5 million Texas Children will receive textbook that whitewashes America's past

[Phokus]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...001-11e5-bf41-c23f5d3face1_story.html?hpid=z4

Doesn't mention Jim Crow laws, doesn't mention the KKK, and tries to put more emphasis on 'states rights' rather than slavery (as if you could really separate the two) for the South's treason.

Are we still going to argue that the GOP doesn't need reformation?

 

[cbrunny]

Just cut the chord. Let Texas go.

 

[xBiffx]

The problem is with those who try to rewrite history and make things solely about something they weren't in order to remove them because they are offensive. But hey, to people like that its OK to eliminate parts of the past instead of leaving them for others to learn from, good or bad, because they'll never repeat them after all.

 

[Atreus21]

One would think they wouldn't mind the KKK considering it's as much a stain on democrats' history as republicans'.

But on the whole I agree. There's no sense in trying to find some defense of the confederacy.

 

[glenn1]

All textbooks require decisions about what to include or emphasize and what to exclude or only mention in passing. For example, if they had reduced the amount of material devoted to the KKK to include more about the Civil Rights Era of the 1950s and 60s that might be reasonable. But don't let lack of clear understanding about the complete contents of the textbook stop you from commenting about how terrible it is or how it's trying to "whitewash" history. We can decide that based on sheer heuristics based on the fact that Texas is involved and a couple paragraphs from an article whose writer likely has an axe to grind. And this story may be completely true in all regards, but I'm not going to accept it uncritically without any thought whatsoever.

 

[tweaker2]

I bet the same folks in Texas who are doing the whitewashing are the very same ones who bitch and complain about Japan doing the exact same thing with their war atrocities.

 

[Phokus]

One would think they wouldn't mind the KKK considering it's as much a stain on democrats' history as republicans'.

But on the whole I agree. There's no sense in trying to find some defense of the confederacy.

Nah, it's a stain on the south, which the GOP has taken to defend, since that's your base of power.

 

[senseamp]

Everything is dumber in Texas.

 

[Phokus]

All textbooks require decisions about what to include or emphasize and what to exclude or only mention in passing. For example, if they had reduced the amount of material devoted to the KKK to include more about the Civil Rights Era of the 1950s and 60s that might be reasonable. But don't let lack of clear understanding about the complete contents of the textbook stop you from commenting about how terrible it is or how it's trying to "whitewash" history. We can decide that based on sheer heuristics based on the fact that Texas is involved and a couple paragraphs from an article whose writer likely has an axe to grind. And this story may be completely true in all regards, but I'm not going to accept it uncritically without any thought whatsoever.

THe KKK and Jim Crow laws are pretty important parts of our history, nice to see you make excuses yet again, unsurprisingly.

 

[senseamp]

I bet the same folks in Texas who are doing the whitewashing are the very same ones who bitch and complain about Japan doing the exact same thing with their war atrocities.

I doubt they can even find Japan on the map.

 

[glenn1]

THe KKK and Jim Crow laws are pretty important parts of our history, nice to see you make excuses yet again, unsurprisingly.

Every part of our history is important; the KKK and Jim Crow are and so is the Founding Fathers, the Civil Rights Era, labor movement history, Cold war, Native Peoples history, et cetera ad infinitum. Again, given the limits of teaching days in the school year what would you prioritize? Talking about tradeoffs isn't "making excuses" and that's exactly what I talked about in my post if you had actually read it and weren't acting in bad faith.

 

[Phokus]

Every part of our history is important; the KKK and Jim Crow are and so is the Founding Fathers, the Civil Rights Era, labor movement history, Cold war, Native Peoples history, et cetera ad infinitum. Again, given the limits of teaching days in the school year what would you prioritize? Talking about tradeoffs isn't "making excuses" and that's exactly what I talked about in my post if you had actually read it and weren't acting in bad faith.

WTF, all of those are important. The KKK and Jim Crow laws aren't obscure minutiae in our history. We were able to cover all those topics in our school easily and even have room for black history. Stop making excuses.

 

[Newell Steamer]

Wha, wha dey do?

Personally, let them - because there are plenty of other states that provide full disclosure. And, covering up something like this is just further proof how the Confederation really was evil.

 

[tweaker2]

I doubt they can even find Japan on the map.

I tend to agree in the sense that since their agenda is to whitewash history in their favor, a demographic map of the world would look like Texas was the only land mass with real civilized people in it.

 

[soundforbjt]

The problem is a lot of the country uses Texas as a guide for purchasing their textbooks, iirc.

 

[glenn1]

WTF, all of those are important. The KKK and Jim Crow laws aren't obscure minutiae in our history. We were able to cover all those topics in our school easily and even have room for black history. Stop making excuses.

Oh sure, here's your 30,000 page textbook that weighs 400 pounds. Happy reading schoolchildren! Hopefully you'll make your way to the end of the book by the time you're 97 years old.

Or you can stop being a drama queen and just agree with the obvious, namely that curriculum is selected for many reasons: to fit within the allotted teaching hours, relevance of content, age appropriateness, segmenting history by year (e.g. teaching revolutionary to Civil War in year 1, post-Civil War in year 2, etc.). Even if you wanted a very comprehensive book that covered every single thing you deemed important then you would still have the situation where the KKK got more or less pages than Black History, which got more or less pages than Native Peoples history, etc. You're not stupid and I know you can understand the basic concept I'm articulating.

