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 *****.
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)