Florida. The land all Good Liberals love to hate. It’s inhabited by the worst people. The most hate-filled people. People who are vile racists and who now want to teach their children that slavery was good. Right? That’s what I learned from reading some of my liberal friends’ memes and posts. Even the
This was such an excellent and important article, Dolly. It is particularly useful that you give readers a method for how to respond when we read outrage clickbait--and then link to the standards so that we have the opportunity to decide for ourselves before we add to the outrage. And your final point--that when we express outrage without checking first, we get a personal benefit but make the world worse--is so important to keep in mind in all situations.
I did read (well, skim) the linked standards and agree with you about the “personal benefit” issue. I seem to remember reading many years ago that scholars wanted to reinforce the point that enslaved Black people weren’t just passive victims, but fought back in any way they could, and one way they did that was by working jobs to buy their and their loved ones’ freedom. I just reread Beloved for Freddie’s book club, and one of the characters does just that--buys his mother’s freedom by working side jobs.
There is an aspect of the curriculum that does give me pause that is quite different: The curriculum places a lot of emphasis on slavery in other places and times. While it is true that slavery has been a terrible evil throughout human history--and to this day in some places--I think such an emphasis on slavery outside the US risks both-sidesism. It risks communicating the attitude that slavery in the US was a terrible but regrettably normal thing and no worse than what other people were doing.
But the truth is that slavery in the US was unique and uniquely bad for two reasons: that children of enslaved women were also enslaved, and that slave owners routinely broke up families by selling people away from their parents, children, siblings, and spouses. Slavery in other places didn’t operate this way; it was still evil, of course, but the US really did win this particular shameful prize, and a responsible history curriculum will make that clear. Maybe I missed a place in the curriculum where they discussed this? But if not, I think it is a flaw.
Finally, I have to agree with you about the elementary-school curriculum’s focus on the positive. I wish that we on the left weren’t always advocating for forcing the worst, ugliest information on children before they’re ready to absorb it. It’s almost as though these people on the left are upset that children are tootling along in happy complacency and want to wake them up to brutal reality.
I recently got into a dispute with an acquaintance who was angry that Tennessee removed Maus from the middle-school curriculum. (Note: they didn’t ban the book, but they did take it off the required reading list for kids aged 12-14.) I suggested that most kids that age aren’t ready for a work that is as unremittingly bleak and explicit as Maus, and that there are better choices (Eli Wiesel’s Night, for example) for kids that age. She was unconvinced. So I told her about my own 7th-grade social studies teacher, who spent the Holocaust unit telling us the most grotesque, horrifying facts about tortures inflicted on Jews in the camps. We--a bunch of 12-year-olds--couldn’t handle it. We would laugh nervously and make awful jokes. I still feel guilty about this, but at the same time I am still angry at this idiot teacher, who put us kids in the position to laugh at atrocities, because we couldn’t handle what he was telling us. (My acquaintance’s response was that HER son was able to handle extremely intense material at a very young age and would not have responded to the class that way. Good for him! But he strikes me as the exception, and we should develop curricula for the regular kids.)
Please forgive the length of this comment! I love so much how your essays make me think, and I get carried away!
The "slaves developed skills" bit, as long as it's not mis-represented as a good thing about slavery (which I don't see this curriculum doing), is both true and important historically. To get the obvious point out of the way first - the same people, had they not been enslaved, could have developed even more skills and had a much better life while doing so. Slavery did not give them any learning opportunities that they couldn't have had, many times over, without slavery (and again, the curriculum does not say otherwise).
Case in point - reading. It's a while ago I read up on this, but I seem to remember that there was a rule on most plantations that slaves were not allowed to be taught to read and write, ever, lest they get ideas and the ability to organize and educate themselves and plan escapes and compose abolitionist pamphlets and the like. And of course, they did all these things anyway, the best they could under terrible conditions. Some of them read the Bible and were particularly impressed with Exodus where Moses frees the slaves from Egypt, and so we have the amazing spiritual Go Down Moses (Let My People Go). You can operate an Underground Railroad more efficiently when some of the people involved can read and write, too.
