What People In The USA Remember Learning About United States Slavery

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post presents some online comments about what people in the United States remember learning in school, in universities, and/or on television about United States slavery. 

The content of this post is presented for historical, socio-cultural, and educational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
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Click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=699Hj46NEDU to watch the July21,2023 YouTube video entitled "Poisoning the well': Florida middle schoolers to be dragged into DeSantis' war on history" and to read the comments in that video's discussion thread. 

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SELECTED COMMENTS FROM THE DISCUSSION THREAD FOR THIS VIDEO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6A_JQ38rGU 
" "I didn't do it': DeSantis distances himself from Florida's new teaching standards", published by MSNBC, Jul 24, 2023  #RonDeSantis #Florida #Education

Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., [receives] criticism over Florida's overhaul to Florida’s African American history standards, and DeSantis now seems to be distancing himself from those standards, some of which instruct middle schoolers to be instructed that slavery taught beneficial skills.
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Pancocojam Editor's Note:
This compilation only presents a small portion of the comments from that discussion thread on this subject. 

This compilation doesn't include any comments from that discussion thread about other examples of United States history when Black people and/or other People of Color were killed or mistreated such as lynchings, the Tulsa race riots and other race riots, and the forced internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. This compilation also doesn't include any comments about other atrocities inflicted on other races/ethnicities/religious groups such as the Holocaust. Furthermore, this compilation doesn't include any general comments about race relations in the past or present in United States or elsewhere. This compilation also doesn't include any direct comments about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

All of these comments in this compilation are from July 24-July 26. 2023.

Numbers are added for referencing purposes only. 

1. @6Haunted-Days
"As a child (I’m very whites a blonde blue eyed German from WI) learning about slavery and we even watched Roots …I’m 51…..it NEVER made me feel uncomfortable whatsoever….it made me feel….SHOCKED…..DISGUSTED…..and showed me how rotten and disgusting humans can be. It NEVER made me feel like somehow “I” or even “my people” did this,….for one my German family came over in 1880 & came directly to WI…poor farmers…..so anyhow……sorry I’ve never met any white person against slavery who it made uncomfortable……I think the right lies makes out that it makes us all feel all kinds of horrifying emotions…..as if WE ACTUALLY DID IT…… but we feel horrifying emotions w/o the part we actually did anything ourselves part 😮‍💨🙄🤮🤷🏼‍♀️"

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2. @brandonangstman
"Same here, irish german heritage as far as I know my ancestors all settled in the north. I never felt personal guilt for the act, but the anger and disgust for the injustice done, and the drive do my best to try and prevent future injustices took firm hold in my soul."

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3. @andiamador7156
"I am from the same age group with only a small handful of years on you, and half of my ancestors came from Germany in the 1840's. They landed at Galveston and walked up to where they settled here in Texas. The other half may have arrived earlier from Europe and settled in the South (still learning more about that half).

I watched Roots as a child, and it did make me uncomfortable, shocked, disgusted, saddened, angry, hopeful for the future, and more informed (my family had documentaries on many subjects play on public television regularly and they talked to us about things like civil rights and racism, etc.).

There is nothing wrong about having various feelings and accurate knowledge on such a subject.  I am very much against slavery, by the way, as I was raised with a "Thank God that was ended here, and people deserve rights." attitude. 

As I got older, I began to understand white privilege long before ever hearing it termed that way. I saw it on the job at several jobs and happening in various ways, being northern European white myself. That is what the right-wingers want to erase an understanding about with their revisionist history tactics. They very much want to solidify white privilege and racist thought processes in people going forward. That's what it is all about. A white nationalist agenda"

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4. @shantelane2553
"I’m an educator and my Caucasian students feel empowered to help people as they learned history!! My Black students hear about Enslaved people, and Black scientists, engineers, etc and they’re face lights up. No one is offended or feels “bad.” All gaslighting for votes.

