Turns out, slavery is good ... for the slaves

#151
#151
tvolsfan said:
If that's what they meant, they would highlight stories of individual freedmen overcoming their brutal, racist upbringing rather than using language to liken it to an internship.
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I agree specific examples would have helped like of Captain Smalls or others to highlight, but being vague is very common with educational standards to allow teachers room to operate.
 
#152
#152
GroverCleveland said:
Like I said before, you go do you. If looking for things to be outraged about, I have to say you do a pretty good job of it. Life is too short for me to spend my time that way, but again, I do appreciate your willingness to share.
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... and you do you :

Which means don't read the approved curriculum from the Florida Board of Education. Just blindly defend it, because you don't care about the facts.
 
#155
#155
BowlBrother85 said:
Here is the problem with that ... It implies that those slaves could not have acquired those same skills on their own, as free men and women, or from any other source than slave training. To list such a thing as being of "personal benefit" is atrocious. There were no benefits to being a slave.
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It doesn’t imply that at all. If you learned how to become a surgeon because you were drafted for Vietnam, could you not have learned that another way?

Sure they could have. It’s hard for me to see 200 pages of “slavery bad” and then assume they intended this one bullet point you’re all obsessing over to actually mean “slavery good” the way so many of you want to read it.
 
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#156
#156
Vol8188 said:
So you don’t think the story of Captain Smalls would be a great part of the curriculum?
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The slavery curriculum? Nah. If you want to talk about the first Black navy captain separately have at it, but under no circumstance do we need to end the slavery discussion with “but look at the useful things they learned from this”

Do any of our Holocaust discussions go “sure, it was bad, but it produced great writers like Elie Wiesel?” That’s strange to me but sounds like what you would want
 
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#157
#157
n_huffhines said:
Look, I can accept that there is some truth to the statement applied across the entire population. I am not freaking out about this. I am not mentally or psychologically infirm. But I am asking what is the point, and you didn't answer. It's a completely unnecessary lesson. It serves no purpose, except for to soften the horrors of slavery.
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(And still didn’t answer)
 
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#158
#158
n_huffhines said:
Look, I can accept that there is some truth to the statement applied across the entire population. I am not freaking out about this. I am not mentally or psychologically infirm. But I am asking what is the point, and you didn't answer. It's a completely unnecessary lesson. It serves no purpose, except for to soften the horrors of slavery.
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Sorry did not see this at first.

I understand the thought it is unnecessary. I can also see the point, as some have in the public domain, it is important to show that in spite of horrible circumstances, people have used lessons learned while and even because of those circumstances to succeed. It is not a new story or unique to American slaves, or even unique to slavery itself. Human beings have survived and thrived in spite of their circumstances which were beyond their control through history. They are to be admired, all of them.

should that be in Florida high school history books? Don’t know. To some extent, don’t care. Just engaged in this thread to understand why the angst about this facet of it. There is a lot of “implies” and “suggests” to argue against it and at least some on here should know better, but c’est la vie.
 
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#159
#159
Vol8188 said:
It doesn’t imply that at all. If you learned how to become a surgeon because you were drafted for Vietnam, could you not have learned that another way?

Sure they could have. It’s hard for me to see 200 pages of “slavery bad” and then assume they intended this one bullet point you’re all obsessing over to actually mean “slavery good” the way so many of you want to read it.
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Your Vietnam analogy is a gross false equivalency to draw.

The practice of slavery deserves no credit for skills developed by the enslaved. By using such language as "personal benefit," that is exactly what slavery is given ... and it's obscene.

.... equating slavery with being drafted into service in Vietnam is one of the worst equivalencies I've ever seen drawn. It's brain dead stupid.
 
#160
#160
NashVol11 said:
We already do this; everyone knows who Harriet Tubman is. When you start getting into "these good things happened because of slavery" you are entering extremely dangerous territory
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Didn’t have great service early so I apologize if I’ve already replied to this.

But should we not teach nuance when age appropriate? And I don’t think this is anyway meant to be “slavery good”, especially given the curriculum is over 200 pages of “slavery bad”. But yes I do think we should show that even in the worst of circumstances, black Americans overcame.

It’s an African American history course. So we should highlight the accomplishments of African Americans, even the ones who were slaves.

Is your actual fear here that a teacher will read this and think “clearly I’m supposed to teach that picking cotton taught black people how to work hard”? Or am I misunderstanding your issue with this?
 
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#161
#161
BowlBrother85 said:
... and you do you :

Which means don't read the approved curriculum from the Florida Board of Education. Just blindly defend it, because you don't care about the facts.
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I am not making claims it about based on an article by CBS news. See that is the way debate works. Someone makes a statement, to paraphrase you, Florida’ cirriculum is wrong because it says good things came out of slavery.

As you are taking the affirmative side, it is incumbent upon you to prove your point. Me, not so much. I simply have demonstrate you really have not proved anything (quoting CBS opinion pieces proves nothing except that you can find things you agree with) and my position is safe.
 
