Politifiction covers for Kamala Harris
Conn Carroll
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Politifact, the famously left-leaning “fact” checking site that erroneously said COVID could not have come from a lab, is back turning fiction into fact again, this time coming to the defense of lies told by Vice President Kamala Harris.
Here is what Harris said: “Just yesterday, in the state of Florida, they decided middle school students will be taught that enslaved people benefited from slavery.”
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Here is what the Florida social studies standards actually say: “Examine the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing, transportation) … Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
Now, I know logic is tough for Democrats and their liberal allies at Politifact, but a plain reading of the sentences in question shows that the standards are asserting that some slaves acquired professional skills and that those slaves benefited from those skills.
Again, the benefit is coming from the skills, not the slavery. Harris is just plain lying about what the standards say. As retired political science professor William Allen told Politifact, “They benefited from the skills, not the slavery.”
So, how does Politifact turn Harris’s blatant fiction into “fact”? By bringing in some “experts” who either haven’t read the Florida standards or don’t believe middle school students should be taught the truth about slavery.
Marvin Dunn, a psychology professor emeritus at Florida International University, complains, “Most enslaved people had no special skills at all that benefited them following their enslavement. For almost all their skill was picking cotton. An enslaved man who was made to be a blacksmith might have been a king had he not been captured and taken from his country.”
And it is true that most slaves had no special skills. The Florida standards agree. But notice that Dunn never denies that some slaves did have professional skills. As the Library of Congress notes, some slaves “worked at a variety of skilled trades as well as common laborers. It was not unusual for those working in the cities to put away enough money to buy their freedom.” Should students be denied this truth?
The “experts” Politifact talked to apparently think so. Bruce Levine, an emeritus professor of history at the University of Illinois, told Politifact that he “rejected the value of spotlighting skills learned while enslaved.”
So, it’s not that some slaves didn’t practice skilled trades. It’s that this fact needs to be kept secret from students. How truthy.
Separately, Katheryn Russell-Brown, a law professor and director of the Race and Crime Center for Justice at the University of Florida, told Politifact that “the standards offer no discussion of people who enslaved others.”
First of all, this doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not some slaves had professional skills as the Florida standards claim, but more importantly, Russell-Brown is just wrong. The Florida standards are full of discussions of people who enslaved others.
The standards include “the reciprocal roles of the Triangular Trade routes between Africa and the western hemisphere, Africa and Europe, and Europe and the western hemisphere,” “the shift in attitude toward Africans as Colonial America transitioned from indentured servitude to race-based, hereditary slavery,” and “the effect of the cotton industry on the expansion of slavery due to Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin.”
All of these subjects heavily involve “discussion of people who enslaved others.”
Turning back to Harris, Politifact concludes, “Harris said Florida ‘decided middle school students will be taught that enslaved people benefited from slavery.’ That is not the only lesson Florida students would be taught under the standards that also include many other aspects of Black history and slavery.”
This is just wrong. The Florida standards in no way teach that “enslaved people benefited from slavery.” They teach, correctly, that some slaves acquired skills and that those slaves benefited from those skills. That does not mean slaves benefited from slavery, which is what Harris falsely claims.
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This is another huge blow to Politifact’s already damaged reputation.
Slavery is bad. The Florida standards say slavery is bad. The only person trying to divide the nation by making up lies about slavery is Kamala Harris, and Politifact is trying to cover for her.