I’s sure you’ve heard by now that Florida’s new school curriculum says that enslaved people in the United States may have had a rough time in some respects but they got some benefits from slavery too! (This isn’t a new thing, I’ve heard right wingers suggest for years that Black people thank white people for bringing their ancestors to America.)
Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis was clearly not sure if it may have gone too far and didn’t claim credit for it but defended it anyway. Philip Bump at the Washington Post took a look at why he would do that:
Asked about it, DeSantis offered that the curriculum — which he insisted wasn’t something he produced — would probably “show that some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life.” Needless to say, this is not generally how historians view the institution of slavery.
But DeSantis’s argument isn’t offered solely as a governor of a large state. It is also offered as a guy who is running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 and, in that context, his efforts to downplay the extent to which Black Americans suffered from slavery make much more sense.
Last week, YouGov published polling data showing a divide in how Americans view the effects of racism. Poll respondents were asked whether racism against various racial groups was a problem now and the extent to which it had been in the past.
Republican respondents were more likely to say that racism against Black people was lower in the past than were White respondents or respondents overall. (Perceptions of racism in the past are shown with triangles on the graph below.) They were also less likely to say that racism against Black Americans is currently a problem (shown with a dot) — and were about half as likely as respondents overall to say that racism is currently a big problem (indicated with a dashed line) for Black Americans.
At the bottom of that chart, you can see that more respondents believe racism is a problem for White people than was the case in the past. That’s much more true among Republicans (a group that is, of course, overwhelmingly White). In fact, Republicans are more likely to say that racism is a problem for Whites than they are to say the same of racism targeting Blacks. A third of Republicans think racism against White people is a big problem, compared with a quarter who say the same of racism against Black people.
If we directly compare those two racial groups, the difference between Republicans and other groups (of which Republicans are members) becomes clear. Less likely to say anti-Black racism was a problem in the past; more likely to say anti-White racism is a problem now.
[…]
Three in 10 Republicans say White Americans face a lot of discrimination, compared with a quarter of Republicans who say the same about Black Americans.
This is the electorate from which DeSantis is eager to wring votes. To present slavery as less bad than people might think is simultaneously to diminish the extent to which Black people suffered at the hands of enslavement and to diminish the culpability of those who enslaved them. It is easier for a White person to consider, say, being yelled at on social media as discrimination if institutional efforts to treat Black people differently are waved away.
YouGov had a question on that, too. Only about a third of Republicans think that there is racism embedded in social, economic and legal structures in the United States. A majority of Americans overall do.
Again, the problem is the Republican Party. They finally released the racist id in all its glory and it’s completely taken it over.