By Diane Roberts
THE OLD PLANTATION — Here in Florida, we’re teaching our young ’uns the God’s own truth about history.
Not what a bunch of book-reading, degree-holding, data-citing, socialist, so-called professors say.
The Indians were glad to go live on reservations. The change of scenery inspired them to make a good living crafting souvenir jewelry and decorative pottery.
The Chinese migrants who built the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s were proud to spend 14-hour days pounding rock and laying track so that Americans could expand westward and displace more Indians.
Sure, the Chinese workers were paid less than the Irish workers, and denied citizenship as well, but they didn’t mind: They got to hang out in the greatest country in the world.
As for slavery, Florida children will learn the facts. Gov. DeSantis and his crack education team are all about facts. As he explained with his characteristic eloquence, they “got a lot of scholars together to do a lot of standards and a lot of different things.”
A lot of standards, OK? And different things. All y’all hissy-fit pitching, belly-aching, and getting your britches in a wad over life on the plantation need to shut up.
Do some research. Maybe watch a documentary. “Gone With The Wind” is a good one.
‘Facts’
Here’s a fact: We white folks treated slaves like family. Shoot, many of them were family!
Also a fact: Slaves were fortunate in being able to develop, as it says in the new public schools curriculum, “skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
Take blacksmithing: As the governor remarked, under slavery “some of the folks eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life.” The Department of Education’s African American History Standards Workgroup points to Lewis Latimer, who made an important contribution to our nation putting shoes on horses.
Speaking of shoes, what about that renowned cobbler James Forten, a slave who learned to make quality footwear, using that talent into a post-slavery career?
The governor’s scholars want you to know how he, like so many other fortunate souls, benefitted from slavery.
Of course, the fuss-bunnies out there in Wokeanda say this information isn’t entirely accurate: James Forten was never enslaved and he never made shoes (he was a rich manufacturer in late 18th-century Philadelphia), and he died 22 years before the Emancipation Proclamation, but that’s not the point. He could have been a fabulous shoemaker if he’d wanted to be. That’s the promise of America.
As for Lewis Latimer, he wasn’t, strictly speaking, a slave, what with him being born free, nor was he exactly a blacksmith. If you want to get picky about it, he was a New York electrical engineer who worked with Alexander Graham Bell.
But this is picayune stuff, ginned up by the downer media and loser professors who want to reduce the entire slave experience to nothing but the negative: beatings, torture, and rape. What about the upside?
Skills!
The point is that slaves acquired all kinds of useful employment experience on the plantation. Picking cotton is a skill which many were glad of once they were freed and got the opportunity to do a little sharecropping.
When you think about it, plantations should really be called “agricultural opportunity centers.”
Another thing: Why doesn’t anybody mention the culinary expertise some slaves gained in the Old South? Sure, the older generations, the ones born in the two centuries before the Civil War, died off before they could open their own restaurants.
Still, those valiant, if unpaid, catering pioneers passed down their slavery-honed cordon bleu chops to their great-great-grandchildren, who are now making bank writing cookbooks and appearing on TV whipping up fancy dishes.
You’re welcome.
No longer will Florida students be forced to confront uncomfortable images of Africans stuffed in a dark ship’s hold, struggling to live through the Middle Passage (was it really so much worse than Delta economy class?) or running to escape the slave patrols (precursors of today’s police) who chased down runaways?
That helped many African Americans become world-class sprinters.
See? It’s not so hard to accentuate the positive.
Not our fault
Besides, white people didn’t start slavery. Black people in Africa started it, enslaving each other.
It’s also the fault of the British. They made Americans have slaves. Besides, everyone else was doing it: the French, the Portuguese, the Dutch, you name it.
We had no choice. As the new standards explain, “the rise of cash crops accelerated the growth of the domestic slave trade in the United States.”
You couldn’t make money off tobacco, sugar, rice, and cotton if you had to pay your workers. This was an important moment in the history of American capitalism! If we’d screwed it up, we wouldn’t be the society we are today.
