Behind Florida’s slavery curriculum, a bigger question

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is not backing down. His state’s new public school curriculum on slavery does the seemingly unthinkable, suggesting that slavery held benefits for Black people. One unit mandates instruction on “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”  

There’s debate about what this does or doesn’t mean. One analysis in The Bulwark suggests that, in its full context, the unit is about showing how enslaved people showed agency even amid the horrors of slavery.

But Mr. DeSantis’ and . He commended the curriculum for presumably showing “that some of the folks ... eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life.”