U.S. Senator Tim Scott, the highest-profile Black candidate in the 2024 Republican presidential race, has blasted his rival Ron DeSantis, Florida's governor, over the state's newly adopted Black history curriculum, saying "there's no silver lining" in slavery.
Asked about the curriculum at a campaign stop in Iowa on Thursday, Scott told reporters, "Any benefits that people suggest you had during slavery, you would have had as a free person," according to video posted on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
"What slavery was really about was separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping their wives. It was just devastating," Scott said.
Without naming DeSantis, Scott said he hoped that every candidate in the Republican field "would appreciate that."
Scott's remarks came after another prominent Black Republican, U.S. Representative Byron Donalds of Florida, also criticized the new standards. That triggered outraged pushback from DeSantis' campaign online, which suggested Donalds was a supporter of Democrat Kamala Harris, the first Black vice president.
