Vice President Kamala Harris attacked Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for “gaslighting” people with the state’s new school curriculum, in which students can learn that slavery gave Black people “skills” that could be used “for their personal benefit.”
Harris didn’t mention DeSantis by name, but she cited his state when she denounced the policy during her keynote address Thursday at Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc.’s national convention. in Indianapolis.
“Speaking of our children, extremists are passing book bans to prevent them from learning our true history — book bans in this year of our Lord 2023. And as they do this, look, they are pushing revisionist history forward,” Harris said. “Yesterday in the state of Florida they decided that high school students will learn that enslaved people profit from slavery. They insult us in an attempt to trick us, and we will not accept that.’
The vice president will travel to Jacksonville, Florida, on Friday, where she is expected to double down on her remarks.
Vice President Kamala Harris attacked Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for “gaslighting” people with the state’s new school curriculum
DeSantis’ campaign did not respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment. The Florida governor, who wants to become the Republican presidential nominee in 2024, is campaigning in Utah on Friday.
The White House has been careful not to engage publicly with any of the GOP presidential candidates or respond to their attacks, citing the Hatch Act, the federal law that prohibits federal officials from engaging in political activity while working in their official capacity.
But Harris, the country’s first black vice president, seems poised to strike back. While in Florida, Harris will “comment on the fight to protect fundamental freedoms, especially the freedom to learn and teach the full and true history of America,” the White House announced Thursday night.
She has already taken the lead in attacking Republican-led states that have essentially made it impossible for women to have abortions. She has also been a government spokesperson on gun violence and voting rights issues.
Florida school curriculum changes were required by a 2022 law known as the “Stop Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees Act” or “Stop WOKE Act.”
It was DeSantis who unveiled the Stop WOKE Act, which would allow parents to file lawsuits against school districts accused of teaching critical race theory.
The law, in part, required that the instruction “include the vital contributions of African Americans to build and strengthen American society and celebrate the inspiring stories of African Americans who prospered even in the most difficult of circumstances.”
The governor also passed legislation banning school education that suggests that someone is privileged or oppressed based on their race or color.
Florida’s Board of Education approved new rules for teaching black history at a public meeting in Orlando on Wednesday.
A 216-page document posted to the Florida Department of Education’s website contains new instructions for high school teachers, including a description of how to teach students “how slaves developed skills, which in some cases could be applied for their personal benefit.”
Alex Lanfranconi, who works as a spokesperson for Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, tweeted a statement late Thursday afternoon from those working on the new standards.
“Any attempt to reduce slaves to just victims of oppression ignores their strength, courage and resilience during a difficult time in American history,” the statement said.
“Florida students deserve to learn how slaves took advantage of the conditions they found themselves in to help themselves and the community of African descendants.”
Governor Ron DeSantis signed the Stop WOKE Act, which required school instructions to “include the vital contributions of African Americans to build and strengthen American society and celebrate the inspiring stories of African Americans who prospered even in the most difficult of circumstances.”
The photos above from the extensive publication show changes that would be implemented in the curriculum
Numerous teachers objected to the new rules and asked that the proposals be suspended.
Science teacher Carol Cleaver told attendees at the meeting, “These new standards present only half the story and half the truth.
“If we name political figures who worked to end slavery, but leave unnamed everyone who worked to keep slavery legal, children are forced to fill in the blanks for themselves.”
The Florida Education Association, a statewide teachers’ union representing about 150,000 teachers, described the new rules as a “step backwards.”
In a statement from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), they called the curriculum “cleansed and unfair.”
Their president and CEO, Derrick Johnson, said, “The actions of the Florida state government are an attempt to return our country to a 19th century America where black lives were not valued and our rights were not protected.
It is imperative that we understand that the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow were a human rights violation and represent the darkest period in American history. We refuse to go back.
“The NAACP has been fighting malicious actors, such as those within the DeSantis administration, for more than a century, and we stand ready to continue that battle by any means necessary.
Our children deserve nothing less than truth, justice and fairness for which our ancestors shed blood, sweat and tears.