LogFAQs > #974978122

Thorn posted...

Florida, everyone. Now teaching students that some black people benefited from slavery because it taught them "useful skills."

I took a couple classes that focused heavily on slavery in grad school and this is actually a pretty big debate in the discipline -- though I should probably state explicitly that the debate is "were there any benefits whatsoever, no matter how slight" and not "was it ever a net benefit" (the answer to the latter is a resounding no). The basic argument is that claiming slavery was 100% oppressive horror takes away the agency from enslaved people to make the best of awful situations, whereas claiming that some people could find skills, community, etc under slavery runs the risk of sounding like slavery apologism unless you have an incredibly deft touch.

I'm not inclined to, ever, give Florida the benefit of the doubt, but it's possible to pull this off without it being dishonest, depending on what the standards actually are (and more importantly, who the teacher is).