They were amazed Ruby Bridges was alive and asked if they could write her a letter. ❤️"

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5. @ladymondegreen
"I grew up in Florida, and I’m white. We learned about slavery when I was in school. Yes it was uncomfortable and heartbreaking, but the truth is uncomfortable. It is necessary to learn from the ugliness of our past. It strikes me that DeSantis is essentially trying to spin slavery as “not that bad”, or god forbid, attempting to justify it as a practice. Absolutely despicable."

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6. @undrwatropium3724
"I'm in Arkansas and if I still had my 5th grade Arkansas history book. We were definitely taught about slavery in the early 80s"

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7. @LordBLB
"Agreed. On top learning about Slavery, in my high school history class we also learned about how the Irish, Polish, and other foreign immigrants were treated in NYC back in the early 1800's (hint: they were treated and called something akin to 'trash'). So glad I had a good history teacher that was allowed to cover many different angles and include as many races of people as possible. It showed how much we are all alike, not how we're different."

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8.@richardcranium5801
"We were too, but we were also taught at my Virginia school that the civil war was more about “overall” state’s rights. My New England mother had a field day haha"

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9. @IgnacioCheese
" @richardcranium5801 my northern mom’s southern friend was taught that the south won the civil war (this was the 60s). It was in the girl’s TEXTBOOK!!! 🤦"

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10. @taylor8365
"This actually brings tears to my eyes. My grandmother was the first black women at her university in Kentucky. She had to pick up food from the back of restaurants while her friends could go inside. She experienced Jim Crow. Slavery, Jim Crow, Red Lining still impacts black communities.  After emancipation a bunch of laws were put in to effect such as loitering because of the clause that prisoners can be used for slave labor. That clause still exists. I love my country. I have faith in the people white, brown, black, blue but, my heart is heavy today knowing that young people are being learning this. It’s like spitting in the face of the black community. It’s a new low. Not to mention slavery was already being taught in a way that didn’t allow for nuance, healing and deep conversation"

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11. @toonlyrics
"I remember a fellow student trying to convince the others in a 1969 college class that slavery benefited Africans, that it was a favor blacks should be grateful for. This was right after learning that most captive Africans died during transport on the slaveships. Nobody, not even other students I knew to have racist attitudes, took that guy seriously."... 

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12. @barbc.4760
"This reminds me of a short period of time -- in the early 80s/Reagan years - when young people were being taught that the Civil War wasn't about slavery but was about states' rights.  It wasn't until I got to college that I first heard my professors in the history classes pronounce the b.s. of that theory.  I remember one professor saying if it heard that nonsense out of anyone in the class, it was an automatic "F" for the student for the semester.  I was absolutely delighted.  Yet, here we are again - back to the Republicans trying to rewrite history.  I'm so disgusted and so sick of it."

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13. @ThreeRunHomer
"I had a professor who spouted the “states rights” nonsense when I was in college."

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14. @ashleybrown6299
"Yeah I remember hearing that too in high school lol. It's so wild. When I went to college is when I learned differently. Which truly makes me really consider the fact that the feds have steadily reduced education funding, thereby creating a growing financial barrier to attending to college. I know it's entering "tin foil hat" territory but I can't help but notice that just as we collectively became more educated, they started gutting education spending. Then starting in the bush administration, suddenly the way we are taught in schools started changing. This is just a continuation of a 15+ year movement to alter class content."

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15. @lesliecurran1704
"I attended school in the '60s and '70s and I learned absolutely nothing about slavery in school.  My teachers used to say that the civil war was not about slavery was about secession from the Union.  Which is a ridiculous thing to say because it absolutely was over their desire to keep the economic system of slavery in place.  Everything I learned about slavery I learned from reading on my own.  Unfortunately a lot of people don't read anymore so maybe they just don't know."

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16. @AmyEugene
"I do genealogy and all of my ancestors were living in the South during the Civil War. Some of my ancestors owned slaves and some fought in the Confederate Army and yes, it is uncomfortable knowing that and I am ashamed of their actions, but I am defined by my own actions -- not theirs. That's no excuse to not teach accurate history, in fact it makes it more important to know the truth of what happened so we can see their actions for what they were. I don't want to put my ancestors in a positive light that they don't deserve or credit them with accomplishments that they didn't earn. Their success was the result of stealing land and stealing people and there's nothing admirable about that. My research took me to a website the other day of a location that served as a training camp and burial ground for Confederate soldiers. The site still, in 2023, used words like "heroes" and "for a cause they believed in" and I found it appalling the way they romanticized the soldiers."

