Republican Presidential Candidate Slams Florida’s Black History Curriculum: ‘Like Taking Us Back to the 50s or the Jim Crow Days’

GOP presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) tore into Florida’s new Black history curriculum while on the Bulwark Podcast with Charlie Sykes on Wednesday. Hutchinson likened the controversial curriculum, which was created as part of the state’s battle against “woke” education, to “the Jim Crow days.”

Sykes began the exchange by saying, “I do want to focus on on the top lines of this campaign, but other things in the news cycle that I want to give you a chance to address.”

“Ron DeSantis has been going through some things,” Sykes continued, adding:

I think it’s safe to say that this campaign has not been going well. But very specifically, you’ve dealt with issues of educational standards for for many, many years. And you have these new guidelines that have been issued by the Florida Board of Education. These are the new rules for teaching Black history.

And it includes the line, “Instruction includes how slaves develop skills, which in some instances could be applied for their personal benefit.” So your thoughts, fellow candidate Will Hurd is pushing back strongly on that. I think Chris Christie has as well.

“Do you think that slaves developed skills that could be applied for their personal benefit?” Sykes asked Hutchinson.

“The whole language acts like there’s some benefit to slavery, and that is impossible. It is wrong. That should never be conveyed in a textbook or in a lesson. It’s just flat-out wrong,” Hutchinson replied, not mincing words.

“It’s like taking us back to the 50s or the Jim Crow days, and that’s the wrong direction for America. It is critically important that our young people understand what happened in the civil rights movement, what happened in the oppression of African-Americans all across the country,” he continued, adding:

During the days of Jim Crow. In Arkansas, we had the Elaine race massacre. And in Tulsa, you had the bombing of the African-American community. These are things that cannot be ignored. And it’s not any different than the Holocaust. The Holocaust is not fun exercise. Some people are going to feel poorly about learning of those tragedies, and we’ve got to teach them.

And that’s how you stay away from that kind of attitude, violence in the future. And so I don’t like changing our instruction. It has to be taught, particularly when you’re looking at what happened during the days of our civil rights struggle and in the days of slavery.

Listen to the full episode here.

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