(Corine Gatti, Headline USA) Vice President Kamala Harris was blasted after traveling to Florida, claiming the state’s new curriculum on African-American history painted slavery as “beneficial.”
“They decided middle school students will be taught that enslaved people benefited from slavery,” the vice president said. “They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us and we will not stand for it. There is a national agenda. Extremist so-called leaders … want to replace history with lies.”
Extremists are pushing forward revisionist history. They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us, and we will not stand for it. pic.twitter.com/ipCXuGjWTw
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) July 20, 2023
The attempts to further her own political agenda backfired after Dr. William Allen, who helped write the curriculum and who is a descendant of slaves, fact-checked Harris. In fact, during a radio interview, Allen was asked if the wording of the curriculum should be changed after Harris’s criticism.
He said, no.
“My great grandfather is someone who came from the islands and who was enslaved here… from his resourcefulness, we derive benefits,” Allen said in a radio interview. “I think anyone who would try to change that language would be denying that great-grandfather Cidipus made any contribution. I certainly could not endorse doing that,” the 79-year-old noted.
“The only criticism I’ve encountered so far [on the new curriculum] is a single one that was articulated by the vice president, and which was an error,” Allen also told ABC News.
Harris’s political stunt started after the Florida Board of Education approved a new social studies curriculum on July 19, which included an African American History section. However, there has been significant backlash from opponents, including Harris, who were unhappy with certain aspects of the curriculum.
Meanwhile, Dr. Allen and other members who worked on the curriculum issued a statement refuting Harris’s claims. They said Florida students deserved to learn how slaves took advantage of circumstances they were in to “benefit themselves and the community of African descendants,” members wrote.
“It is disappointing, but nevertheless unsurprising, that critics would reduce months of work to create Florida’s first ever stand-alone strand of African American History Standards to a few isolated expressions without context,” they concluded. “We encourage everyone to view these robust standards for themselves.”