Florida’s new history standards demand that both sides — all the sides! — be told. The libs will tell you that Florida had more lynchings per capita than any Southern state. And sure, there was a bit of extrajudicial murder. But white people suffered, too, as the standards make clear: “Whites who supported Reconstruction policies for freed Blacks after the Civil War were targeted.”
Florida’s fair and balanced history lessons include “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.”
Take the so-called “Ocoee Massacre.” Some Black folks tried to vote in the presidential election of 1920, and a bunch of white folks felt the Black folks should not do that. Somewhere between 30 and 50 people were killed.
The murdering wasn’t all on one side, either: Two of the victims were white!
Chirping
If only those impatient Black people had exercised a little restraint and waited till 1965 after the Voting Rights Act passed.
There was a bad business in St. Augustine, too, in 1963, when four unarmed Black agitators confronted a large group of armed Klan members. The sheriff had no choice but to arrest the Black men. They were scaring the KKK-ers.
Seems like whenever Black people don’t get what they want — emancipation, citizenship, education, equal justice, the right to not be shot by cops, choked by cops, or suffocated by cops — they take to the streets.
Here in Florida, we have a governor who’s making our schools great again and all he gets for his trouble is the woke mob whining and carping. Or, in the case of that Vice-President Kamala Harris, demagoguing and chirping.
What kind of person chirps at a man desperately trying to reset his presidential campaign?
Anyway, let us not dwell on negativity. Think of Booker T. Washington, the renowned educator who believed in being nice to white people. He said, “Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity,” which does not apply to Ron DeSantis. Not at all.
Diane Roberts is an 8th-generation Floridian, born and bred in Tallahassee. Educated at Florida State University and Oxford University in England, she has been writing for newspapers since 1983, when she began producing columns on the legislature for the Florida Flambeau. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Times of London, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Oxford American, and Flamingo. She has been a member of the Editorial Board of the St. Petersburg Times–back when that was the Tampa Bay Times’s name–and a long-time columnist for the paper in both its iterations. She was a commentator on NPR for 22 years and continues to contribute radio essays and opinion pieces to the BBC. Roberts is also the author of four books.
Sandra Boyer says
Diane Roberts is a liberal who picks and chooses history that fits her narrative. The same liberals that are destroying our country. I am also a multi generation Floridian and do not agree with anything she said in this biased article. Diane, California is calling.
Atwp says
Sandra you don’t have to agree with her but that dosent change the truth. The Republicans tried to take over the capital a few years ago, based on lies by Trump. Sandra California is calling you too.
Sherry says
@Atwp. . . Oh Hell No! We don’t want the likes of “brain washed” sandra here. The FOX cult in Texas is where she would fit in.
Tony truth says
Tell the whole story. Blacks in Africa sold other blacks into slavery. That was bad. Slavery in the new world was forbidden in places like Mexico by the Catholic Church. That was good. Slavery in the southern states was rampant. That was bad. Lincoln a republican freed the slaves of the confederacy. That was good. KKK a democratic controlled institution of southern democrats was bad. They’re all many black millionaires in the U S A. Lots of them athletes. Many more than are in Africa where many wars are on going. Slavery is bad, are the blacks in America better off than the blacks in Africa?
Sherry says
@ tony. . . Please stop posting FOX BS here!
Have you ever even been to Africa? If not, you know zero about what is really going on there. Having spent several months on 3 trips to that continent, I can personally tell you that while there are many poor people there, and while some countries governments are in (often Russian induce)turmoil. . . I have seen millions of prosperous, happy indigenous people there.
Regarding the KKK. . . You have been Fact Checked:
CLAIM: The Ku Klux Klan was formed by the Democratic Party.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The Ku Klux Klan was not formed by the Democratic Party.
