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The War Over Teaching America’s Racist History in Schools.

 
 
Reply Mon 6 Mar, 2023 01:14 am
The War Over Teaching America’s Racist History in Schools.


Most students in America are only taught about a handful of important Black Americans in history class.
Here’s a look at why schools should teach students about race and why certain parents are opposed to that shift.


Published May 5, 2021


 
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vikorr
 
  7  
Reply Fri 10 Mar, 2023 01:54 pm
@PoliteMight,
Your post is so incredibly disjointed that I doubt anyone here will know what to make of it.
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coluber2001
 
  5  
Reply Fri 10 Mar, 2023 02:13 pm
THE WAR ON HISTORY IS A WAR ON DEMOCRACY
Submitted by Theresa Riley on July 21, 2021 - 1:22pm

Excerpted from The New York Times' Magazine: The War on History Is a War on Democracy

By Timothy Snyder

A scholar of totalitarianism argues that new laws restricting the discussion of race in American schools have dire precedents in Europe.

Timothy Snyder is the Levin Professor of History at Yale University and the author of histories of political atrocity such as “Bloodlands” and “Black Earth.” His most recent book is “Our Malady.” In his recent essay, he lays out the history of "a growing international body of what are called 'memory laws': government actions designed to guide public interpretation of the past," that are cause for concern.

Memory laws started out as a noble idea and "generally [were] designed to protect the truth about victim groups. ...The most important example, passed in West Germany in 1985, criminalized Holocaust denial. Perhaps unsurprisingly, other countries followed that precedent, and banned the denial of other historical atrocities."

"DEMOCRACY REQUIRES INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY, WHICH IS IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT CRITICAL HISTORY. IT THRIVES IN A SPIRIT OF SELF-AWARENESS AND SELF-CORRECTION."

However, beginning a little over a decade ago, Snyder writes, Russia "turned the original logic of memory laws upside down. It is not the facts about the vulnerable but the feelings of the powerful that are to be protected."

"[In 2009, President] Medvedev established the Presidential Commission of the Russian Federation to Counter Attempts to Falsify History to the Detriment of Russia’s Interests, a panel of politicians, military officials and state-approved historians ostensibly tasked with defending the official history of the Soviet Union’s role in World War II. It did little in practice, but it did establish an important principle: that history was what served Russia’s national interests, and that all else was revisionism."

After that commission, a number of laws have been passed that make it a crime to acknowledge history that addresses some Russian actions in World War II. Snyder chronicles instances in which the state has prosecuted Russian citizens, including one "who mentioned in a social media post that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union both invaded Poland."

And this spring, he writes, "memory laws arrived in America."

"Republican state legislators proposed dozens of bills designed to guide and control American understanding of the past. As of this writing, five states (Idaho, Iowa, Tennessee, Texas and Oklahoma) have passed laws that direct and restrict discussions of history in classrooms. The Department of Education of a sixth (Florida) has passed guidelines with the same effect. Another 12 state legislatures are still considering memory laws.

The particulars of these laws vary. The Idaho law is the most Kafkaesque in its censorship: It affirms freedom of speech and then bans divisive speech. The Iowa law executes the same totalitarian pirouette. The Tennessee and Texas laws go furthest in specifying what teachers may and may not say. In Tennessee teachers must not teach that the rule of law is “a series of power relationships and struggles among racial or other groups.” Nor may they deny the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, words that Thomas Jefferson presumably never intended to be part of an American censorship law. The Idaho law mentions Critical Race Theory; the directive from the Florida school board bans it in classrooms. The Texas law forbids teachers from requiring students to understand the 1619 Project. It is a perverse goal: Teachers succeed if students do not understand something."
0 Replies
 
TooFriendly112
 
  -4  
Reply Sat 11 Mar, 2023 08:42 am
What? Are we not learning american history in school? When I went to school everyone learnt about america in school. Now everyone lives in america!
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revelette1
 
  5  
Reply Sat 11 Mar, 2023 09:15 am
I think schools should teach more inclusive history, all of our history including the bad history, of which we have a lot of and can't be erased by censorship. From what I understand, CRT is a part of our country's past and present. We also need to understand more about Indian history, the Japanese in the occupational camps after Pearl Harbor and even the way our government reacted towards Muslims after 9/11. I am sure there are a lot of groups of people of different races who have been discarded in our history books who should have been and still can be included, and it would be a benefit.

Another important aspect of this who whole issue which is really concerning me is the fascist way these people and republican governments are taking away our freedom of speech and don't realize it; or don't seem to realize it.

