Florida sticks by social studies standard teaching ‘benefit’ of slavery
Florida sticks by social studies standard teaching ‘benefit’ of slavery
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What's wild is, I actually went and googled this topic with an open mind. It's not even true. There weren't major benefits besides adding diversity and culture to our country, and there were certainly better ways to go about that. (https://www.econlib.org/library/enc/usslaveryandeconomicthought.html)
Isn't the major controversy that they're trying to argue that there were benefits for the slaves? Not benefits for the nation, benefits for the state, or even benefits for the plantation owners... but they're forcing teachers to teach that the slaves themselves benefited - right?
These people are so fucked up, I just can't. I can't figure out how they're in office.
That is correct. Quote from the article:
Florida’s new teaching standards include the same language that scored national blowback last year for requiring middle school students to learn “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
That sounds an awful lot like how corporations spin terrible news to their employees.
Fucking yikes. I wouldn't have guessed that from just the title. I don't understand why I don't just assume the absolute worst when Republicans do anything these days 😂
fascism.
It’s a topic I’m WAAAAY too dumb to weigh in on myself, but as fucked up as it is, there were some major benefits (not to say they were worth the mindblowing human rights abuse)…
The “Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History” episode Human Resources was extremely enlightening on the subject (if you have FIVE AND A HALF HOURS to spare…)
Free labor is certainly good, but it resulted in the south basically refusing to industrialize which meant their almost entirely slave-based economy was destroyed after the Civil War.
Fascinating!
It's absolutely a topic worth discussing and considering from a college or advanced high school level perspective imo as there is debate to be had. IDK if you saw it, the article I linked does discuss a lot of the benefits, and it discusses a lot of the downsides to those benefits. Like cotton from the south was definitely cheaper, but putting all their eggs into the slave estate basket meant they didn't have a well developed industrial base, which you can see caused them a lot of issues in the civil war. It was also bad from their overall economy.
Aha! I’ll check out your link when I’m able to read it on a bigger screen, it’s definitely a fascinating (and horrifying) topic!