THE FACTS: The Klan first emerged after the Civil War in an effort to intimidate Southern blacks to stay out of politics and to exploit their labor. It was created in Pulaski, Tennessee, by Confederate veterans: Frank McCord, Richard Reed, John Lester, John Kennedy, J. Calvin Jones and James Crowe. Mark Pitcavage, senior fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, told The Associated Press that it was originally designed “purely for entertainment, with no political motivations.”
Pitcavage said members engaged in social antics that grew to incorporate cruel pranks. The Klan gradually took on a political tone and by 1867 it began engaging in violent acts. According to Pitcavage, many KKK members were Democrats since the Whig Party had died out and white Southerners disliked the Republican party. He says, though, that the Klan was not started by the Democratic Party “ nor did it have ideological motives until later.”
By the 1870s the Klan had died out since white Southerners had retaken control of state governments “through their campaigns of violence and intimidation.” When a new Klan emerged in the 1910s, it attracted members from both parties, as well as members affiliated with no parties.
Switching to credentialled news sources like the Associated Press, PBS, BBC, Washington Post will help to keep you much better informed!
Denali says
And you dear lady, are exactly what is wrong with this country today.
Paul T says
Thank you Sandra for proving the point of Diane Roberts’ satirical article.
Michael Cocchiola says
So, Sandra, I guess in this instance “picks and chooses history” can also be called facts supported by data.
Anyway, which facts do you not agree with? The Ocoee Massacre? Are the figures wrong? Can you prove your alternative reality?
How about the Black men cited in the New American History (as told by Gov. DeSantis) who were not actually enslaved? Again, please explain your alternative reality.
I could go on, but you get the picture. You are “entitled” (and I surely mean that) to your own reality, but not your own facts.
JimBob says
Not to worry, Sandra. As your Governor has promised “ The throat slitting will start on Day One!”
Edith Campins says
You are a sadly misinformed individual. She stated facts. No, it is not the liberals that are destroying our country. It is trump and his cult followers. It is Marjorie Taylor Green, Gossart, Boebert, Gaetz, spineless McCarthy, and the likes. It is the Republican Party that can cast aside morality and truth Anand accept Santos into its ranks. It is the GOP trying to control what we read, who we love, how we see our selves.
Locally Dan says
100%
Brad W says
What did she get wrong or was inaccurate?
Randy says
He must think the people of Florida are stupid to believe the propaganda, violent comments he continues to make. It sure isn’t getting him to be elected of anything. His time is over, he blew his own chances every time he speaks.
Barbara Royere says
De Santis is a nut case. Your all stupid if you elect him. He has gone off the deep end when he thinks slavery was good. He just want blond blue eye boys. He needs to shut his mouth.
Florida sadly is not the place to live. They are taken all the land for more houses, more storage places.
He has taken on Disney & he will lose. This man so to speak needs to get out of Florida He is making it a mess.
Sure do hate him
Dave says
My fault. I thought this was supposed to be news and not a crazy left wing op-ed.
Michael Cocchiola says
Hey, Dave… “a crazy left wing op-ed”? Ms. Roberts laid out data that she believes are facts. Instead of challenging FlaglerLive, why not research her data and challenge it with your own data? Then publish your findings and conclusions.
Locally Dan says
Agreed.
Ban the GOP says
I bet you say that with anything the foxtards dont agree with. Please explain how repubs arent whitewashing history?
Give it time for the public school defunding to kick in brought to you by gop racist for the gop racists.
Sherry says
@ dave and sandra also. . . instead of just calling Diane Roberts crazy and wrong. . . please post “credible FACTS” that prove she is wrong. Otherwise, we will all continue to know that nothing you write is worth our time to read it.
Factual reality is available to you. . . turn off FOX/Newsmax/Breitbart propaganda, and try fact checked news sources like APNews, PBS, BBC, Reuters, Washington Post.
Bill C says
Those lucky slaves. How ungrateful of them to complain about being freed from independence!
Larry Summons says
I hear you.
