Satire: Uncle Tom’s Mansion

By Laurie Baron

SAN DIEGO — The new African American history curriculum for Florida public schools requires teaching that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit” and that acts of black-on-black violence are the equivalent to white collective violence against blacks.  The textbook companies are now scrambling to publish textbooks that meet these criteria.  I’ve seen an advance copy of one of them: Uncle Tom’s Mansion: A History of the Happy African American Experience in America.  Here’s some excerpts:

African Americans were way ahead of their white counterparts in embarking on all-inclusive transatlantic cruises.  They strengthened their muscles with rowing machines and got trim on the low protein diet served on the boats.  They fondly remember the “Middle Passage” as a journey from shithole countries to the lush life they would enjoy on beautiful plantations.

When they were put up for auction, they learned how the relationship between supply and demand determines price furnishing them with a basic knowledge of capitalist economics.

Once transported at the cost of their owners to the plantations, they pioneered the glamping experience in rustic wooden huts surrounded by forests and cotton fields.  Picking cotton taught them the hand/eye coordination they would subsequently use in factory assembly lines in the North.  House slaves, on the other hand, mastered the cleaning skills that subsequent generations would practice as janitors and maids. Female slaves enrolled in sex education classes taught by the white men on the plantation.

Since uppity slaves were deservedly punished, their kinfolk developed medical expertise to treat welts from whippings, rope burns on those who survived lynching attempts, and severe burns on recalcitrant slaves who managed to survive being burned alive.  To escape such mistreatment, a few became fleet runners preparing them for their future careers in track and other sports.

When slavery was abolished following the Union’s aggression against the Confederacy, slaves thrived in America separately and equally. Sometimes unfortunate things happened like a bad apple police officer putting his knee on George Floyd’s neck and unintentionally asphyxiating him. On the other hand, Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the 2022 Academy Awards.

The anticipated Florida Holocaust curriculum will adhere to similar criteria.  The emphasis will be on the camping skills learned by Jewish campers that eventually enabled them to enjoy summer camps as children and Catskills and Florida vacations as adults.

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Baron is professor emeritus at San Diego State University. He may be contacted via Lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com