South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott pushed back against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ benchmark clarification policy within his state’s education standards for teaching Black history during Wednesday’s debate.
There is not a redeeming quality in slavery,” Scott said.
The standard teaches middle school students “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit,” which DeSantis has defended as slaves developing skills despite slavery, not because of it.
“That is a hoax perpetrated by Kamala Harris and we are not going to be doing that,” DeSantis said.
“That was written by descendants of slaves. These are great Black history scholars, so we need to stop playing these games,” DeSantis continued, pivoting to what he calls a decline of the country’s education system.
Scott responded: “America has suffered because of slavery, but we’ve overcome that. We are the greatest nation on Earth, because we’ve faced our demons in the mirror and made a decision.”
Scott, the only Black Republican candidate on the debate stage, continued, “So often we think that all the issues talked about crime and education and health care. We always think that those issues go back to slavery.”
He went onto list the number of hardships that Black families in America have faced and overcome including, “Slavery. We survived poll taxes and literacy tests. We survived discrimination being woven into the laws of our country.”
Scott then claimed that what was a tough situation to survive was “(President Lyndon B.) Johnson’s Great Society where they decided to put money where they decided to take the Black father out of the household to get a check in the mail. And you can now measure that and unemployment and crime and devastation. If you want to restore hope, you’ve got to restore the family, restore capitalism and put Americans back at work.”
He added, “Our nation continues to go in the right direction. It’s why I can say I have been discriminated against, but America is not a racist country.”
Then, speaking directly to voters, Scott said, as the audience cheered: “Never ever doubt who we are. We are the greatest country on God’s green earth. And frankly, the city on the hill needs a brand new leader and I’m asking for your vote.”
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