Thanks
richard says
What can I say?: Another great piece dripping with heavy irony and satire from Diane Roberts — a modern-day Jonathan Swift, if ever there was another. She skewers DeSantis and his enablers whose policies are on the road to making Florida #50 in education in the United States. (Yes, I know that US News and World Report ranked Florida #13 overall, but the history curriculum and the scrapping of AP Psychology will send us down the rabbit hole, for sure.)
The history curriculum is an affront to the memory of the enslaved population of the American South — from 1619 to this very day. It’s only redeeming quality is the fact that it unmasks Mr DeSantis as the prime mover for the budding authoritarianism in our state. Voters, take notice.
DMFinFlorida says
@ Richard says
Please stop trying to make sense. Readers like Sandra will blow a carotid artery.
(BTW, wonderfully written and intelligent comment – something else ‘they’ won’t understand.)
Kat says
Spot on again!
Bob Clark says
Great article! Did the Times publish it yet?
From another native.
Marci says
It’s more than sad that DeSantis is rewriting history. He will create a new generation of ignorant and intolerant youth who believe this crap and who will be indifferent to the suffering of blacks. Thank you for shining a light on this serious miscarriage of history. Your wit and humor was a welcome gift on such an alarming topic.
NOT says
Just for the record….DeSantis didn’t write it! Sheesh….you people spin everything.
Denali says
Of course he did not write it, he could not spell half of the words. His toadies in the various departments do the dirty work at his direction.
richard says
YOU PEOPLE??? That’s KKK-speak. That’s what what greeted John Lewis et al on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965. And yes, Pettus was a Brigadier General in the Confederate Army, and later served in the Senate from Alabama. Oh, and he a Grand Dragon in the KKK in Alabama. YOU PEOPLE think he was a hero? Think a second time, please.
So, when you say YOU PEOPLE, we who are a bit more racially understanding must answer in kind: YOU PEOPLE not only spin. You spun, you enacted Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws after Reconstruction ended, and you lynched some 4000 innocent black folks and terrorized and disenfranchised hundreds of thousands more. Does the name Emmett Till resonate with YOU PEOPLE at all?
And you are still spinning — to this very day, may I add.
Greg says
It was a shameful time for America. But teach it, but don’t make blacks hate whites. It happened long ago. Hundreds of white flocks died during the civil war to free the slaves from the democratic slave owners. Make sure that is taught also, that the democrats fought to control blacks long after the civil war. Yet black America votes democratic. Democrats voted against voting rights for the blacks. The KKK was started by white democrats. The list goes on and on, on how the democrats voted to not give blacks rights. Make sure that is taught in school too.
It was SO wrong, but it’s not my fault. Don’t hate me because I’m white, I had nothing to do with it.
can'tfoolme says
Well said, Greg. Let the whole history, good and bad, be truthfully taught and then filed under “the past” as are all other past events. We learn from them but don’t keep re-living them for eternity. Opinion writers like Diane only wish to fan the flames and increase the divide. Let’s file the slavery away as a lesson learned from the past, never to be forgotten, but move on into the present and future – there is plenty of REAL NEWS in the present on which we should be focused.
IM Yellowstone says
Greg – You need to read what happened in the Deep South just after Lyndon Johnson – a Democrat – finally put into effect the Civil Rights. Several good books are written regarding this Southern Democrat transfermation into the then Republican party. Those once Dixiecrats were so appalled at Civil Rights that they switched parties! I was here when it happened. Those of us who where here saw what was happening in Saint Augustine – the worst of all! I see what it has done to American politics and Florida.
Honestly, anyone who doesn’t believe this horrible saga in American history needs to read.
Regards .
