Jesse Watters called Florida’s “slaves developed useful skills” curriculum “the best of the best” and said it “should be taught in every single middle school, high school in the United States.”
Of course, it wasn’t enough to just praise the curriculum developed under Gov. Ron DeSantis, The Five repeatedly attacked Vice President Kamala Harris for attacking the curriculum. If there’s one thing Fox hates, it’s someone speaking out against racism.
Watters whitesplained to Black viewers how DeSantis’ curriculum is great for them.
WATTERS: This is well documented among historians. This is historical fact that slaves did develop skills while they were enslaved and then used those skills as blacksmiths, as in agriculture, tailoring, in the shipping business to then use to benefit themselves and their families once they were freed. That's not controversial. And it actually speaks to the resilience and the aptitude of the enslaved African Americans who were at the time, able to better themselves and able to complete their situation despite brutal, brutal conditions horrific and abhorrent conditions.
… And this should be taught in every single middle school, high school in the United States. This is the best of the best, created by African American scholars in the state of Florida. And Kamala Harris is either dumb and didn't read anything about it, or she knows the truth and has decided to lie to the American people about it. I think it's disgusting.
Funny, Jesse Watters didn't seem to mind Fox News lying to Americans about the results of the 2020 election. In fact, Watters wanted those who told the truth about it to be fired.
As it happened, cohost Katie Pavlich went on to tell a whopper moments later, and Watters made no objection. He didn't even correct the record.
PAVLICH: I would say that liberals apparently think that teaching critical race theory to kindergarteners is fine but teaching middle school and high schoolers real American history with this very thorough curriculum, they're not mentally or emotionally prepared for it. So, I would argue that this is a much better curriculum than the CRT.
FACT CHECK: Critical race theory, i.e. CRT, is not taught in kindergarten. It’s not even taught in high school. It’s taught in college and graduate school.
But it speaks volumes that Pavlich thinks it’s better to teach the virtues of slavery than about systemic racism.
Greg Gutfeld, who has kicked at least three people of color off The Five because he didn’t like their views, blamed the media for Blacks “feeling oppressed.” But he also painted whites as the ones truly oppressed.
GUTFELD: I think we need like a colorblind summer. You know how much better everyone would feel if Blacks didn't feel oppressed because the media told them to and that their their co workers and their classmates weren't seen as oppressors because they happen to be white. That would be really nice. This was not the administration we were promised right? We were supposed to buy "Old Joe, everybody was supposed to get along," every bit. Now. All it is is stuff like this to create division. Right? We now have to be - we have to feel guilty at all times about who our ancestors were. And we're always going to be the target, always be the target...
It also speaks volumes that the lone liberal slot was given to Jessica Tarlov, who is white, instead of Harold Ford Jr., who is Black. Tarlov said there is “some good” in the curriculum but, she added, “I'm just fundamentally uncomfortable with this sentence that Blacks benefited at all from this.”
Noting that she’s Jewish, Tarlov continued, “Would someone say about the Holocaust, for instance, that there were some benefits for Jews, right while they were hanging out in concentration camps. You learned a strong work ethic, right? Maybe you learned a new skill – “
Gutfeld interrupted to say that Viktor Frankl, in Man’s Search for Meaning, “talks about how you had to survive in a concentration camp. By having skills you had to be useful. Utility kept you alive.”
Developing a skill to keep oneself alive is not at all the same as saying a concentration camp bestowed the prisoners with benefits, as the Florida curriculum does with slavery. Florida requires educators to teach that enslaved Blacks “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
Nobody is forcing teachers to teach that Holocaust prisoners benefitted from being in concentration camps. Yet.
You can watch this disgusting episode below, from the July 24, 2023 The Five.
