Tampa Bay Times: Florida history lesson: Slavery as an unpaid internship? | Editorial
Should American slavery be considered an unpaid internship of sorts? That’s absurd and offensive, but it’s not an outrageous question, given Florida classroom guidelines adopted this week by the State Board of Education. We wish we were kidding.
The guidelines of the new “African American History Strand” say that classroom instruction should include ”how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
It’s just one phrase, but given the political climate in Florida, skeptics are closely monitoring every sentence, wondering why it’s in the guidelines about teaching African American history and worrying how slavery’s full story will be taught in Florida’s classrooms. And they should. The GOP leadership of the state has brought such scrutiny upon itself, and the level of trust is low.
The guidelines also say that teachers’ lessons should “examine the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing, transportation).”
Fair enough. Some slaves did, in fact, perform trades and learn skills. But these guidelines de-emphasize the back-breaking, life-shortening fieldwork on the cotton, rice and sugar cane plantations as “agricultural work,” just one of many “trades.” In all cases, this was forced labor required of Black people who were enslaved. That should never be downplayed.
Trying to humanize slaves and showing school children that enslaved people had inner lives is important. But teaching students that enslaved people could acquire skills doesn’t really do that or help students explore anything about their hopes, their dreams or their fears. In fact, teaching that their skills could sometimes be “applied for their personal benefit” rather misses the point. It runs the risk of making slavery seem somehow more benign than it was.
Yes, some slaves were skilled artisans who could earn wages and buy a few things of their own. But they never owned their own bodies. They belonged to the slave master.
Think of the enslaved Sam Williams, a skilled ironworker in Virginia in the mid-19th century. When he surpassed the iron production quota required of him by his owner, he earned money that he used to buy his wife a pair of buckskin gloves, a shawl, a silk handkerchief and other presents for his four daughters, his mother and father. A valued and skilled artisan, he still never learned to read and write. He was a family man with a full life. But a slave.
Much good can come of teaching details and nuances of slavery, such as Mr. Williams’ story, discovered through ledgers kept by the iron forge where he worked. An accomplished teacher could bring a slave’s humanity alive. Think of Frederick Douglass, who was 20 years a slave and nine years a fugitive until English friends raised $711.66 to buy his freedom in 1845 after he was already a famous orator, author and abolitionist. As a boy, he had seen bloody whippings of fellow slaves. He was taught to read by a woman who inherited him and had never owned a slave before. He became a strong man who helped to build sailing ships. When he had the chance to escape, he took it. Though he had learned skills as a slave that could be “applied for (his) personal benefit,” the thing he wanted most was to be a free man. Widely considered the most photographed American of the 19th century, he never smiled in a portrait because he wanted to fight the popular myth of the “happy slave.” That’s why a single phrase in Florida’s educational guidelines can be so fraught. Sensitively used, “personal benefit” might help build a more complex picture of an enslaved person’s full life. But it could easily be seen as a ham-fisted attempt to minimize the horror of slavery.
The blowback against the new teaching standards has been fierce, including from the vice president of the United States. Supporters of the new guidelines are doubling-down in defense of them, which is exactly backward. They should instead be listening to the concerns and adapting to the legitimate worries of the critics. But this is the distrusting political and cultural climate in which we live. That’s too bad.
The real truth and what should be emphasized is that slavery was an abomination that was beyond redemption. That people built their riches on the backs of people they literally owned.
Even the slaveholder Thomas Jefferson called slavery a “hideous blot” and “moral depravity.” In an early draft of the Declaration of Independence, he blamed King George III for helping to perpetuate the transatlantic slave trade and wrote that in supporting slavery, the king “waged cruel war against nature itself.” Today, we’d call that a crime against humanity. Jefferson, the country’s third president, who fathered children with his own slave Sally Hemings, understood that slavery was an unalloyed, corrupting evil. Florida schoolchildren should, too.
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A Palestinian man is asked in an interview by a white woman if he condemns Hamas while his people are being slaughtered in the open, and HE is the one condemned when he yells that it's injustice to insulate that his people deserve to be murdered, because "Hamas chose this."
A black woman is attacked first in a fight and SHE is the bad guy when she strikes back, she is the one whose face is plastered all over social media to be condemned and shamed for "aggression."
Two sisters are appropriately reacting to their oppressors by ripping off posters promoting their propaganda, and THEY are shamed and attacked for their lack of politeness when their people are being killed for existing.
An American democrat watches her colleagues cheer on genocide and ethical cleansing, the murder of children and the rape of women and the slaughter of families, and SHE is the one censored for speaking out in defense of them, despite her grief of losing family members.