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#163
#163
NashVol11 said:
The slavery curriculum? Nah. If you want to talk about the first Black navy captain separately have at it, but under no circumstance do we need to end the slavery discussion with “but look at the useful things they learned from this”

Do any of our Holocaust discussions go “sure, it was bad, but it produced great writers like Elie Wiesel?” That’s strange to me but sounds like what you would want
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The curriculum is black history not slavery. I don’t believe any high schools have a specific slavery course. So why would we not teach about one of the most impressive black men of that period?

Not, I think if the best anything produced was an author, it’s probably not worth mentioning. Instead of all of us knowing a little girl who wrote a diary I’d prefer we all knew people who lead rebellions within the camps or people who went on to live amazing lives despite their experience.

In your mind though they wrote 200 pages of “slavery bad” and then just threw this in there as their one chance to promote slavery? Or do you think it’s more likely that you’re misunderstanding the intent here and that it’s not actually designed to promote slavery?
 
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#164
#164
StillStanding said:
Suppose my father was a a bricklayer, and he made me help him after school for little or no money because times were hard. When I graduated highschool and decided to go out on my own, wouldn’t I have a skill that I could make a living with?
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As long as you don’t talk about how you got that skill.
 
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#165
#165
Vol8188 said:
Didn’t have great service early so I apologize if I’ve already replied to this.

But should we not teach nuance when age appropriate? And I don’t think this is anyway meant to be “slavery good”, especially given the curriculum is over 200 pages of “slavery bad”. But yes I do think we should show that even in the worst of circumstances, black Americans overcame.

It’s an African American history course. So we should highlight the accomplishments of African Americans, even the ones who were slaves.

Is your actual fear here that a teacher will read this and think “clearly I’m supposed to teach that picking cotton taught black people how to work hard”? Or am I misunderstanding your issue with this?
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No, we do not need nuance with slavery. Do we need nuance when we discuss the Holocaust?

I think you have chosen a side and are adopting a lot of weird devil's advocate arguments in favor of it. The fact that many Black Americans established the Underground Railroad, escaped slavery in many instances, survived the whippings and rape and other horrors of slavery, fought to abolish it in the case of people like Frederick Douglass, and now serve as the basis for most of our music, culture, etc. is obvious evidence of "overcoming"; I promise you we do not need a section about how "slavery was also an educational tool" to accomplish that.
 
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#166
#166
Vol8188 said:
Or do you think it’s more likely that you’re misunderstanding the intent here and that it’s not actually designed to promote slavery?
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It's design is to soften the discussion on slavery ... and tell "both sides." That "personal benefit" language was added to appease the anti-woke establishment..
 
#167
#167
NashVol11 said:
No, we do not need nuance with slavery. Do we need nuance when we discuss the Holocaust?

I think you have chosen a side and are adopting a lot of weird devil's advocate arguments in favor of it. The fact that many Black Americans established the Underground Railroad, escaped slavery in many instances, survived the whippings and rape and other horrors of slavery, fought to abolish it in the case of people like Frederick Douglass, and now serve as the basis for most of our music, culture, etc. is obvious evidence of "overcoming"; I promise you we do not need a section about how "slavery was also an educational tool" to accomplish that.
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To be clear everything you mentioned (Douglas, railroad, etc) is in the curriculum.

So what you’re afraid of is a teacher will see this one bullet point and believe “I’m supposed to teach that slavery was a good thing”?

Is that actually what you think is going to happen or why you think this was written?

Or can we both agree you’re blowing this out of proportion and no one is teaching that slavery was a positive?
 
#169
#169
NashVol11 said:
No, we do not need nuance with slavery. Do we need nuance when we discuss the Holocaust?

I think you have chosen a side and are adopting a lot of weird devil's advocate arguments in favor of it. The fact that many Black Americans established the Underground Railroad, escaped slavery in many instances, survived the whippings and rape and other horrors of slavery, fought to abolish it in the case of people like Frederick Douglass, and now serve as the basis for most of our music, culture, etc. is obvious evidence of "overcoming"; I promise you we do not need a section about how "slavery was also an educational tool" to accomplish that.
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It's important to point out that child sex slavery does prevent some kids from starving.
 
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#171
#171
BowlBrother85 said:
It's design is to soften the discussion on slavery ... and tell "both sides." That "personal benefit" language was added to appease the anti-woke crowd.
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It’s a 200 page document. And out of 200 pages of slavery bad, there’s one like in there that you think may “soften” it?

I’m not impressed. Nor do I think any educator reads this the way you do and thinks “I have to teach my kids slavery was good”
 
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#174
#174
Vol8188 said:
The “we love/trust/support our teachers crowd” has now spent 7 pages trying to convince us that teachers are going to tell kids slavery was good now
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Has anyone expressed concern over teachers, or is this just another bad devil's advocate point to defend an inclusion that no one has been able to justify?

If they start throwing in positive points about the Holocaust are you going to make the same "it's a good thing; you trust teachers, right?" argument? I suspect not
 
#175
#175
Vol8188 said:
It’s a 200 page document. And out of 200 pages of slavery bad, there’s one like in there that you think may “soften” it?

I’m not impressed. Nor do I think any educator reads this the way you do and thinks “I have to teach my kids slavery was good”
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I think the "personal benefit" language was added for political reasons. It's a bone thrown to the anti-woke establishment. To credit slavery for the developed skills of the enslaved is absurd ... but the anti-woke crowd will love it.
 
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