MONDAY, JULY 31, 2023
No (Perceived) Outrage Left Behind: Friend, have you reviewed the contents of Florida's new history curriculum?
(For the record: We don't know why the various elements of such curricula are now referred to as "standards.")
We have read through the Sunshine State's new "standards." Saturday, in a lengthy news report, the New York Times offered this overview of the curriculum's development, hard-copy headline included:
Who’s Writing New Rules For Teaching Black History?
When Florida set out to revamp its standards for teaching Black history this spring, a natural place to turn would have been the state’s African American History Task Force.
The volunteer task force—a group of Black educators, Democratic politicians and community leaders, appointed by the commissioner of education—has helped shape African American history instruction in Florida for more than two decades. The group provides an annual training session for teachers and awards “exemplary” status to school districts that meet criteria it sets.
[...]
To craft the 216-page document, his Department of Education created a 13-member work group, which drafted the standards from February to May.
The work group members, whose names the state has not released in full, included Frances Presley Rice, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and a staunch conservative who has led the National Black Republican Association; William Allen, a professor emeritus at Michigan State who served on the United States Commission on Civil Rights under Ronald Reagan; and teachers and school district officials from around the state.
Three members of the group were nominated by the African American History Task Force, as representatives from its exemplary school districts.
To create its new K-12 curriculum, the state's conservative / Republican administration created a conservative / Republican-leaning work group. We can't say we're shocked or surprised by that—but then, we live in an era whose prevailing ethos, among tribal combatants, is No Outrage Left Behind.
We don't know why the Times refers to a "216-page document." As you can see at this link, that would be the total length of Florida's new "State Academic Standards—Social Studies, 2023."
As you can see at that same link, the part of the K-12 document which pertains to "African-American history" is 23 pages long. Having noted that fact, we'll make two observations:
A high degree of exposure: There is no perfect way to teach any part of this nation's history. Still, any Florida public school student who is exposed to every element of that 23-page course of study will emerge from his or her Florida high school with a voluminous exposure to this essential strand of this nation's frequently brutal history.
That said, also this:
Who will guard the guardians? There is no way to compel a public school teacher to follow some course of study. Almost surely, different teachers around the state of Florida will present this material in substantially different ways.
Almost surely, different teachers will insert their own personal points of view into the mandated curriculum. Conservative teachers may lean one way. Liberal teachers may lean another.
Inevitably, some of those leanings may make perfect sense, but some of those leanings may not. Some insertions may lean toward the crazy. There is absolutely no way to eliminate conduct like that.
So it goes with the outline of any state's mandated course of study in any subject area. That said, we all may know what happened, within the world of our own blue tribe, when this new curriculum was released:
We'll guess that we know what happened! Tribunes sifted through the 23 pages, looking for something to make loud complaints about.
Once an offending passage was found, there would be No Name-Calling Left Behind. We can't say that we agree with Kevin Drum's overall assessment of the new curriculum, but we do agree with his assessment of the furious talking-point our tribunes agreed to mouth:
Here’s the real problem with Florida’s school standards for slavery
The state of Florida requires instruction in African American history in all grades, and as you might expect it's pretty thin in the primary grades. But it picks up a bit in middle school, with 14 separate standards mandated for grades 6-8. One of them is this:
SS.68.AA.2.3
Examine the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing, transportation).
Benchmark clarifications:
Clarification 1: Instruction includes how [enslaved people] developed skills which in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.
This footnote has caused an uproar in the lefty community, which seems a little overwrought to me. As a matter of historical record, it's true that slaves were occasionally allowed to earn money of their own by hiring out their services. This is hardly the biggest deal in the world.
"It's true that slaves were occasionally allowed to earn money of their own," Drum correctly said. For the record, he seems to be referring to the ability to earn money during enslavement, not to the ability of formerly enslaved people to earn money after emancipation.
"It's true that slaves were occasionally allowed to earn money of their own," Drum correctly said. "This is hardly the biggest deal in the world," he instantly added.
That said, it did become the world's biggest deal all through the ranks of our own blue tribe, once this "benchmark clarification" was seized upon as a source of mandated outrage.
