Florida's new Black history curriculum says "slaves developed skills" that could be used for "personal benefit"

rdeets@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 451 points –
Florida's new Black history curriculum says "slaves developed skills" that could be used for "personal benefit"
cbsnews.com
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Welcome to black history in America. Written for you by white republicans.

I'm not sure if this says more about the minimisation of the immorality of slavery or more about how standard modern employment practices are degrading to the point they fit the definition of slavery.

Either way, it's not saying good things. Florida needs help badly.

Conservatives dehumanize life every time they share their philosophy. Boiling people and those situations down to this is sick.

Slavery as a jobs program jfc

It's the logical extension of the idea that higher wages means less jobs.

Zero wages means no unemployment whatsoever!

And all you need to give up is human dignity, decency, and morals.

For what? Their next slavery gig??? "Now folks, there here slave can not only work the fields but they can cook and see and as such we will start the bidding higher because they're more valuable."

literally this. slaves with hard-to-replace skills were treated better, both individually and systemically. please don't get me wrong, slavery was a horrid institution that represents the absolute worst humanity is capable of and there's nothing that can happen to a person that is so awful that slave-owners don't deserve it, but much like everything else in the western capitalist world slaves existed in a hierarchy. On an individual basis, house slaves were treated to "luxuries" that field slaves weren't privy to, like being able to sleep indoors and even sometimes in individual chambers rather than communal housing, and greater access to the amenities of the house when they weren't being used. On a more zoomed out level, slaves that came from areas with unique skills in their culture were granted much more leeway in preserving that culture than slaves that were used for so-called "unskilled" labor. One well-known example is that of the Gullah-Geechee people. Because they came from a people in Africa who knew how to grow rice, a process that is idiosyncratic compared to other crops and involves a lot of domain knowledge, they were mostly forced to work in rice paddies in the coastal lowlands of the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. This let the Gullah-Geechee people preserve their heritage and language better than other slaves because their community wasn't broken up at the whims of the masters. Only Gullah could work the rice paddies so the rice paddies were full of Gullah teaching other Gullah their language and culture. After slavery was reduced in America, those same rice paddies became the livelihood of those same Gullah people, who tended to form insular, rural communities that are still alive to this day.

So yeah, they're arguing that slavery taught black people skills they could use to make slavery a bit more bearable. That's the freedom that markets offer: slavery with amenities.

I don't think he's doing anything but concern trolling to benefit the right and to disinform the next generation of people. We have to reach out to the young ones they're lying to and make sure they have access to the truth, and that they know their schools are being forced to lie to them.

They're prepping their followers to openly support and advocate genocide. That is where that dark road leads down to.

now that they're trying to cast slavery as on-the-job training keep that in mind when considering the rest of capitalism

Next they'll be saying that slavery was "good exposure".

Goddammit, Florida! Why are you so bad?! Seriously, F yourselves.

To paraphrase: Those who don't want you to learn from history plan to repeat it.

That argument is as old as the transatlantic slave trade, possibly older. Slaves were forced into Christianity, supposedly saving them from Hell. In return, they were forced to work as slaves for their mortal lives. What skill could be more valuable than loving Jesus? The slave owners got to feel good about themselves, the slaves got Jesus and beatings and forced labor and worse, and the same twisted reasoning continues in slightly altered form here.

No slave ever learned anything beneficial by being a slave. Those skills became non beneficial simply by virtue of how they were forced on them. Even shit like farming cotton now leaves a bad taste in people's mouths because it is tainted by that trauma. And the machinery required to render hand labor for it redundant was invented around the Civil War anyway, rendering any such skills anachronistic and obsolete.

And even if we granted that they learned some skills, exactly how were they going to apply it for their personal benefit? Does DeSantis think that slaves could just walk up to their masters and say "Hey Guy Who Owns Me Like Property, I've been doing this farming thing for a while and have gotten good at it. Would you mind if I left and started my own farm?"

Seriously, does DeSantis really think that slaves were set free so they could do things for themselves? Nope. They were kept at property until the day they died. This "they learned skills that they could use" is wrong on every level.

I mean, they learned one thing that was beneficial to them. "I need to get the fuck outta here..." and thankfully many did.

It's not like anybody was learning anything in Florida schools anyway. Too busy snorting bath salts off of alligator strippers.

It's laughable that Ron DeSaster said "woke means war on truth" when him and his band of dumbass lunatics are pushing this garbage drivel.

Depending on the wording, maybe teachers can just add some things like sleeves develop skills that can be used for the personal benefit of their owners.

it’s certainly true that the slave trade existed in Africa for thousands of years, but it existed everywhere else for just as long - probably since inter-tribal warfare tens of thousands of years ago.

not too sure about the skill development bit unless you squint at it and are maybe a bit loose in your definition

Slavery was ok because we weren't the only ones that did it!