An accurate historical overview would make very clear that some slaves learnt to read and write despite, not because of, their owners' wishes. But learn they did - and saw it as an act of liberation. And of course at the extreme end of this process you end up with the writings of Douglass, who according to Wikipedia (quoting from a speech he wrote) "learned to spell from an old Webster's spelling-book and to read and write from posters on cellar and barn doors, while boys and men would help him".
Jul 31, 2023·edited Jul 31, 2023Liked by The 21st Century Salonnière
So so so great of you to link the actual standards. I grew up in the suburban South, and while my education was overall very good, there were definitely some pretty ugly ideas floating around in the background. The Lost Cause doctrine was still alive and well among some adults where I lived, and people were often very angry about what they saw as the “villainizing” of the Confederacy. In the South, in some pretty important ways, the losers got to write the history books about the Civil War – so anything that moves further away from that to a more nuanced place is worth supporting, in my opinion.
I remember as an elementary school-age kid being really impacted by the American Girl chapter books about Addie, whose story starts in slavery and continues with her and her family escaping to the Union states before the Civil War. It’s open-eyed both about the horrors of being a child working hard labor and subject to intense cruelty, and about the realities of racism and economic inequality even in the comparatively-better “free” states. Thinking back, I think these were a great way to introduce the atrocity of slavery — through the eyes of a little girl that a little girl could relate to. Fiction can be a good way to help younger kids start to contextualize the past; they might not be able to grasp the idea of centuries’ worth of time, but they can grasp stories, and the idea that things used to be very different from how they are now. It helped me start to grasp that I even knew people, other little kids in my classes, whose ancestors had experienced things the book characters had experienced. I’d be interested to know if Florida is including relevant fiction in the concurrent reading coursework. I’ll look into the rest of those standards!
Amen sister. Yours is only the second place I've seen pushback on this nonsense narrative. (The other was the reliable BARpod.) I'm sure there are more criticisms out there, and more to come, because this boneheaded hysteria is so easy to puncture.
But then again, I thought the same when it came to MSM's willful misinterpretation of "very fine people on both sides" - I figured the gullible hysterics will eventually just listen to the whole recording and will realize they are barking up the wrong tree on this one - and I was so completely wrong.
ANYWAY
The first outrage article I read was from Heather Cox Richardson. Despite her being a Biden cheerleader in all ways, I enjoy and respect her perspective because at least she is transparent about her politics and bias. But her takes on this topic were just so, so bad... kudos to her though for at least including a link to the standards that she so completely misrepresented and misinterpreted. I scanned that mother twice, looking for bs and nonsense, and studied carefully any place that discussed slavery... and found exactly what you found. Academic standards that were actually far superior to what I experienced in my Virginia childhood. Far more willing to explore slavery and associated topics with the depth and nuance they deserve, far more willing to grant the enslaved genuine humanity and agency. I actually felt like I had somehow disconnected from reality because what I read had no connection to the imaginary pro-slavery document that existed in so many other pundit's fever dreams. Not the first time I've felt this.
I am also liberal. Both a classical liberal and a (class-focused) progressive. I am not inclined to favor Florida or anything that DeSantis endorses. And that unnecessary disclaimer aside, I found nothing remotely "problematic" in the curriculum and found so much that was laudable.
You hit this one out of the park Dolly! (That’s really good in case you are not a baseball fan). I couldn’t agree more.
It’s really disappointing to see obviously intelligent people (on both sides) reach for the outrage button rather than stepping back to think about a proposition through the lens of actual experience. Maybe we have all been taught to discount experience as simply anecdotal and without significance. In the process we seem to have thrown away basic common sense. It’s high time we got reacquainted with what we used to call “using our heads”.
I hope this excellent post helps point us in the right direction; as you point out, we will all benefit.
Thank you for this. I wish your article could go viral because so many people are misinformed on this issue. Even I, who am very skeptical of what I read in the NYT, I believed their propaganda relative to the Floridians.. And the points you make regarding the effects of these lies are excellent. The result is the impossibility of any dialogue with the opposite side.
