(Corine Gatti, Headline USA) William B. Allen, a Michigan State University political philosophy professor who helped write Florida state’s new curriculum on African–American history, eviscerated Vice President Kamala Harris in a mere 15 minutes on conservative pundit Megyn Kelly’s podcast.
Allen took jabs at Harris, insinuating that her uncharacteristically articulate remarks were fed to her as she often cackles when she’s off-script.
Nevertheless, while they may not have been the typical word salad that constituents have come to expect, her statements remained untrue.
In particular, Allen—who not only is black but an admired civil-rights leader and African American scholar in is own right—disputed her claim that the curriculum painted slavery as “beneficial.”
In what amounted to a brazen display of leftist projection, Harris also accused “extremists” of “gaslighting” America and claimed conservatives were dividing the country by insisting that schools continue to teach history without injecting woke, Marxist critical theory into it.
However, Harris was the one dividing Americans by making baseless and false allegations, the former chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights said.
Allen mocked the notion that he and the other black commission members involved in the curriculum were justifying slavery, Red State reported.
But the motivation behind the criticism had everything to do with political agendas originating from the White House—and running through partisan teachers unions.
“I came to understand, this had nothing to do with the standards,” Allen charged. “It had everything to do with a larger agenda, starting with the teachers’ union and its allies and, of course, carrying it to the level of the vice presidency in order to give it heft…and to account for slavery as the soul of America and discount the accomplishments of America.”
The Florida teachers union chose not to contribute to the standards and instead remained in the background, the news outlet noted, causing Allen to liken their behavior to that of a “snake hiding in the weeds.”
The Florida Board of Education approved the new social studies curriculum which included an African–American History section. However, there was significant backlash from opponents.
The standard was criticized by American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, a white woman, who marked the work as “grievously racist” and “disgusting.”
CNN’s Ashly Allison suggested Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wanted to “ban Rosa Parks.”
Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calf., also chimed in saying DeSantis was “pro-slavery.”
Allen clarified that said Rosa Parks was specifically mentioned in the standards, along with many other historical black leaders. He ended the podcast by talking about his great-grandfather, someone who came from the islands and who was enslaved in the U.S.
“From his resourcefulness, we derive benefits. I think anyone who would try to change that language would be denying that great-grandfather Cidipus made any contribution,” he said.
“I certainly could not endorse doing that,” he continued. “Booker T. Washington’s autobiography is titled Up From Slavery, that was his story, not our story…and these stories are legends.”
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.”
“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 wrote. “We encourage everyone to view these robust standards for themselves.”
