Legislation filed in the Senate and House would put a partisan spin on teaching about one of America's most brutal historical eras.
And the bill title targets the current Vice President of the United States.
The so-called Kamala Harris Truth in Slavery Teaching Act (SB 1192, HB 1139) contemplates "requiring instruction on the history of African Americans to include a comprehensive account of the sociopolitical circumstances surrounding slavery, including which political parties supported slavery by adopting pro-slavery tenets as part of their platform, etc."
Sponsors make it clear that the legislative intent would be to make it clear that Southern Democrats were key to promulgating human suffrage, with the Senate sponsor noting the Vice President's own ironic inspiration of the bill.
"Recently, in Jacksonville, Vice President Kamala Harris commented regarding Florida's African-American history education standards saying: 'When we send our children to school, as parents, we want to know that they're being taught the truth.' I wholeheartedly agree. That is why it is vitally important, and historically accurate, to include that the Democrat Party not only fought for the continued abomination that was slavery, but they also adopted pro-slavery resolutions and tenets into their official party platform," said Sen. Blaise Ingoglia of Spring Hill.
"There is truth to the sentiment, 'If we don't learn from our past, we're bound to repeat it.' It is my profound belief this statement is worth adding to: 'If we are ignorant of our history, we are bound to the effects of that ignorance,'" contended Rep. Kiyan Michael, a Jacksonville legislator, who pointed to gaps in her own education.
"Like most Black Americans, I was raised never knowing the truth that the Democrat Party was the party of fighting for, and keeping slavery, and the reason for the formation of the Republican Party was to abolish it. It is a valuable, yet hidden, piece of our American history. This bill will bring forth these truths and expose the political parties' roles regarding the heinous institution of slavery," she added.
Harris came to Jacksonville last Summer to voice her outrage over standards that suggested slavery benefited the enslaved.
"Adults know what slavery really involved — come on! It involves rape. It involves torture. It involves taking a baby from their mother. It involved some of the worst examples of depriving people of humanity in our world. It involves subjecting people to the requirement that they would think of themselves as less than human," Harris said.
"So in the context of that, how is it that anyone could suggest that in the midst of these atrocities, that there was any benefit to being subjected to this level of dehumanization?" she added. "That in the midst of these atrocities there were some benefits?"
Gov. Ron DeSantis called her position a "hoax" and said the Vice President was just trying "to try to push a fake narrative about what Florida did."
No comments:
Post a Comment