Late to the party once again. Someone- perhaps you - commented about judging history through today's lens. That excellent point often gets lost in the weeds. The same happens when we judge our fellow citizens based on generalizations, such as skin color, geography, lot in life, etc. I believe we do it because it simplifies. We project preconceived notions onto people and situations in order to quickly assess surroundings. That serves us well when confronting danger. . It also detracts from our ability to learn about others when we rely on this instinct too heavily. We make the same mistake with history
We simply cannot walk in other's shoes. I've worked and raised funds for a local organization that assists down--on-their-luck families with long term supportive housing and case management. Rule #1 - meet and accept them where they are. What a gift. I wish we could all learn how powerful that is. Race, religion, orgin, single, married, doesn't matter. They get a reset because they're allowed it
Our tenancy to simplify makes sense in an environment with information overload. We must, however, turn that impulse off when it impedes learning. We unfairly judge people and events when paradigms rule our thoughts
This article demonstrates your ability to do that, Dolly. Most liberals freak when they hear, "Florida". Conservatarians, such as me, make the same mistake with, "California". Those labels block reasonable thought, right off the bat. The same happens when we cast today's mores onto history
Rock and roll burst onto the scene only 70 years ago, bringing with it a tidal wave of cultural change. It brought risquity, drugs, rebellion, the sexual revolution in many ways. It gave youth, long told to shut up at the dinner table, a voice. It gave black people a platform, unimaginable just decades prior
Elvis lit parent's hair on fire in the 50's. Imagine them watching Miley Cirus today. Kids now would look at Elvis as a prude, if they even know of him. Chuck Berry captured that era better than anyone, using very tame lyrics. Is it fair to downplay their impact by using today's standards? Of course not. They are revolutionaries. It's a totally different world, thanks largely to guys like that
While I'm not comparing music to slavery, it demonstrates the lunacy of applying modern morality to historical figures and events. History informs us, not the other way around. Modern labels work the same way. They cloud our ability to assess based on truth and merit. Your article perfectly articulates the danger in using generalizations in lieu of critical thinking. Thank you!
You didn't even know that the Big Bang of the White American middle classes, which was the GI bill where the government would provide FHA loans, was denied for 98% WWII Blabk GI.
It turns out that there are things called computers that can be networked together. This allows them to make computation with sophisticated algorithms.
Not only can we track the disparities from 1880s through 2018, we can also track the economic and political policies targeted specifically against Black people.
We can also the disparities of salaries between Black people and White people in all the professions.
How many times have your White male relatives been stopped by the police in a year?
Post 2020 Presidential elections, the counties that were called in to question were the predominantly African American ones. That's an attack on the 14th, 15th and 19th Amendments.
This is the problem with White Conservatives that they think there Gods chosen people, and should have complete power when it comes to who governs the Republic.
That's where all the other sins come from.
Your lack of understanding of basic science principles to understand that climate change is real, man made and happening in real time. Thought it was all fake.
Welcome to the new world order of extreme weather events.
Structural Institutional Racism can be proven, just like climate change can be proven.
If you don't want to hear about the disparities, and so called Victimhood, then stop making Victims.
"SLAVERY WAS TERRIBLE " But when you look at it, it wasn't as bad as most people think. For instance, by constantly keeping enslaved Black women pregnant, other enslaved Black women became skilled Midwives. Which was an upside of the biocapitalism of breeding more slaves.
This is how YOU sound in this article to an ACTUAL BLACK WOMAN.
I don't care about what you did and didn't learn about African American History. Your job was to educate yourself of the history to understand. To understand concurrently to the historical narratives they are presenting, there were Race Riots, lynching, Black women and girls being raped, intellectually property like invention being stolen and patented by White men. The kidnapping of Freedman and woman to take them down to the Slave States to be enslaved. All posr-slavey in the North.
Did you ever, as a White Liberal woman, think to contact African American Historians, to present them with the curriculum, so they could give you a thorough understanding and deconstruction of how the curriculum Whitewashes history and the underlying agenda by the Conservatives?
This why you have failed, because you gave "facts" without any context because you don't know the History.
This was such an excellent and important article, Dolly. It is particularly useful that you give readers a method for how to respond when we read outrage clickbait--and then link to the standards so that we have the opportunity to decide for ourselves before we add to the outrage. And your final point--that when we express outrage without checking first, we get a personal benefit but make the world worse--is so important to keep in mind in all situations.
