Kamala Harris rejects DeSantis’ invitation to discuss Florida’s new Black history curriculum

‘They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us,’ the vice president says

Vice President Kamala Harris rejected Florida Gov Ron DeSantis’s invitation to discuss how slavery is covered in the state’s new history curriculum.

The vice president spoke in Orlando on Tuesday to the African Methodist Episcopal church’s Women’s Missionary Society Quadrennial convention. Mr DeSantis had invited Ms Harris “to discuss our African American History standards.”

But Ms Harris rejected the offer during her speech.

“Right here in Florida, they plan to teach students that enslaved people benefited from slavery,” she said. “They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us, in an attempt to divide and distract our nation with unnecessary debates. And now they attempt to legitimise these unnecessary debates with a proposal that most recently came in of a politically motivated roundtable.”

Florida’s new set of standards for African American history came under scrutiny because it will teach middle schoolers that enslaved people “developed skills” that could be “applied for personal benefit.” Ms Harris said that she would not engage in a debate.

“I will tell you there is no roundtable, no lecture, no invitation we will accept to debate an undeniable fact: there were no redeeming qualities of slavery,” she said. “As I said last week when I was again here in Florida: we will not stop calling out and fighting back against extremist so-called leaders who try to prevent our children from learning our true and full history.”

Some Black Republicans have also joined in criticising the new history standards in Florida, including Rep Byron Donalds (R-FL), Rep John James (R-MI) and Mr DeSantis’s competitor for the Republican presidential nomination Sen Tim Scott (R-SC), though Mr DeSantis rejected the critiques.

Ms Harris had previously criticised the curriculum in Florida.

“Adults know what slavery really was. It involved rape, it involved torture, it involved taking a baby from their mother, it involved some of the worst examples of depriving humanity of people in our world,” she said in July.