‘These People!’ DeSantis Vows to ‘Fight Back’ Against Critics of Florida ‘Benefits’ of Slavery Curriculum

Florida Republican Governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis vowed to “fight back” against critics of controversial new Black history standards, saying “We are going to fight back against these people!”

DeSantis has been consistently defending the newly-approved Florida curriculum on Black history — which includes teaching that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit”  — and even offered the example of a hypothetical person “parlaying” their enslavement into a blacksmithing career “later in life.”

And in a speech Friday night at the 2023 Lincoln Dinner hosted by the Republican Party of Iowa Des Moines, DeSantis lashed out at Vice President Kamala Harris — who has been  torched the new curriculum in speeches — as well as other unnamed critics to whom he referred as “these people” in a moment that was flagged by Acyn Torabi:

And I got Kamala Harris coming down to Florida trying to create phony narratives because she understands Florida has stood up to the left’s agenda. We have beat the left’s agenda in the state of Florida. And so she thinks she can come down and lie about what we’re doing in the state of Florida. I’m not budging an inch. We are going to fight back against these people! And we are not letting them take over our schools any longer! We are going to get this right as a nation.

At least three prominent Black Republicans have joined Harris in criticizing DeSantis and the new standards. Former congressman and Republican candidate for president Will Hurd told CNN “Slavery was not a jobs program!” and ripped DeSantis for defending it, while Sen. Tim Scott and Rep. Byron Donalds also criticized the standard, while making relatively mild criticisms of DeSantis.

Scott told reporters:

You know, it’s interesting, as a country founded upon freedom, the greatest deprivation of freedom was slavery. There’s no silver lining in freedom– in slavery. The truth is, even if you learn that any benefits that people suggest you had during slavery, you would have had as a free person. Slavery was really about separating families, about mutilating humans, and raping their wives. It was devastating.

So I would hope that every person in our country, and certainly running for president, would appreciate that.

Listen, people have bad days. Sometimes they regret what they say. And we should ask them again to clarify their positions.

Watch above via C-SPAN.

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