WaPo’s Eugene Robinson Slams Florida’s Education Curriculum: ‘Normalizing’ the ‘Unique Horror’ Of Slavery

The Washington Post‘s Eugene Robinson slammed Florida’s education curriculum supported by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) for “normalizing” the “unique horror” of slavery.

“Andrea, I have spent the morning going through those educational standards, the standards for teaching African American history in Florida schools,” Robinson said on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports. “Brand new standards, yes, I understand DeSantis didn’t write them, but he has defended them — his board of education wrote them. And my conclusion is, that Vice President Harris and our editorial board are right here. ” Robinson said.

The Washington Post Editorial Board published an op-ed in Monday’s paper saying DeSantis was “whitewashing slavery.” Robinson continued:

Because not only in that passage, but in other passages as well, these standards seem, to me, to be attempting to, sort of contextualize American slavery in the wrong context. To normalize it, really. To kind of say, ‘other people at other times had slavery.’ And they don’t in my estimation, adequately explain the unique horror that was American chattel slavery. It was unique in the history of the world. The manner in which it was done, the scale on which it was practiced, the brutality, the hereditary nature of slavery, the racial nature of slavery here. This is a unique horror. My rule in writing columns has always been, never compare anything to the Holocaust, and never compare anything to American slavery, because they were both unique horrors. And these standards break that rule.

At a press conference, DeSantis called Kamala Harris‘ statement condemning the curriculum as “ridiculous” and “totally outrageous.”

“These are the most robust standards in African American history, probably anywhere in the country. She’s going to come down to the state of Florida and try to chirp and try to demagogue…You should talk to them about it,” DeSantis said about the Florida board of education. “I mean, I didn’t do it, I wasn’t involved in it.”

DeSantis claimed that some slaves “parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life.”

Watch the clip above via MSNBC.