Over the past few weeks, we were lodged in a medical institution whose cable system included CNN and MSNBC but didn't include Fox News. On CNN and MSNBC, one commentator after another came forward to recite the mandated talking-points about that one "clarification," which forms a tiny part of the state of Florida's overall course of study.
Friend, have you examined that K-12 course of study? If we had designed that course of study, we would almost surely have included, and emphasized, certain points which don't appear there.
That said, there is no perfect way to teach American history (or anything else). On the other hand, there is a time-honored way by which civilizations, such as they are, can perhaps proceed to fall apart.
At times of tribal war, we the humans are strongly inclined to adopt an ancient maxim: No Perceived Outrage Left Behind. We're strongly inclined to demonize Others, to say they simply can't be abided.
This tends to lead us toward the types of wars which pretty much can't be won.
We didn't see what was being said on Fox News in the past few weeks. We did see what our tribunes were saying on MSNBC and CNN.
To our eye and ear, our tribunes often seemed to be feigning outrage and anger. We'll examine the impulse all week.
This afternoon: Frank Luntz visits C-Span
So Florida is just virtue-signaling about teaching the nation's history? Sounds right.
ReplyDeleteThought and prayers to Florida's elites, for having to deal with tribal outrage.
ReplyDeleteDoes Bob support Drum cancel culturing (criticizing) the lefty communities outrage?
ReplyDeleteSomerby offers two inset passages as if they were quotes of someone else, but he is stating his own opinions (observations). This is highly misleading because it implies he is quoting someone else who offers support for his own opinion. Then he says:
ReplyDelete"Inevitably, some of those leanings may make perfect sense, but some of those leanings may not. Some insertions may lean toward the crazy. There is absolutely no way to eliminate conduct like that."
But there is a way to eliminate any conduct a school board dislikes. It is called "firing" and the teacher in question is removed from his or her job and excluded from the classroom.
Why would Somerby pretend this hasn't already been happening in FL? The examples have received wide publicity. People can even be removed from doing their jobs properly and competently, if some random conservative lodges a complaint against them and a conservative administrator or school board agrees, because we have seen this happen in FL, where Somerby says any teacher can teach history standards any way they want. What is gained by lying about this?
"We'll guess that we know what happened! Tribunes sifted through the 23 pages, looking for something to make loud complaints about."
ReplyDeleteWe'll restate this in a less biased way: "Tribunes read the 23 pages (along with the rest of the document) and were outraged by several instances in which history was being distorted to absolve racists and slaveholders."
Should so-called tribunes not complain about such "standards"?
Somerby repeatedly states that it is true that slaves could use their skills to obtain money while remaining a slave and thus potentially buy their way out of servitude. Here is a thorough discussion of the facts of that suggestion (in South Carolina):
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ccpl.org/charleston-time-machine/self-purchase-price-freedom-slavery
The author wishes us not to forget that some people did buy or otherwise receive freedom through manumission. The problem is not the historical accuracy of such occurrences but the frequency with which they occurred. Was it practically possible to obtain freedom this way? Not so much, as this article itself admits. Further, the existence of a pathway to freedom of any type does not absolve anyone involved in trading or keeping slaves, nor does it minimize the horrific nature of treatment of nearly all slaves. It is the presentation of this information that is problematic, the implication that a slave's enslavement was in his or her own control, that is ugly and wrong.
Somerby loves to misuse nitpicks to try to discredit larger points that he finds objectionable. In this case, the truth of self-purchase is not in question, but the misuse of such a fact to absolve Southern slaveowners from responsibility for their mistreatment of human beings. No nitpick can make slavery justifiable, whether it is Somerby or FL doing the nit-picking. And history is more than a collection of facts -- it is also the interpretation of the meaning of those facts. Somerby's is rotten, it stinks because he and Drum have no historical basis for their own complaints.
"That said, there is no perfect way to teach American history (or anything else). "
ReplyDeleteThis is never an excuse for doing a piss-poor job of teaching or for knowingly including misleading suggestions among a list of history standards.
