WATCH: Hearing Erupts in Laughter When GOP Legislator Confronted for Suggesting Schools Teach ‘Good’ Side of Slavery

A hearing erupted in laughter when one Republican legislator was compelled to tell another that “There’s no ‘good’ to slavery, though.”

The Louisiana House Education Committee held a hearing on HB 564 on Thursday, during which the bill’s author and committee chairman State Rep. Ray Garofalo was grilled by fellow Republican Rep. Stephanie Hilferty on the bill’s prohibition on “divisive concepts” in education.

Hilferty began by grilling Garofalo about the sources of complaints that led him to author the bill.

“Can you give examples of what they told you?” Hilferty asked.

Garofalo described teachers and parents complaining about “handouts” that they’d been given.

“Like what does the handout say?” Hilferty asked.

“Handouts saying the United States is a racist country, that corporations are inherently racist, and have a bias against…” Garofalo began, as Hilferty interrupted to ask “Can you share examples of these with the committee?”

Garofalo refused, citing the privacy of his sources, but noted “it was only a few examples, it wasn’t a lot,” and went on to tell Hilferty that there were “some examples on Facebook I saw months ago, if I can go back and find those I’ll give this to you as well.”

Moments later, Hilferty quizzed Garofalo on the language of the bill, asking “Prohibit discussion of divisive concepts as part of a larger course of academic instruction, what does that mean?”

“It’s exactly what it says. The words on the page are, if there is a…” Garofalo began.

“But what is a larger course of academic instruction?” Hilferty asked.

“If you’re teaching, if you’re having a discussion on, whatever the case may be, on slavery, and you can talk about everything dealing with slavery. The good, the bad, the ugly, the whole…” Garofalo said.

“There’s no good to slavery, though,” Hilferty interrupted, to laughter from the chamber.

“Then whatever the case may be,” Garofalo said, quickly adding “You’re right, you’re right, I didn’t mean to imply that. And I don’t believe that, and I know that that’s the case. But I’m using that good bad and ugly to, as a generic way of saying that you can teach any facts, factually based anything regardless.”

Garofalo circled back later as well to tell Hilferty “There’s no good side to slavery, I get that. That’s, I don’t think anybody in this room would argue that fact. I’d be really shocked if they did.”

“But, if there’s a different concept that you’re trying to teach the concept… As it was conceptually brought in, and you don’t think, you don’t give a personal opinion, you don’t give a politically based ideologically based opinion, you teach what occurred, what is generally accepted by the historians in the area, and what’s prescribed by the curriculum that the district has chosen,” he said.

Maybe those examples from Facebook will clear things up.

Watch the full exchange above via Cajun Overcomer.

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