CNN commentator rips Kamala Harris over claim about Fla. slavery curriculum

CNN conservative political commentator Scott Jennings criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for claiming Florida’s new middle school black history curriculum includes lessons “that enslaved people benefited from slavery.”

On Sunday’s edition of “State of the Union,” CNN anchor Dana Bash played video of Harris making remarks in Jacksonville, Florida, after the state Board of Education voted Wednesday on the new curriculum on black history.

It includes teaching that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit” — and requires teaching “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans,” according to Mediaite.

“Just yesterday in the state of Florida, they decided middle school students will be taught that enslaved people benefited from slavery,” Harris said, according to Fox News. “They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us, and we will not stand for it.”

Jennings slammed the veep and claimed the controversy over the new curriculum is a “made-up deal.”

“Well, it’s amazing to me that how little Kamala Harris apparently has to do, that she can read something on Twitter one day and be on an airplane the next to make something literally out of nothing,” he said, according to a transcript posted by Mediaite.

“This is a completely made-up deal. I looked at the standards. I even looked at an analysis of the standards in every instance where the word slavery or slave was used,” he said.

“I even read the statement of the African-American scholars that wrote the standards, not Ron DeSantis, but the scholars. Everybody involved in this says this is completely a fabricated issue. And yet look how quickly Kamala Harris jumped on it,” Jennings continued.

“So, the fact that this is her best moment, a fabricated matter, is pretty ridiculous,” he added.

But fellow commentator Karen Finney called Harris’ remarks a “stellar moment.”

“I think she did something that she has done often in the last couple of years, which is in a moment when something needed to be said, she got out there and said it, and really channeled what people were feeling,” Finney said, according to Fox News.

“I mean, the idea that we would literally have a conversation – I have to laugh, it is so disgusting that there were personal benefits of any kind to slaves. It is like saying women, we’re happy when we couldn’t vote and we couldn’t have our own banking accounts. It is just ridiculous,” she added.

A third panelist, Ashley Allison, also pushed back at Jennings.

“I’m glad she spoke on the issue – just because black people write it doesn’t mean it’s going to be accurate. Like, we can disagree as black people as well. I think what the bigger picture is that this is happening in Florida,” she said.

“This is happening in a Florida where you have a governor who has an anti-woke bill, who has a ‘don’t say gay’ bill, who wants to ban DEI programs, who wants to ban Rosa Parks,” Allison said, referring to diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

“I think at this panel we could all agree that slaves did not benefit from slavery. Even if the citation said, ‘Well, they might have gotten …,’ they didn’t have a choice, so that is not a benefit,” she continued.

“Slaves did not have the freedom to choose if — Ron DeSantis said maybe they could have become a blacksmith, not when they didn’t have the choice to become a blacksmith. And so that was what Kamala Harris was saying,” Allison said.

The panelist expressed hope that everyone “could agree that slavery was not a good thing and slaves did not benefit.

“But the problem is, the governor, who is the second in the polls for the Republican nomination, won’t do that,” Allison added.