Revising History

Florida's current school standards

Leave a lot to be desired.

In fact, the people responsible

For writing them deserve to be fired.

 

Yes, they do mention the horrors

Of slavery, we'll grant them that.

But what they go on to say is truly

Disgusting. We can smell a rat.

 

The writers suggest that slavery

Wasn't all that bad for some

Enslaved people, for luckily they

Derived benefits therefrom--

 

Benefits from the skills they learned!

Skills! Please, give us a break!

I have heard outlandish statements,

But that one really takes the cake.

That is just like saying that

Concentration camps had frills

Because the Holocaust survivors

Were able to learn survival skills!

 

Enslaved people were ripped from their homeland,

Chained, beaten, murdered, and raped.

Let's not talk of learning skills.

The lucky ones were those who escaped.

 

Beaten if they tried to learn

To read, the enslaved enjoyed no rights.

They were merely property

To make life easier for whites.

 

The only ones who benefited

Were those who sold and owned the enslaved.

Plantation owners and slave traders

Were notably among the depraved.

 

Don't downplay or sugarcoat

Atrocities faced by many a slave--

Atrocities that occurred right here

In "the land of the free and the home of the brave."

 

Teaching revisionist history

Is wrong, for it ignores the truth.

Honesty should be our goal.

Otherwise, we mislead our youth.

-by Bob B (7-25-23)