Nancy N says
You forgot a few things…
*The Dixiecrats seceded from the Democratic party over the party’s support for civil rights, and ended up forming the basis of the modern GOP
*It was Democrats who passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964
*Republicans appointed the SCOTUS justices who overturned the Civil Rights Act and limited affirmative action
*Republican state legislators have been hard at work for years gerrymandering voting districts to limit the power of the black vote
*Republican candidates and office-holders openly court the votes of white supremacists and refuse to disavow the support of neo-Naxi groups
Justifying hatred of the Democratic party because of events that happened 100 years ago is like saying you are boycotting Germany because of World War I. It also conveniently avoids any scrutiny of the CURRENT state of affairs, where the GOP is guilty of all the things you accuse the Democrats of decades ago.
Michael Cocchiola says
Talk about cherry-picking history, Greg.
Since you seem to be a history buff, surely you remember that southern Democrats of the post-Civil War South flipped to the Republican party beginning with Lyndon Johnson’s Civil Rights Act of 1964. Correspondingly, Black southerners began flipping from Republican to Democrat. The transition was virtually complete by the 1980s due in part to Richard Nixon’s “southern strategy” which played upon racial animosity to elect himself and other Republicans. Reagan tropped it off with his “welfare queen” campaign.
So, Greg, pre and post-Civil War Republicans are now Democrats and vice versa.
Local says
They wouldn’t dare write an article stating all the facts
JimBob says
And note, for the record, that virtually all those redneck black-hating bigoted democrats immediately changed their registration and support to the Republican Party in protest of voting rights for blacks in the South, circa 1964.
Sherry says
@greg. . . you need to actually study and learn about the factual history of the KKK/Dixiecrats/White Supremacists/Republicans and how they morphed into groups with different party “labels”. No matter what party you may belong to. . . a racist is a racist! Please do your research instead of mindlessly posting FOX talking points.
Today’s GOP is not the same as it was during the Reagan/Bush administrations. While ALL Republicans may not be White Supremist racists, “anti WOKE” Fascists and QAnon conspiracy theory believers. . . the entire Republican party has been hijacked by those extremists. Our democratic Republic is most healthy when the two political parties contain leaders that are relatively honest, ethical and reasonable. . . when members of Congress actually compromise and accomplish good governance to protect and benefit our citizens.
Unfortunately, the majority of Republicans get their news from FOX. . . a media service that settled out of count and paid 787 MILLION for their “LIES”!
Unfortunately, the majority of Republicans would vote for a man who was TWICE impeached, currently under THREE (soon to be FOUR) “criminal indictments”, and who was recently found GUILTY of “Sexual Assault”!
Unfortunately, the Republicans second choice (according to polls) for President is DeSantis. . . a man who promotes “culture wars” and attempts to divide us every day. Under the DeSantis administration:
* People no longer have complete rights over their own bodies
* History is being rewritten in text books, and many books are banned, to further the agenda of “White Supremacy”
* Private companies are “attacked” if they do not follow the DeSantis political/social/fascist agenda
* Public schools are weakened, while religious and private schools receive more revenue. . . and on, and on, and on
greg and sandra. . . Precisely how is the current Republican Party benefiting our people and our country? “Credentialled Facts Only” please!
Helen says
Couldn’t be said better!
Local says
It’s not okay for republicans to teach a different way of looking at slavery. But it is okay for Democrats to enslave slaves and beat them and hang them? Politicians and media need to let the subject go. It’s just a way to divide people. 99% of people are not racist anymore. Well make that 98% after this article.
Michael Cocchiola says
Local… right now in America the 30% or so of Trump Republicans are hard-line explicit racists. And millions more are at least implicit racists. They don’t wave Trump flags, but they don’t want Blacks, Asians or Hispanics in their White communities.
From the Pew Research Center, March 18, 2021… “Large shares of Americans say there is at least some discrimination against several groups in the United States, including 80% who say there is a lot of or some discrimination against Black people, 76% who say this about Hispanic people and 70% who see discrimination against Asian people.”
Tired of it says
No, because if we let history “go” we are condemned to repeat it. What was done to slaves by everyone, of any color is not acceptable. All of it needs to be taught as it happened not a sanitized, absurd version of events. You are obviously white or you would not make that statement about people not being racist. Try being black, Latino, Asian, Jewish, trasngender, gay and then tell me about racism.
