Governor DeSantis has invited Vice President Kamala Harris to discuss new school standards for teaching African American history in Florida. The new curriculum claims enslaved people learned skills that could later benefit them. Harris has publicly denounced those claims and rejected DeSantis’ invitation.
During a conversation at a convention of the Women’s Missionary Society of the African Methodist Episcopal church in Orlando, Harris addressed the invitation.
“They attempt to legitimize these unnecessary debates with a proposal that most recently came in of a politically motivated roundtable,” the vice president said to the crowd. “There is no roundtable, no lecture, no invitation we will accept to debate an undeniable fact: there were no redeeming qualities of slavery.”
Gov. DeSantis vs. VP Harris
Harris visited the state in July to slam the Florida Board of Education’s new Black history standards. She delivered a 23-minute-long speech as part of a White House effort. The administration is advocating for a “full and true” American history curriculum.
The Florida governor is currently seeking the GOP nomination for the presidency. He reached out to Harris after she slammed the new teachings in July. In the letter he sent her, he invited her to meet him in Tallahassee, the state’s capital. He went on to blast the Biden administration and accused the vice president of attempting to “score cheap political points.”
“Time and again, D.C. politicians choose to malign our state and its residents,” DeSantis wrote in the letter. “Over the past several weeks, the Biden Administration has repeatedly disparaged our state and misinformed Americans about our education system. It’s past time to set the record straight.”
Harris was already scheduled to be in Florida for the convention prior to DeSantis’ invitation. She used the opportunity to once again, call out the state’s government.
“They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us in an attempt to divide and distract our nation with unnecessary debates,” she said in her remarks.