This guy is just spamming this link to hundreds of communities. Wtf man?

Is that half of the point of a social link aggregation and discussion platform?

I know... It's like "how dare they post links on a link aggregator!"...

While I don't like it when people do this at least be accurate if you're going to call them out, or is it your Florida education showing and you can't count to 6?

That is the point of the site. Not everyone subscribes to the same content.

Why are you constantly defending these tactics? You're a mod here.

You want your politics community to be a shit hole? Then you allow this stuff.

Brand new user spams 6 threads at once to mainstream communities, clearly race baiting by posting in !politics, !conservative, !Florida, !news, ! worldnews.

So, as you and I have discussed before, if you want to have a legitimate community to aggregate and discuss politics, you must eliminate bad actors. No matter what type of content they post.

Yeah, it’s annoying as fuck. People still think karma has value. Even here.

I personally laugh every time mob-mentality takes over and my "vote score" is deeply negative. like, who cares? voting doesnt matter. some instances get rid of it entirely. I've been laughing a lot recently.

Yeah. Same here. There is zero relevance to the up/down arrows- but the kids love ‘em!

I'm pretty sure that Lemmy was pretty much inhabited by tankies and MAGA. Then, Reddit showed up.

Now the same bullshit they've been circle jerking each other over is getting called out. I enjoy the downvotes. As Lemmy gets more popular, these geniuses are gonna be fun to watch.

You can only get away with spamming sensational bullshit, conspiracy theories and brigading for so long. The general public thinks they're fuckin idiots. So, the more people who show up, the better it will get.

It will help a lot too when lemmygrad folks aren't modding a bunch of communities.

So you chose to comment on a post about racism and crap on tankies. So you have more of a problem with tankies than racism?

Yes? Florida isn't here. Tankies are. If Desantis shows up, let me know, and I'll tell him to fuck off as well.

The tankies we’re here before you. This was their space. You can always join Friendster, or start your own sub stack to criticize Marxist Leninism. You choose to be here and display immature contrarianism in hopes that you’ll find a like minded community. That’s not gonna happen. You have no power here.

Lol. This was their space?

Is this some sort of closed group? Power? I'm on no quest for power. It's an extreme distaste for dishonest, disingenuous, misinformation spreading, racist, misogyny and violent rhetoric.

Power is not something I seek. But, watching you guys fade off into obscurity like you did when you originally landed on Lemmy, that will be amusing.

Fact: It was started by Marxist Leninist. Give examples and historical evidence of why ML won’t work. I can. Just hating seems like whining.

Fact? What's a fact? It was started by tankies? Wtf does that have to do with anything? Do we owe them some sort of respect for blessing us with this beautiful platform?

You have a weird adoration for political trolls

There are better ways to troll. I’m just advising that the way you’re doing it isn’t effective.

Fuck, you're exhaustingly clueless. I'd have better luck chatting with a wall. Best of luck man

I don’t think so. Because that wall is a “tankie.” And that time is now.

That was mean. Sorry. Elevate your game. Best of luck.

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Tf is a tankie?

tankies have a giant hardon for the Supreme Soviet & they worship the CCP.

Appreciate the unbiased definition.

So, basically- according to conservatives, anyone that doesn’t worship capitalism. Got it.

Learned something new.

You either go to a lot of effort in order to misinterpret what's on that page or you live in a certain country with a certain "great firewall" that has Wikipedia blocked. Which is it?

I searched it out myself. Tankie by Wikipedia’s definition isn’t the same definition used by people nowadays. It’s a derogatory. Similar to how the right redefined “woke”.

The whole thing is fucking dumb and polarizing.

Hah, no. Definitely not.

And I'm most certainly not conservative. Tankies in the wiki sense and tankies in the Lemmy sense are not the same. Both are dumb as shit, but different.

Tankies on Lemmy are a lot closer to less organized and, somehow, even dumber than /r/theDonald.

Imagine if you will a Trump rally run by junior high school kids. That's Lemmy tankies

Edit: also, I'm not the one who replied to you with the wiki link

I didn’t think you were. I was just responding. The point is, I looked it up- and from what I’m seeing- it’s basically a derogatory used to describe anyone that doesn’t support capitalism.

A fascist who falsely tells others they are leftist. Other right-wingers would call them “auth-left” but there is no such thing, because leftism is about egalitarian, distributed power & wealth. Being a proponent of consolidated power or wealth makes you right wing.

That’s not true. Authoritarian leftism is definitely a thing — Soviet communism was extremely authoritarian to the point of totalitarianism. The opposite would be liberal communism, the extreme of which is anarcho-communism.

Left vs Right and Libertarian vs Authoritarian are two separate axes on a political compass.

Just FYI those political compasses are not accurate.

what's inaccurate here?

What’s inaccurate about claiming the moon is made of cheese? It’s an absurd lie invented to enable right-wing “both siding”.

