No, Florida, Slavery Was Not Good for Black People

Ron DeSantis has become the gift that keeps on giving

Don & Ron in happier times.

Yes, I am late to the party here but I have been helping my mother move from Florida to New York so things have been hectic. I am in Florida right now and cannot wait to leave.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) looks great on paper. He is young. He is conservative. He can check all the boxes on paper. His problem is that campaigns are not run on paper. In person, he is awkward and cannot stop making unforced errors.

Slavery was evil.

I never dreamed I would have to make such a statement in 2023 but here we are. DeSantis has been teaching his own version of the Civil War for decades. He has changed the Florida curriculum on Black History to teach students that slavery had benefits for the slaves. This is not the first time he has tried to spin the Civil War era as something it wasn’t.

After DeSantis graduated from Yale, he took a teaching job at the prestigious Darlington School where he taught history. His students called him out on teaching a version of the South pre-Civil War and of the war itself.

From the New York Times:

“Like in history class, he was trying to play devil’s advocate that the South had…