This kind of remark is akin to Somerby's favorite "anything is possible" which he uses to broaden a topic to the point where it cannot be discussed at all. He perhaps intends to portray himself as open-minded when he says such things, but he comes across as attempting to evade responsibility for even trying to teach history well, a goal every teacher should strive for. In that context, it is not only appropriate but mandatory that educators discuss what would constitute competent teaching of history. When FL includes political considerations into its list of standard, they are flunking, no matter how unattainable teaching perfection may be.
"This footnote has caused an uproar in the lefty community, which seems a little overwrought to me. As a matter of historical record, it's true that slaves were occasionally allowed to earn money of their own by hiring out their services. This is hardly the biggest deal in the world."
ReplyDeleteKevin Drum dismisses concerns over this specific standard. Drum is not the right person to decide how important such misleading pieces of historical trivia are to black people and the teaching of black history.
Drum (and Somerby) attribute the concerns about this standard to liberals, to the blue tribe, but it arises primarily from black historians and experts in black studies, from people affected by the teaching of such attitudes as well as experts who have studied what happened to black people under slavery. Liberals support these concerns and they have access to CNN and MSNBC as podiums for expressing that support, but it is demeaning to suggest that it isn't black people themselves who object most strongly to the minimizing of the outrages of slavery perpetrated on their own ancestors.
To call this controversy a "footnote" suggests the intent to demean those who are concerned about this aspect of the FL history standards. In history books, a footnote contains the sourcing and links to proof substantiating a statement in text. Somerby intends the word to refer to something trivial, peripheral, unimportant and not central to what is being discussed in text (e.g., white history). That is how footnotes are regarded by lay readers, people who are unconcerned about HOW we know something is true, but only with getting the gist of a paragraph. Such readers typically skip reading the footnotes (and endnotes), even of a work of nonfiction, as history is. Black history is not a footnote to white history. It is central to black people and deserves to be treated as equally importand, so when Drum says "This is hardly the biggest deal in the world." his attitude is clear and his intent to diminish, just as the FL working group intended to diminish black complaints, is equally obvious.
It may be subtle, but this is as much racism as when a black man is dragged behind a truck until dead because two white men thought he was trespassing while jogging. It springs from the same well. And this should not be taught to children anywhere, including FL (where kids deserve better from their bigoted elders).
It’s a footnote the same way the Holocaust is a footnote once you consider the hundreds of millions of Jews that have existed, the 6 million “solved” were just a drop in the bucket and led to the creation of the state of Israel.
DeleteSure slavery had its downsides, but it was also like a full scholarship to widening your horizons.
This is why better standards are needed.
DeleteEveryone dies. The holocaust is still a major atrocity and slavery is no way to live a life.
DeleteBetter trolling please.
The comment is obviously being sardonic.
DeleteWhite supremacists are saying such things in all seriousness, so how is the commenter's intent obvious?
DeleteAnd then Somerby says this: "To our eye and ear, our tribunes often seemed to be feigning outrage and anger."
ReplyDeleteOn what basis does Somerby assert that liberals are insincere in their support for black concerns? He offers no evidence at all. That makes this final remark Somerby's own form of empty name-calling. Liberals have laid down their lives for civil rights alongside black leaders. Most recently, consider the many white people who marched in BLM protests arising from the killing of George Floyd. Three such white men were shot by Kyle Rittenhouse, two were killed and one severely injured. I suppose in Somerby's eyes, the people who marched and the support expressed in surveys like this Pew survey are insincere too:
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/06/12/amid-protests-majorities-across-racial-and-ethnic-groups-express-support-for-the-black-lives-matter-movement/
We get it that Somerby is not completely sincere in what he writes here. That would make it easier for him to believe that other people are equally insincere when they express strongly held views. This cognitive bias also causes criminals to believe that the general public is more criminally inclined than it is. But calling liberals insincere is a long-standing assault lodged here by Somerby over the years, without evidence beyond his assertion that no one really cares what happens to black people, any more than teachers and parents don't care about black children's learning.
We are not all nihilists like you, Somerby, especially here on the left.