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17. @bellememorie
"I went to a Christian conservative high school in the early 90s and even then, we learned that slavery was an atrocity perpetuated by evil on a people stolen from their homeland or forced birth by their "masters." I am a descendant of a Native slave who was sold to someone in Alabama and I can tell you slavery was not a job opportunity. We live in a country built on genocide and enslavement and we need to teach our children the truth."

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18. @PJ-gm1hb
"People of all races living today had no part in the wrongdoings of the long ago history in their country that's a given, teachers aren't pointing fingers at kids in class saying this and that happened because it was their fault they are simply being taught history which is important and should never be forgotten, this man is ridiculous."

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19. @emmao6578
"Exactly it's not blame for past events that's being given to children, it's the historic context and tools to recognise the origin of current discrimination so that they can avoid contributing to it themselves out of ignorance and help prevent it's continuation"

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20. @harashe1000
"I’m just now starting to read more on our history— I never realized how lacking my Georgian education was! The sad thing is my (white) AP history teacher did try to teach us that slavery “wasn’t that bad.” I hope this legislation forces more schools to look into what the heck is being taught to kids about history"

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21. @taylor8365
"I’ll never forget sitting in class as a young black girl and learning about slavery. I remember having an out body experience as I was one of two black students. We moved on quickly and it was traumatizing. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to learn this from that lens and not feel completely outraged, insulted, embarrassed and overwhelmed."

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22.  @joeysunseri4237
"I was actually thinking about what that must feel like because I remember sitting next to my best friend who was the only black kid in the class and I remember the entire class looking back at him when we were being taught about slavery.  I didn’t realize it at the time but that had to be incredibly tough on him.  I’m sorry you had to experience that."

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23. @wonderwoman7023
"@joeysunseri4237 y daughter was one of teo white girls in class being taught about slavery and they ousted her. She imagined how that felt and she said she was sorry she wasn’t born “normal”, as in black. Is this better you think?"

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24. @joeysunseri4237
"@wonderwoman7023  can you elaborate on that if you don’t mind?  What happened when she went back to school?  Hopefully you were able to explain to her why it is wrong to judge people by the color of their skin."

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25. @billwhite9703
" @wonderwoman7023  No, but you're completely missing @joeysunseri's empathy."

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26. @sunaluv4718
"If learning about slavery makes young white kids uncomfortable, imagine being the only black kid in your class and having everyone stare at while learning about slavery. That was really fun for me. It was also fun having some of those kids call me the N word at recess and laugh about it."

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27. @VladV-kx6ky
"Same thing happen to me , they all just stared at me , it was crazy."

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28. @jamesweekley1087
"I'm a 62 year old white guy who learned about slavery decades ago in a school system that had no problem telling students --- black, white, whatever --- the truth about slavery, the Klan, etc. It didn't cause me to feel inferior and I got along fine with my black classmates. Nobody blamed us for what slavers did in past centuries."

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29. @yepyep6916
"In Texas, they were trying to call the slaves “workers”.  American history has always been revised and sanitized"

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30. @rentonwilson7286
"When I was learning about slavery as a white kid I never felt uncomfortable, just sad. Thankfully I had a teacher who also taught compassion.  She said “ These things did happen, but we can keep it from happening again” if she was still a teacher now she probably would have gotten fired in Florida."

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31. @bwyou812
"The Confederate Education Standards. Just like teaching their young ,it was the northern aggression that started the Civil War. Not the fact that they wanted to enslave the blacks and treat them like animals. Giving them their freedom and rights would hurt their southern states economy. Many in the south still feel this way. It's in breaded through generations and explained as their heritage to wave the Stars and Bars battle flag."... 

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