Laurel says
Local and Greg: Times change as did the Democratic and Republican parties. Teach that too. No one should let it go if our *leaders* keep bringing it up, especially in the ridiculous light DeSantis and his ridiculous minions did, wouldn’t you say?
Atwp says
Changing the words of history will not change the truth. The horror my people went through should always be remembered. All people should remember the horrors they did in the past and now. I do get angry about the past horrors my people went through, we as people of color should never forget our past. We can’t allow the causcasions to erase our past or their horrible demonic deeds. We should never forget that some caucasions died to help my people, some were hung because they tried to help my people.
Someone who cares says
Fact that the fates of Africans was put on ships due to mineral deposits in different regions of Africa, that the British and Dutch were placing these Tribes on these ships to dig up gold, emeralds and diamonds. The slavers would then put them on ships with little breathing space to be sold in the Caribbean and the Atlantic side of States.
Even our own State bought slaves, when you go to St. Augustine there is place where the Slave Auctions conducted.
So DeSantis is a total moronic and wants to create an environment only for the White Man and wants to go back to the 1700’s in which no one has rights except for White Man voting. I am a White Woman and women’s rights are being taken away by him for we have no rights to our bodies.
I am part Cherokee and Creek with Irish and Scottish descent and I am passionate to teach my children the wrongs in this country and they are the future to make changings and to teach corrected history even how dark it is. I want as a parent to have the history taught in school.
DeSantis says that slaves had jobs and Natives wanted Reservations which neither is true it is. A slave was beaten and in the fields from sun up to sun down in the heat with little healthcare. The women would be raped by slave owners and had to carry the child to term only to have that child as a slave and eventually working in the fields or sold off to another slave owner.
The Natives such as the Trail of Tears where Cherokees were moved from North America to the West to be put on reservations. The Government would send out armies to make sure this happened. So teaching again is important of the history of Florida and the United States so that we do not make the same mistakes again and view this history with empathy to the people who suffered under these conditions. To be kinder to these races because it was the White Man who took it from them and DeSantis is the one who is currently taking it from them again.
Sherry says
Thank you so much. . . Someone who cares! You are absolutely right on!
JEK says
Awesome article!
Ban the GOP says
They want to make merica great “again”…..
Foresee says
Anyone notice that in the illustration the paddle appears to have hobnails driven into it? All the better to inflict greater pain and deeper damage to flesh.
Skibum says
This was an excellent read, and it is a reminder that our nation’s complete history, both good and bad, should never be subjected to fake revisionist fantasy. As far as America’s own horrible misadventure with slavery that resulted in the Civil War with an estimated 1.5 million Americans on both sides killed, it should not take a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist’s intellect to grasp the ethical and moral truth that ANY type of slavery is and always has been wrong, wrong, wrong. Some people are trying to mince words and interject idiotic concepts like there were supposed benefits to those who were victims of slavery. Of course, it is very easy to fantasize how those who were enslaved might have perceived their own fates now that they are dead and buried, but I would be willing to bet anyone would have had a very difficult time finding a slave who would have said anything favorable about their own slavery or touted even a single “benefit” to being a slave, despite what moronic DeSatan would love for Americans to believe. That being said, I believe the most important fact that a lot of people are missing in this horrible history of American slavery is that NO person had any right whatsoever to “own” another human being as their personal property, PERIOD, end of discussion!
Sherry says
Thanks again, Skibum, for pulling it all together and stating the “Bottom Line”. Good morning from wonderful Sausalito, California! Just regret not having met you and Laurel and several others before we “escaped” from Florida.
Paul says
ALL history is nuanced and the victors get to write the narrative. Looking to the past through the lens of the present is to bend the light of truth into the hues of the spectrum some of the colors of which are not visible. Yet they are there and make up the whole of the picture we see, or want to see.
Want real change? Vote out all incumbents!