Zionists are not condemned for enjoying the thought of children being killed, for calling Palestinians "animals" or saying Gaza should be "turned into a parking lot", Israeli doctors can get away with demanding that Palestinians, HUMAN BEINGS, should be murdered, that their only remaining hospital should be crushed.
They are not condemned for saying they wanted nuclear weapons unleashed on Gaza, they are not condemned for the imprisonment and torture of children, for desecrating dead Palestinians' corpses and mauling their bodies, for mocking Muslim Palestinians by rubbing their bullets against pig's skin before shooting them, for bombing Palestinian churches, for bombing universities, for shutting electricity from Gaza, cutting Palestinians from food and water, not letting them access to aid, for bombing CANCER hospitals and CHILDRENS HOSPITALS, for turning the sky of Gaza RED from explosions, for killing enough students that the entire school year was canceled, for annihilating families, for attacking Jewish people in Jerusalem, for cutting dead fetuses off dead mothers, for STEALING THEIR SKIN AND ORGANS and using them for their benefit, for forcing CHILDREN to hold a press conference to say that hey, they want to live.
Insinuating that this is about religion is the basis of Zionism. 60 members of Hamas were killed, and 10,500 civilians killed, 4000 of which are children. Over 800 bloodlines erased. Israel says they aim for "damage, not accuracy." Implying this is about Hamas is lies.
When white people in power tell you from their air-conditioned studios this is Israel defending itself, refuse to let Palestinian journalists explain things happening from their point of view, watch those journalists lose their entire families for speaking about what's happening to them, demonize Arabs who rage about injustice, ask Palestinians grieving if they condemn Hamas, know this is propaganda.
You shouldn't need them to tell you they're parroting lies to you. Their lies kill people. Their lies destroy people. Their apologies are insincere and their "sympathy" is limited only to those who look like them. It is unjust. It is cruel.
If I was were to narrate to you every atrocity Israel commited that I am aware of, I would never stop typing.
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Like I said zawe is lucky and Tom hiddleston is the best and hes sexy you need glasses
Ahhh them.
I'm gonna answer this nicely in hopes of maybe helping with growth?
Love isn't "luck".
What is initially physically attractive to many? Is often determined by what society tells you is.
I've been fortunate enough to have lived long enough to see "beauty standards" change. I remember when people didn't want BBLs or curves.
I've seen the cute TikToks where moms would show their teen daughters the "hot guys" from back in the day and the girls would just go "Eww!".
Figuring out what you really want, or don't, often comes with experience; the variety of people you get to be around and care for in life, and how open you are. Often "pretty" people become ugly through their actions, vice versa, and everything in between...
It's a whole package thing.
In my deep MCU days, Tom didn't cross my radar because he came off as feeding on the attention and fame. I mean he was cute back then but in a twinky way, IMO.
Boyishness makes me want to mother you, not think you're hot. But for the younguns I get it. The housewives? My lip is curling up and I'm side-eyeing a bit... at least for back then.
Plus his fandom came off like too many I've encountered that treat white men and their characters like they are infallible, but need protecting somehow?.... Again it added to that little boy sense of him.
Since then, (in my parasocial speculations), he's acquired some wrinkles and wisdom and learned that what he thought he had in all that Hollywood attention, wasn't "real" and now he actually does seem attractive because he's a grown man, now.
Now, it's if Gene WIlder and Lee Pace could have a middle-aged baby, it would be Tom.
All those things that drew such a following back then came off as performative and people-pleasing to me. The lack of boundaries, the talking over people, and going on and on...
My grandma would have said he was smelling his upper lip.
He was academically intelligent but often came off as socially naive, IMO, and I think most could infer the most naive stumbles he made in that era...*ahem*
Zawe was one of many Black women from before I knew of Tom who I rooted for in the industry. ... Many of whom, you don't see much anymore, sadly.
But the difference in their journey IMO & her accomplishments w/o the money, gender, and racial privileges her partner has, says a lot about the kind of character Zawe possesses.
Again, parasocial! ... but I see a man who encountered a grown woman not enamored by or deeply entangled in the industry but had carved out her own path despite lacking all those things the industry demands you have to have, to succeed.
A smart person would be impressed by that and her authentic kindness, sense of humor, intelligence, and joy in what she does...on top of being what he likes physically (we not gonna act like that man does not always ping or have the best onset chemistry when a leggy woman is around).
He's a leg-locked king (apologies or you're welcome for the imagery).
He seems to be a gentleman and Zawe is not one of his little fangirls. They come across as equally enamored, and grown, and I would like to think they have a healthy loving partnership.
Which makes them both extremely lucky.
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Hey
What's your favorite analog horror?
Mine are these!