I did read (well, skim) the linked standards and agree with you about the “personal benefit” issue. I seem to remember reading many years ago that scholars wanted to reinforce the point that enslaved Black people weren’t just passive victims, but fought back in any way they could, and one way they did that was by working jobs to buy their and their loved ones’ freedom. I just reread Beloved for Freddie’s book club, and one of the characters does just that--buys his mother’s freedom by working side jobs.
There is an aspect of the curriculum that does give me pause that is quite different: The curriculum places a lot of emphasis on slavery in other places and times. While it is true that slavery has been a terrible evil throughout human history--and to this day in some places--I think such an emphasis on slavery outside the US risks both-sidesism. It risks communicating the attitude that slavery in the US was a terrible but regrettably normal thing and no worse than what other people were doing.
But the truth is that slavery in the US was unique and uniquely bad for two reasons: that children of enslaved women were also enslaved, and that slave owners routinely broke up families by selling people away from their parents, children, siblings, and spouses. Slavery in other places didn’t operate this way; it was still evil, of course, but the US really did win this particular shameful prize, and a responsible history curriculum will make that clear. Maybe I missed a place in the curriculum where they discussed this? But if not, I think it is a flaw.
Finally, I have to agree with you about the elementary-school curriculum’s focus on the positive. I wish that we on the left weren’t always advocating for forcing the worst, ugliest information on children before they’re ready to absorb it. It’s almost as though these people on the left are upset that children are tootling along in happy complacency and want to wake them up to brutal reality.
I recently got into a dispute with an acquaintance who was angry that Tennessee removed Maus from the middle-school curriculum. (Note: they didn’t ban the book, but they did take it off the required reading list for kids aged 12-14.) I suggested that most kids that age aren’t ready for a work that is as unremittingly bleak and explicit as Maus, and that there are better choices (Eli Wiesel’s Night, for example) for kids that age. She was unconvinced. So I told her about my own 7th-grade social studies teacher, who spent the Holocaust unit telling us the most grotesque, horrifying facts about tortures inflicted on Jews in the camps. We--a bunch of 12-year-olds--couldn’t handle it. We would laugh nervously and make awful jokes. I still feel guilty about this, but at the same time I am still angry at this idiot teacher, who put us kids in the position to laugh at atrocities, because we couldn’t handle what he was telling us. (My acquaintance’s response was that HER son was able to handle extremely intense material at a very young age and would not have responded to the class that way. Good for him! But he strikes me as the exception, and we should develop curricula for the regular kids.)
Please forgive the length of this comment! I love so much how your essays make me think, and I get carried away!
thank the gods, a voice of reason. Agree 100% about primary sources - even the NYT is full of clickwhores determined to spin up the outrage machine
The "slaves developed skills" bit, as long as it's not mis-represented as a good thing about slavery (which I don't see this curriculum doing), is both true and important historically. To get the obvious point out of the way first - the same people, had they not been enslaved, could have developed even more skills and had a much better life while doing so. Slavery did not give them any learning opportunities that they couldn't have had, many times over, without slavery (and again, the curriculum does not say otherwise).
Case in point - reading. It's a while ago I read up on this, but I seem to remember that there was a rule on most plantations that slaves were not allowed to be taught to read and write, ever, lest they get ideas and the ability to organize and educate themselves and plan escapes and compose abolitionist pamphlets and the like. And of course, they did all these things anyway, the best they could under terrible conditions. Some of them read the Bible and were particularly impressed with Exodus where Moses frees the slaves from Egypt, and so we have the amazing spiritual Go Down Moses (Let My People Go). You can operate an Underground Railroad more efficiently when some of the people involved can read and write, too.
An accurate historical overview would make very clear that some slaves learnt to read and write despite, not because of, their owners' wishes. But learn they did - and saw it as an act of liberation. And of course at the extreme end of this process you end up with the writings of Douglass, who according to Wikipedia (quoting from a speech he wrote) "learned to spell from an old Webster's spelling-book and to read and write from posters on cellar and barn doors, while boys and men would help him".
