Kamala Harris fired back at the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, after he invited her to discuss new school standards for the teaching of African American history which claim some enslaved people derived benefits that could be used in later life.
“There is no roundtable, no lecture, no invitation we will accept to debate an undeniable fact: there were no redeeming qualities of slavery,” the vice-president said.
Harris, the first woman and first person of colour to be vice-president, was speaking in Florida, at a convention of the Women’s Missionary Society of the African Methodist Episcopal church in Orlando on Tuesday.
Harris had previously attacked the Florida school standards, saying last month the state was “pushing propaganda” at children.
DeSantis made his invitation on Monday, in a letter.
Complaining that “the Biden administration has repeatedly disparaged our state and misinformed Americans about our education system”, the governor claimed to have “pushed forward nation-leading standalone African American history standards – one of the only states in the nation to require this level of learning about such an important subject.
“One would think the White House would applaud such boldness in teaching the unique and important story of African American history. But you have instead attempted to score cheap political points and label Florida parents ‘extremists’.
“It’s past time to set the record straight.”
According to the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, in New York, “from approximately 1526 to 1867, some 12.5 million captured men, women, and children were put on ships in Africa, and 10.7 million arrived in the Americas”.
Slavery ended in the US about 350 years after it began, with ratification of the 13th amendment in December 1865.
DeSantis is a distant second to Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primary. His letter was a political stunt. The governor complained about “hateful Marxist thought”, “critical race theory” and “diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives” – all bugbears for the hard right in the fight over education and the teaching of history. He also hit out at Harris for her work on immigration and the southern border.
DeSantis has met pushback from Republicans too.
Will Hurd, a former Texas congressman also running for president, told NBC “slavery is not a jobs programme”, adding: “Anybody that is implying that there was an upside to slavery is insane.”
Byron Donalds, the only Black Republican in Congress from Florida and a prominent hard-right voice, has said the standards are “wrong and need to be adjusted”.
But DeSantis has pressed ahead. In his letter to Harris, he said he was willing to meet her “as early as Wednesday this week”. Harris wasn’t buying it.
“Right here in Florida,” she said in Orlando, “they plan to teach students that enslaved people benefited from slavery.
“They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us, in an attempt to divide and distract our nation with unnecessary debates, and now they attempt to legitimise these unnecessary debates.
“… Well, I’m here in Florida and I will tell you, there is no roundtable, no lecture, no invitation we will accept to debate an undeniable fact: there were no redeeming qualities of slavery.
“As I said last week, when I was again here in Florida, we will not stop calling out and fighting back against extremist so-called leaders who try to prevent our children from learning our true and full history.”