⬇️
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"Taylor swift porn deepfakes dropped and leftists are arguing it’s ok because she’s white and rich !! It doesn’t matter if she’s white and rich, because misogyny affects all of us uwu"
and yet, when brown Muslim Palestinian women struggling in their war torn country got displaced in camps and resorted to cut their tent because they didn't have menstrual products were PLEADING for help/attention, you remained quiet
...but yes, the discourse calling out the selective mobilization of western feminists who constantly cape for rich/White/Western celebrities while not displaying an ounce of this energy to speak up for women struggling & dying en masse in the biggest conflict in the world right now is just silly "leftism"
shut up. like, forever.
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Funny how not a single “fixing art” person can draw
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Love the way people will simultaneously hate on celebrities for voicing opinions about politics because they aren’t educated enough on the topic and also condemn celebrities who don’t speak out about politics when they are clearly not the kind of person who is properly educated on the topic
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it’s very funny how this fandom suddenly cares so much about sensitivity, meanwhile no one was up in arms about folks calling valeria shit like “cartel mommy” and simping for her. and, if you point this out, you get told that it’s “less important” or incomparable. way to tell victims of cartel violence that they don’t matter. y’all can’t preach about sensitivity and mindfulness while doing the exact opposite of that.
sensitivity is something that needed to be brought up a long time ago. people need to be mindful about the content they’re engaging with and producing. COD and its characters are based on very real issues and very real situations, mindfulness is needed for every single character.
seeing this only be brought up in the context of makarov and graves is honestly so, so frustrating. they’re not the only problematic characters that you need to consider when making content. western militaries like the US and UK are incredibly controversial and have devastated vulnerable people and their countries. price, ghost, soap, gaz— any member of the military, especially the special forces, is problematic. they’re not good people and should not be treated like saints, nor should they be idolized for what they do.
that all being said, the concepts of “be mindful and sensitive when making content” and “let people enjoy problematic media” can absolutely, 100%, co-exist. art is not meant to be a paradigm of moral goodness, it has always been a medium for people to explore things that are considered "taboo" in a safe space. there's a reason why "dead dove: do not eat" exists as a genre – with proper warning and precautions put in place, people can explore darker topics. for some, it's morbid interest. for others, it's a way of coping with trauma and experiences they've had in real life.
i want to repeat this just to make it very clear: be mindful and sensitive with the content you're producing. do not romanticize topics that should not be painted in a good light. don't minimize the impact of characters' actions or act like people are in the wrong for being uncomfortable with them. in this fandom especially, people treat atrocities like jokes because we're becoming desensitized to them. it's up to every individual to ensure that they don't forget how impactful a lot of this stuff is in real life. war is not a joke. terrorism is not a joke. people dying is not a joke. do not romanticize any of these things in your content, even if you're exploring the different sides of the people behind these things.
humanize the characters all you want. horrible people are still people, after all. humans are not one-dimensional beings. humanize them, but do not romanticize them.
be kind to victims, be sensitive, and be mindful about what you engage with. no one is perfect, no thing is perfect, but we can always do better. we need to approach every topic through this lens instead of picking and choosing who to support. everyone is deserving of it, everyone is entitled to basic respect. we don't need to compete and argue over who has it worse, we just need to be better across the board. support real victims. don't let media warp your perceptions of reality. be conscious of the content you make and consume.
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so basically “the gifted kid” is a smokescreen for increasing and/or affirming white privilege/white supremacy?
i’m not the right person to explain this at great length, so i won’t, but—intelligence testing has a long and complicated relationship with classism and racism. gifted (and other sped) programs rely on that testing.
that’s as far as i’m willing to explain as a non-expert, lmao. if you want to know more, there’s about 573857 pages of research/opinions/documented personal experiences available for you to sift through, both within and outside of ‘academic’ circles. here’s an excerpt from the abstract of a case study on the topic:
“We show how gifted and talented status meets the criteria of white property interests and is defended by recourse to law and policy. Efforts to improve identification of students for gifted services reveal that the implicit operation of these Interests is an important reason why identification practices favoring white and middle-class children have been resistant to change. Dismantling underlying white property interests in gifted and talented identification is a necessary, though not sufficient step, toward a more just educational system.” [DOI]
i haven’t read this case study in full—i’m just using it to point out that this is a prominent, ongoing discussion. in my opinion, this should be a much larger part of the “former gifted kid” conversation, but alas
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The most frustrating part of engaging in any of this discourse with pro-Israel people is that they claim there's just something ineffable about "seeing and understanding" how supporting Palestinian liberation is directly calling for the eradication of Jewish people (as if that type of rhetoric isn't exactly how actual antisemitism often manifests in online spaces but that's a topic for another day)
They get through people debunking the "the land belongs to the people of Israel anyway" argument and the "LGBTQ Palestinians are safe in Israel" argument and the "Genocide isn't what's happening here so you should educate yourself" argument and when all of those points are meticulously disproven over and over they still stand with "Well, myself and your Jewish friends see the hate you have in your heart for us" and it truly doesn't matter what you say at that point because even if you yourself are Jewish they will claim that refusing to support the state, government and military of Israel is inherently hateful and bigoted, as if a religious ethnostate is some inherent human right that is being taken away from them. I know many of them are blinded by the relentless propaganda that's been around their whole lives and how hard it is to break free from a belief system that is so tied to your core identity as a human being but it is so frustrating watching people being led straight to the point over and over again and just turning around and refusing to see it.