So so so great of you to link the actual standards. I grew up in the suburban South, and while my education was overall very good, there were definitely some pretty ugly ideas floating around in the background. The Lost Cause doctrine was still alive and well among some adults where I lived, and people were often very angry about what they saw as the “villainizing” of the Confederacy. In the South, in some pretty important ways, the losers got to write the history books about the Civil War – so anything that moves further away from that to a more nuanced place is worth supporting, in my opinion.
I remember as an elementary school-age kid being really impacted by the American Girl chapter books about Addie, whose story starts in slavery and continues with her and her family escaping to the Union states before the Civil War. It’s open-eyed both about the horrors of being a child working hard labor and subject to intense cruelty, and about the realities of racism and economic inequality even in the comparatively-better “free” states. Thinking back, I think these were a great way to introduce the atrocity of slavery — through the eyes of a little girl that a little girl could relate to. Fiction can be a good way to help younger kids start to contextualize the past; they might not be able to grasp the idea of centuries’ worth of time, but they can grasp stories, and the idea that things used to be very different from how they are now. It helped me start to grasp that I even knew people, other little kids in my classes, whose ancestors had experienced things the book characters had experienced. I’d be interested to know if Florida is including relevant fiction in the concurrent reading coursework. I’ll look into the rest of those standards!
Amen sister. Yours is only the second place I've seen pushback on this nonsense narrative. (The other was the reliable BARpod.) I'm sure there are more criticisms out there, and more to come, because this boneheaded hysteria is so easy to puncture.
But then again, I thought the same when it came to MSM's willful misinterpretation of "very fine people on both sides" - I figured the gullible hysterics will eventually just listen to the whole recording and will realize they are barking up the wrong tree on this one - and I was so completely wrong.
ANYWAY
The first outrage article I read was from Heather Cox Richardson. Despite her being a Biden cheerleader in all ways, I enjoy and respect her perspective because at least she is transparent about her politics and bias. But her takes on this topic were just so, so bad... kudos to her though for at least including a link to the standards that she so completely misrepresented and misinterpreted. I scanned that mother twice, looking for bs and nonsense, and studied carefully any place that discussed slavery... and found exactly what you found. Academic standards that were actually far superior to what I experienced in my Virginia childhood. Far more willing to explore slavery and associated topics with the depth and nuance they deserve, far more willing to grant the enslaved genuine humanity and agency. I actually felt like I had somehow disconnected from reality because what I read had no connection to the imaginary pro-slavery document that existed in so many other pundit's fever dreams. Not the first time I've felt this.
I am also liberal. Both a classical liberal and a (class-focused) progressive. I am not inclined to favor Florida or anything that DeSantis endorses. And that unnecessary disclaimer aside, I found nothing remotely "problematic" in the curriculum and found so much that was laudable.
You hit this one out of the park Dolly! (That’s really good in case you are not a baseball fan). I couldn’t agree more.
It’s really disappointing to see obviously intelligent people (on both sides) reach for the outrage button rather than stepping back to think about a proposition through the lens of actual experience. Maybe we have all been taught to discount experience as simply anecdotal and without significance. In the process we seem to have thrown away basic common sense. It’s high time we got reacquainted with what we used to call “using our heads”.
I hope this excellent post helps point us in the right direction; as you point out, we will all benefit.
Thank you for this. I wish your article could go viral because so many people are misinformed on this issue. Even I, who am very skeptical of what I read in the NYT, I believed their propaganda relative to the Floridians.. And the points you make regarding the effects of these lies are excellent. The result is the impossibility of any dialogue with the opposite side.
Great post
Thanks Dolly, this is awesome, and also funny!
