anything to truly worry about.

        But what I see is teaching a broad curriculum covering a variety of aspects of the African slave era, celebrating accomplishments and detailing atrocities. I guess we’ll see if teachers maintain that tone.