CNN issued a clarification after pushing Vice President Kamala Harris’ false claim about Florida’s curriculum on black history.
Harris falsely accused the African American history curriculum of teaching how “enslaved people benefited from slavery.” The article, titled “Florida’s new standards on Black history curriculum are creating outrage” echoed Harris’ remarks on the curriculum before altering the article to use more “precise language.”
CNN framed its article around the outrage stemming from Floridians and claimed the curriculum is teaching lies about violence in racial riots.
“Clarification: This story and headline have been updated to include more precise language on Florida’s new standards for the Black history curriculum,” the bottom of the article says.
Liberals and a small handful of black Republicans criticized the curriculum for the portion that teaches “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” The course also teaches about the “conditions of slavery,” “African Americans who demonstrated heroism and patriotism” and those who made “positive contributions to the state of Florida.”
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis accused Republican Florida Rep. Byron Donalds of siding with Harris for criticizing the specific portion of the curriculum. Donalds clarified the rest of the standards are “robust” and “accurate.” (RELATED: ‘False Narratives’: DeSantis Fires Back At Tim Scott Over New Florida Slavery Curriculum)
“Let’s be very clear. I don’t even have a criticism,” Donalds said on Fox Business in July. “This is a dumb story, and this is brought to us by the DeSantis campaign. They’re the ones who made this an issue. I’ve been very clear that the standards are robust, they are accurate, they are good. Students in Florida will learn black history. But my issue is with one sentence of the entire thing. One sentence of 200 pages. The DeSantis team wants to make a big issue out of it? That’s ridiculous.”
Republican presidential candidate Tim Scott also criticized the curriculum, prompting DeSantis to accuse him of pushing a “false narrative.”
DeSantis’ press secretary Jeremy Redfern pointed to the Florida College Board’s standards, which teaches students the additional skills slaves earned apart from those gained via agricultural work. The lesson will teach how African Americans used these skills to their personal benefit during and after slavery.
Remember when Florida wouldn’t allow that AP African American Studies course because it focused too much on CRT and not enough on history, and the @WhiteHouse lost its mind?
Well, here is one of the standards considered “essential knowledge.”
See it here https://t.co/MFjfBjEFc9 pic.twitter.com/s8boDdYzks
— Jeremy Redfern (@JeremyRedfernFL) July 27, 2023
DeSantis challenged Harris to a debate on the matter, but the Vice President declined.