Late to the party once again. Someone- perhaps you - commented about judging history through today's lens. That excellent point often gets lost in the weeds. The same happens when we judge our fellow citizens based on generalizations, such as skin color, geography, lot in life, etc. I believe we do it because it simplifies. We project preconceived notions onto people and situations in order to quickly assess surroundings. That serves us well when confronting danger. . It also detracts from our ability to learn about others when we rely on this instinct too heavily. We make the same mistake with history
We simply cannot walk in other's shoes. I've worked and raised funds for a local organization that assists down--on-their-luck families with long term supportive housing and case management. Rule #1 - meet and accept them where they are. What a gift. I wish we could all learn how powerful that is. Race, religion, orgin, single, married, doesn't matter. They get a reset because they're allowed it
Our tenancy to simplify makes sense in an environment with information overload. We must, however, turn that impulse off when it impedes learning. We unfairly judge people and events when paradigms rule our thoughts
This article demonstrates your ability to do that, Dolly. Most liberals freak when they hear, "Florida". Conservatarians, such as me, make the same mistake with, "California". Those labels block reasonable thought, right off the bat. The same happens when we cast today's mores onto history
Rock and roll burst onto the scene only 70 years ago, bringing with it a tidal wave of cultural change. It brought risquity, drugs, rebellion, the sexual revolution in many ways. It gave youth, long told to shut up at the dinner table, a voice. It gave black people a platform, unimaginable just decades prior
Elvis lit parent's hair on fire in the 50's. Imagine them watching Miley Cirus today. Kids now would look at Elvis as a prude, if they even know of him. Chuck Berry captured that era better than anyone, using very tame lyrics. Is it fair to downplay their impact by using today's standards? Of course not. They are revolutionaries. It's a totally different world, thanks largely to guys like that
While I'm not comparing music to slavery, it demonstrates the lunacy of applying modern morality to historical figures and events. History informs us, not the other way around. Modern labels work the same way. They cloud our ability to assess based on truth and merit. Your article perfectly articulates the danger in using generalizations in lieu of critical thinking. Thank you!
I know college graduates who don’t know half the stuff in the middle school section of that curriculum
Dolly, thanks for the conversations. If you decide to write again, I would be interested.
All the best.
You didn't even know that the Big Bang of the White American middle classes, which was the GI bill where the government would provide FHA loans, was denied for 98% WWII Blabk GI.
It turns out that there are things called computers that can be networked together. This allows them to make computation with sophisticated algorithms.
Not only can we track the disparities from 1880s through 2018, we can also track the economic and political policies targeted specifically against Black people.
We can also the disparities of salaries between Black people and White people in all the professions.
How many times have your White male relatives been stopped by the police in a year?
Post 2020 Presidential elections, the counties that were called in to question were the predominantly African American ones. That's an attack on the 14th, 15th and 19th Amendments.
This is the problem with White Conservatives that they think there Gods chosen people, and should have complete power when it comes to who governs the Republic.
That's where all the other sins come from.
Your lack of understanding of basic science principles to understand that climate change is real, man made and happening in real time. Thought it was all fake.
Welcome to the new world order of extreme weather events.
Structural Institutional Racism can be proven, just like climate change can be proven.
If you don't want to hear about the disparities, and so called Victimhood, then stop making Victims.
Florida State Education office just made
Prager University their vendors for the school systems.
The curriculum doesn't allow talking about White privilege or Systematic racism.
Your blind benevolence when it comes to interpretation of the curriculum, will be shattered when you witness what they are really saying and doing.
This is what comes from creating another White Echo Chamber; only this one's Liberal.
It's a complete Whitewasdhing of actual history.
"SLAVERY WAS TERRIBLE " But when you look at it, it wasn't as bad as most people think. For instance, by constantly keeping enslaved Black women pregnant, other enslaved Black women became skilled Midwives. Which was an upside of the biocapitalism of breeding more slaves.
This is how YOU sound in this article to an ACTUAL BLACK WOMAN.
I don't care about what you did and didn't learn about African American History. Your job was to educate yourself of the history to understand. To understand concurrently to the historical narratives they are presenting, there were Race Riots, lynching, Black women and girls being raped, intellectually property like invention being stolen and patented by White men. The kidnapping of Freedman and woman to take them down to the Slave States to be enslaved. All posr-slavey in the North.
Did you ever, as a White Liberal woman, think to contact African American Historians, to present them with the curriculum, so they could give you a thorough understanding and deconstruction of how the curriculum Whitewashes history and the underlying agenda by the Conservatives?
This why you have failed, because you gave "facts" without any context because you don't know the History.