When you deny books because you don't like the message it sends, that is taking away someone rights to free expression of speech. Maybe your family don't agree morally with trans people or gay people, but that does not mean the next family (parent's rights) believe the same way and by banning books you are favoring one parent's rights over another parent's rights. (I am trying to word it right.) Now, if it is simply inappropriate with under aged children in a sexualized way, that is a different issue than a book about two parents of the same sex raising a child or a child of minority background writing of his/her experiences or similar to those kinds of subjects.
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coluber2001
 
  3  
Reply Thu 16 Mar, 2023 02:58 pm
@Real Music,
ORLANDO (The Borowitz Report)—Ron DeSantis has unveiled an ambitious plan to raze Disney World and replace it with a “Dilbert”-themed attraction.

The new theme park, tentatively called Dilbert World, will attract “millions of Americans deprived of their favorite comic strip by the left-wing media Reich,” the Florida governor said.

Calling the new tourist destination “a woke-free zone,” DeSantis promised, “Parents who go to Dilbert World can rest assured that their children will not be exposed to the vile multicultural propaganda that it’s a small world, after all.”

DeSantis was vague about what kind of rides might be featured in Dilbert World, saying only that “they will probably involve cubicles
roger
 
  3  
Reply Thu 16 Mar, 2023 03:02 pm
@coluber2001,
Anybody but DeSantis and I would call this fake news.
coluber2001
 
  3  
Reply Thu 16 Mar, 2023 05:00 pm
@roger,
It's Borowitz, satire.
roger
 
  2  
Reply Thu 16 Mar, 2023 08:23 pm
@coluber2001,
Thank you
0 Replies
 
Real Music
 
  3  
Reply Thu 16 Mar, 2023 09:02 pm
@revelette1,
Quote:
Another important aspect of this who whole issue which is really concerning me is the fascist way these people and republican governments are taking away our freedom of speech and don't realize it; or don't seem to realize it.


1. These MAGA Republicans are very aware of what they are doing.

2. These MAGA Republicans (realize) exactly what they are doing.

3. They simply don't care what you, I , or anyone else thinks about it.
0 Replies
 
WendyDarling
 
  -4  
Reply Mon 20 Mar, 2023 08:24 pm
@revelette1,
All I have heard about recent book bans were that they were basically sexually explicit in imagery and language that children in elementary schools do not need to be influenced by at young ages especially children 10 yrs. old and under. At televised school board meetings, I listened to some of the parents either read graphic excerpts from their libraries’ books or showed pages in books where couples were engaged in graphic sexual acts through cartoon imagery. Personally, I hope children are able to retain their innocence as long as possible and that parents instruct their children about the birds and the bees either when their children are curious or at 11-12 yrs. old when girls typically begin their menstrual cycles, when pregnancies of a child having a child can occur.
izzythepush
 
  3  
Reply Wed 22 Mar, 2023 02:35 am
@WendyDarling,
Lies Joseph Goebbels himself would be proud of.
0 Replies
 
tsarstepan
 
  2  
Reply Wed 22 Mar, 2023 12:34 pm
@WendyDarling,
WendyDarling wrote:

All I have heard about recent book bans were that they were basically sexually explicit in imagery and language that children in elementary schools do not need to be influenced by at young ages especially children 10 yrs. old and under. At televised school board meetings, I listened to some of the parents either read graphic excerpts from their libraries’ books or showed pages in books where couples were engaged in graphic sexual acts through cartoon imagery. Personally, I hope children are able to retain their innocence as long as possible and that parents instruct their children about the birds and the bees either when their children are curious or at 11-12 yrs. old when girls typically begin their menstrual cycles, when pregnancies of a child having a child can occur.

Liar.
Mame
 
  2  
Reply Wed 22 Mar, 2023 04:46 pm
@tsarstepan,
Agreed. It's actually not really about sex, more about slavery and gender identity. They're taking this to the extreme where the slightest mention of anything that could make children feel the slightest bit uncomfortable is out. So, if it's a book about slavery and a parent says it would make their child uncomfortable, it's off the list. Uncomfortable is good... it makes you ask why you feel that way, then discussions can happen.
izzythepush
 
  2  
Reply Wed 22 Mar, 2023 04:56 pm
@Mame,
Shortly after my mother died, my father showed me a press clipping of a review of a amateur theatre production she was in.

The clipping was from the early Fifties, but what caught my eye was an advert for balls of wool.

One of the colours of wool available was the n word.

When I pointed that out my father got really angry saying I wasn't supposed to read that.

If someone can get that defensive over an advert for wool you can see how they don't want to confront racism in general.

The past is rose tinted, all Jimmy Stewart films, decent white people helping everyone out.
Mame
 
  2  
Reply Wed 22 Mar, 2023 05:11 pm
@izzythepush,
Tsk...tsk... you were supposed to read around that word, obviously! I've never heard a colour called that, by the way. Very odd. Weird.

Ethnicity and the way a person looks has to be the basest reason to dislike someone. Name calling "Fatty", "Freckle Face", "Four Eyes" always sounded so ignorant, so unaware to me. Two of my sisters were teased because of their red hair, of all things, and another because she wore glasses. Just stupid.
0 Replies
 
 

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