"Over the past few weeks, we were lodged in a medical institution whose cable system included CNN and MSNBC but didn't include Fox News. "
ReplyDeleteThe horror!
If Somerby had access to Fox News he would have seen one of the architects of the new Florida curriculum Dr William Allen offer inaccurate claims about slavery and slaves such as Frederick Douglass.
DeleteWorse, Dr Allen and others that crafted the new curriculum put out a statement defending their stance that slavery wasn’t just about oppression but also about developing skills, by mentioning a list of slaves that had also learned skills; however, aside from overtly being racist, that list of slaves turned out to be ahistorical as none of them were actually slaves, and this was debunked by a graduate student. Their attempt at manufacturing ignorance would be funny if it was weren’t so repugnant.
https://youtu.be/7lJL-p37WR0
Now for all you right wingers getting triggered by the circumstance that black people may one day gain a tiny measure of equality, rest easy - while the average white person has a dollar in their pocket, the average black person has only 15 cents.
You win, White people! You can stop freaking out when leftists point out the obvious racism that’s fundamental to the US, it’ll still be a few generations before blacks have a mere 25 cents for White’s every dollar, if ever.
If Somerby read those standards himself, as he claims, he would have noticed these passages and known that it isn't just this one example that has upset black scholars and supporters of civil rights. Why has Somerby pretended otherwise? Why does Drum? Obviously, both men are trying to trivialize concerns, but one used to write for Mother Jones and the other keeps claiming to be liberal himself. Is this what people who hold liberal views write? Not in 2023.
ReplyDeleteanon 11:37, thanks for the hatchet job on the proposed standards.that's what "liberalism" seems to have come down to.
ReplyDeleteThe hatchet job has been done on teaching black history, by a working group with obvious political motives.
ReplyDeleteanon 6:25, I read the guidelines, the fault finding seems to be similar to North Korean propaganda. You don't have "obvious political motives? When I on occasion look at fox.news, I generally feel a sense of nausea caused by how stupid and slanted it is.. The same thing with you brainless zealots..
ReplyDeleteOne of the ways you can tell the intent behind the new standards is the way the Republicans are vociferously defending the new standards - essentially doubling down on the notion that slavery included benefits, and even suggesting the same notion for Jews suffering through the Holocaust.
ReplyDeleteWe already knew Somerby and Drum are unrepentant racists, not sure why they insist on continually rubbing our noses in it.
I am struck commenters who claim to know so much more about slavery than the black historians who designed the Florida outline.
ReplyDeleteYou know how decisions get made on committees. There is compromise. The critics are black historians whereas the resulting standards may represent the black members being outvoted by white conservatives. There were only 3 black historians. How much black history have you read David?
DeleteThere were right wing black historians involved in the new Florida standards, and apparently they do know less than commenters, and embarrassingly so for them:
Deletehttps://twitter.com/etotheipie/status/1682764410224357377
Worse, these two right wing black historians were unusual additions to the work group that was assembled to produce the new standards, and pushed these racist additions against the wishes of the rest of the group:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/florida-work-group-not-agree-controversial-parts-states-new-standards-rcna96490
It’s so bad that even the few black Republicans in congress are trashing it:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/tim-scott-rebukes-ron-desantis-florida-black-history-standards-slavery-rcna96787
AC/MA is just another Ku Kluxface.
ReplyDeleteJim, and anon 7:56 - both exemplars of how so many so-called libs have gone off the rails. You aren't in the least liberal - lacking a basic liberal quality, i,e,, being rational and open-minded.
ReplyDeleteSome people (morons) still think Republican voters care about something other than bigotry and white supremacy.
ReplyDeleteLet's just agree that there is no such thing as cancel culture.
ReplyDeleteAc/ma, not an insignificant difference being, all your arrows are mere insults, and thoughtlessly slung, while you are, on the other hand, being criticized for your claims lacking merit.
ReplyDeleteanon 11:05, yes, particularly substantive is on the merits retort by Mr, Herman. You are right though, I just don't have an hour to spend refuting what are obviously tendentious, poorly reasoned claims.
ReplyDelete