It's also so frustrating to see people using the momentum of this movement to casually tack on actual antisemitism to these discussions, as if having Jewish people in positions of power is why the US bends over backwards to excuse the actions of Israel and not, yknow, the fact that our government directly benefits from having a military stronghold in the middle east. I've talked to some well-meaning pro-Palestine friends irl who casually use antisemetic talking points because they've ALSO bought into the narrative that Israeli = Jewish and so they blame the actions of Israel and the IDF on Jewish people's "religious values" and ignore the fact that this conflict really has almost nothing to do with religion itself and everything to do with capitalism, imperialism and maintaining the US's status as a so-called "global power".
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dear south asian authors,
please, for the love of god, write about something other than marriage! i am literally begging y’all to cut that shit out bc it’s exhausting. i do not care about matchmaking, weddings, or marriage (arranged or love). can we just exist without being paired off to random men or wanting to become someone’s wife?
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a rly underrated thing about crazy ex girlfriend imo is that it's one of the rare shows i know of that really spends time on exploring what the process of having children is like for queer ppl/for those who go about it "non-normatively". it's not even rly a main storyline but i still find it rly well-handled and touching.
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My first time watching Glass Onion it was obvious that Miles' speeches were bullshit, but I still searched for any hidden meaning there might be.
The second time is a different experience though because every time my brain starts to search for meaning, I feel like Benoit Blanc discovering that no, there is absolutely no hidden meaning.
It's bullshit it's all nothing nothing nothing! It is just how you end up talking when everyone reacts to your self-aggrandizing word vomit like it is actually wisdom.
Also, legit, when Miles gave his stupid bullshit speech about what the word 'disruptor' means to him, I shit you not I was like holy shit am I back in business school right now?!
Miles must have given speeches like that at 100 business school graduations, goddamn.
Like, the motherfuckers really do sound like this. We didn't have any billionaires come, but we had a lot of millionaire guest speakers in my classes, and they fucking talk like that.
They all think they're rugged capitalists, but they're just glass onions!
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The hardest lesson you will learn if you are interested in learning about Nazi Germany: so may people posting content about it are actual Nazis
No seriously if anyone is starting to get into WWII/Third Reich history, it is so easy to be indoctrinated because the main message a lot of Nazis spit now is that Hitler was bad and the SS were bad, but everyone else was chill.
And it’s hard to realize the narrative they’re spitting is wrong unless you know a lot going into it.
I have been watching a dude called “TIKhistory” the last few days on youtube and something felt off about his takes, but a lot of them had at least some plausible deniability and enough factual information that I thought it was still worthwhile.
I just start watching another video from this dude with the title “The REAL Reason why Hitler HAD to start WW2” which is an insane title and caught my attention. And then my answer was given by the first five mins of his video when I realized this dude was, at the least, a wehraboo, and at most, an actual Nazi.
Pretty much any non-Nazi historian agrees that Hitler started WWII because 1) he wanted to conquer Europe 2) he wanted “Lebensraum,” aka living space for “Aryans.” Where German people, with no Jewish or Roma people present, can have ample space to live.
You know why most non-Nazi historians agree on this? Because Hitler fucking said this. In his literal book. That everyone read.
WWII was declared by the Allies when Germany invaded Poland for LeBeNsRaUm. Yes, Germany never wanted to fight Britain. You know why? 1) they were white enough 2) a fucking ocean kept them apart. They wanted all of Europe + Soviet Union. That is why WWII started.
See how quick it was to get to that point? Fucking TIKhistory’s video is forty five minutes long. That’ll happen when your point is horeshit and also not true.
Hitler started WWII. All of the generals and higher ups at least knew of the Holocaust and most perpetrated their own massacres for shits and giggles. The Nazi army wasn’t really that great, they just knew how to play the cards in the circumstances they were in (they used horses a fuck ton. You don’t see it because a lot of documentaries use footage from Nazi propaganda in which they weren’t recorded). These are all basic facts for non-Nazis. So warning that if anyone you meet challenges those three facts, they probably are a Nazi
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