Vice President Kamala Harris attacked presidential contender and Gov. Ron DeSantis's (R-FL) administration on Thursday night about Florida's United States history standards, one day before she made a trip to the state.
Harris, who spoke at the national convention for Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. in Indianapolis, criticized Florida's new teaching standards on African American history, which critics claim whitewash U.S. history. The curriculum was backed unanimously by the state Board of Education on Wednesday.
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“Extremists pass book bans to prevent [children] from learning our true history — book bans in this year of our Lord 2023. And while they do this, check it out, they push forward revisionist history,” Harris said. “Just yesterday in the state of Florida, they decided middle school students will be taught that enslaved people benefited from slavery. They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us, and we will not stand for it.”
The new standards require teachers to teach cultural contributions of African Americans, the history of the slave trade, the history of the Jim Crow era, and race massacres such as the one that occurred in Tulsa in 1921. The standards also require middle schools to teach students about skills that slaves developed that could have been beneficial to them.
The Florida Board of Education rejected the criticism that the curriculum attempted to argue that black people benefited from slavery, instead arguing that the curriculum showed students how slaves made the best of bad situations.
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“Any attempt to reduce slaves to just victims of oppression fails to recognize their strength, courage and resiliency during a difficult time in American history," members of Florida's African American studies task force said in a statement. "Florida students deserve to learn how slaves took advantage of whatever circumstances they were in to better themselves and the community of African descendants."
Harris is expected to continue her criticism of the curriculum in Florida Friday afternoon. The vice president will be delivering remarks in Jacksonville, Florida, at 3:45 p.m. EDT.