The political spectrum dates back to the French Revolution, with the powerful entrenched nobility literally sitting on the right and the representatives of the people on the left. Today the spectrum is a complex web of ideologies with vertical power on the right and horizontal power on the left.

Direct democracy is one example leftism (as are socialism, anarchy, communism as defined by Marx, etc). Feudalism is an example of rightism (as is dictatorship, oligarchy, fascism, etc).

that doesn’t answer my question

It is a meaningless vertice. Imagine adding abortion, racism, women's rights, religion, trans-rights or any other tool the right uses to fragment us to the vertical axis.

Authoritarian is right-wing, power in the hands of the few.

If anyone in this thread really wants to discuss it why not start a new topic? I'm sure you'd get lots of responses.

It is a meaningless vertice.

"vertice" isn't a word-- perhaps you meant "vertex"? and what, precisely, do you mean by calling "it" "worthless"?

Authoritarian is right-wing, power in the hands of the few.

as explained (and illustrated) In previous comments, authoritarianism is not exclusive to right-wing ideologies; Soviet-style communism was a left-wing ideology and infamously authoritarian.

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Yes it does. The political compass is nonsense in it’s entirety.

It attempts to separate power and wealth, which are the same thing. It attempts to paint leftism an economic policy rather than a complete ideology so that right-wing governments like Soviet Russia, North Korea, Cuba, or the PRC can be scapegoated as “leftist”.

I spelled out the reality of the political spectrum: vertical (top-down) authority vs horizontal (shared) authority. Wealth equals authority and authority equals wealth. The political compass is a lie cut from whole cloth to make people more accepting of different kinds of authoritarian lever-pulling while distrusting actual leftist policy by offloading the crimes and traits of the right onto the left.

Any other questions?

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Whether you realize it or not, you just spread right-wing propaganda. The “political compass” is a lie designed specifically to create a “both sides” narrative out of the abuses of one side and one side only: the right.

The right is defined by vertical power structures (monarchy, dictatorship, oligarchy, authoritarianism, etc) and the left is defined by distributed horizontal power (democracy, socialism, anarchy, communism, etc).

There is no “auth left” just as there is no “wet dry” or “true false” - they are incompatible opposites.

Case in point (and unpopular statement of fact for tankies): Soviet Russia was, at no point whatsoever, communist (or leftist) as defined by Marx (or Lenin). Communism REQUIRES the “withering away of the state” - so if leaders of an ostensible leftist movement seize power, but do not cede it back to the people, they are ordinary right-wing authoritarians.

Whether you realize it or not, you just spread right-wing propaganda. The “political compass” is a lie designed specifically to create a “both sides” narrative out of the abuses of one side and one side only: the right.

how does it do that?

There is no “auth left” just as there is no “wet dry” or “true false” - they are incompatible opposites.

any form of government can be either libertarian or authoritarian.

Case in point (and unpopular statement of fact for tankies): Soviet Russia was, at no point whatsoever, communist (or leftist) as defined by Marx (or Lenin).

that’s a No True Scotsman logical fallacy. Just because a Communist regime fails to uphold the promise of returning the power back to the people doesn’t make it magically not Communist, but it does make it auth-left. Every system is as fallible as the human who run it.

edit: also authoritarian ≠ fascist. it’s true that all fascism is authoritarian, but not all authoritarianism is fascism. again, many (not all) communist regimes, a left-wing political ideology, have historically been authoritarian.

Just because a Communist regime fails to uphold the promise of returning the power back to the people doesn’t make it magically not Communist

I suppose you think the Nazis were socialist, as well? How could you write that and not realize how absurdly paradoxical that is. Let me analogize that for you:

“Just because a husband fails to uphold the promise of returning home with cheeseburgers, doesn’t mean the TV he returned with is not a cheeseburger.”

Communism has a clear definition and you apparently do not know what that is. So go read some Marx and then hit me up for a discussion that involves facts rather than fascist apologetics and bad faith logical fallacy accusations.

You claim to have facts, yet you cannot show any. All you have is complaints, whining, and insults. Yet you accuse me of arguing in bad faith? Lol.

Not only is this hilariously reductionist, it belies such an ignorance of both Marxism and communism in general, that it borders on misinformation.

If you have to keep moving the goalposts this much and swing around the no true Scotsman fallacy like a cudgel, you should just admit that you lost the argument instead of digging, the whole, deeper and deeper.

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tankie

A militant communist, usually.

Isn’t that something conservatives call people they disagree with?

American conservatives generally call anybody left of Joe Manchin, "communists".

Of course, there are real communists too, and some of them are militant, and that's what people generally are referring to when they say "tankie".

Judging people by their preference in economic systems is about as dumb as blind nationalism. I don’t think I’ll ever understand this level of ignorance.

It's meaningless, let's the right subdivide people further.

Let's argue about methods of trade!

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