 

[Phokus]

Oh sure, here's your 30,000 page textbook that weighs 400 pounds. Happy reading schoolchildren! Hopefully you'll make your way to the end of the book by the time you're 97 years old.

Or you can stop being a drama queen and just agree with the obvious, namely that curriculum is selected for many reasons: to fit within the allotted teaching hours, relevance of content, age appropriateness, segmenting history by year (e.g. teaching revolutionary to Civil War in year 1, post-Civil War in year 2, etc.). Even if you wanted a very comprehensive book that covered every single thing you deemed important then you would still have the situation where the KKK got more or less pages than Black History, which got more or less pages than Native Peoples history, etc. You're not stupid and I know you can understand the basic concept I'm articulating.

Nobody said to cover every single thing that happened in history every. Jesus, you're just being intentionally daft at this point. There's more than enough time to cover MAJOR events in American history.

How the fuck can you talk about civil rights without talking about Jim Crow and the KKK.

 

[1prophet]

There was a time when one had to go to the library, use the card catalog, subject, author, title, and perform research sometimes for hours, and if a text book was biased it could be a problem because you wouldn't know what to look for,

but in 2015,

With almost every kid having access to the INTERNET, either through their smartphone or some computer somewhere, with sites such as Google, Wikepedia, Snopes, Politifact, etc.,

some text book is going to have the power to whitewash history?

For the unbelievers

THe KKK and Jim Crow laws are pretty important parts of our history, nice to see you make excuses yet again, unsurprisingly.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=jim+crow

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=kkk

 

[tweaker2]

The problem is a lot of the country uses Texas as a guide for purchasing their textbooks, iirc.

Joseph Goebbels is smiling in his grave over this. And Karl Rove is acknowledging how his methods live on beyond his notoriety.

I really do think that this effort to rip out pages of the past from our history books to shape the minds of the future in a way that is advantageous to an ideology and political party that is at the moment in a progressively steeper decline rather sad in so many ways.

How ironic it is that an ideology that wants to live in the past must also reshape it to survive in the future.

 

[WHAMPOM]

Wha, wha dey do?

Personally, let them - because there are plenty of other states that provide full disclosure. And, covering up something like this is just further proof how the Confederation really was evil.

No, the other states usually buy the books Texas buys, 'cause printing Houses only print what the biggest buyer wants. The dumbing down of American education comes from the use of made for Texas school books.

 

[realibrad]

Nobody said to cover every single thing that happened in history every. Jesus, you're just being intentionally daft at this point. There's more than enough time to cover MAJOR events in American history.

How the fuck can you talk about civil rights without talking about Jim Crow and the KKK.

You may want to go over his posts again, because you sound stupid. He clearly said that all things are important, but its impossible to teach all things because things like time is a limited resource so you have to pick and choose.

He said that if you were to take out something like the KKK and put in something more about civil rights ect, then that would be in his mind okay. He clearly is establishing balance based on of constrained limits of time, money, energy ect.

So what is the point you are arguing? Are you disagreeing that things are limited and all subjects of history should be covered?

 

[glenn1]

Nobody said to cover every single thing that happened in history every. Jesus, you're just being intentionally daft at this point. There's more than enough time to cover MAJOR events in American history.

How the fuck can you talk about civil rights without talking about Jim Crow and the KKK.

Because maybe Civil Rights, Jim Crow, and KKK is covered in a different book. Maybe that's in the book for another grade level, or has its own class outright. All I'm saying is you cannot realistically critique a book you haven't even seen and aren't familiar with the content from based upon solely a few paragraphs from the Washington Post. If you can't grasp that for some reason and just want an excuse to complain about Texas then just say so.

 

[WHAMPOM]

Oh sure, here's your 30,000 page textbook that weighs 400 pounds. Happy reading schoolchildren! Hopefully you'll make your way to the end of the book by the time you're 97 years old.

Or you can stop being a drama queen and just agree with the obvious, namely that curriculum is selected for many reasons: to fit within the allotted teaching hours, relevance of content, age appropriateness, segmenting history by year (e.g. teaching revolutionary to Civil War in year 1, post-Civil War in year 2, etc.). Even if you wanted a very comprehensive book that covered every single thing you deemed important then you would still have the situation where the KKK got more or less pages than Black History, which got more or less pages than Native Peoples history, etc. You're not stupid and I know you can understand the basic concept I'm articulating.

Dream on, this is Texas, where the political and religious agenda comes before the Scholastic.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

There was a time when one had to go to the library, use the card catalog, subject, author, title, and perform research sometimes for hours, and if a text book was biased it could be a problem because you wouldn't know what to look for,

but in 2015,

With almost every kid having access to the INTERNET, either through their smartphone or some computer somewhere, with sites such as Google, Wikepedia, Snopes, Politifact, etc.,

some text book is going to have the power to whitewash history?

For the unbelievers



http://lmgtfy.com/?q=jim+crow

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=kkk

The advantage of books is that the author's biases are easily discernible. The problem with the internet is the belief that it is unbiased, "facts" speak for themselves and, the author's biases are rarely known.

 

[WHAMPOM]

There was a time when one had to go to the library, use the card catalog, subject, author, title, and perform research sometimes for hours, and if a text book was biased it could be a problem because you wouldn't know what to look for,

but in 2015,

With almost every kid having access to the INTERNET, either through their smartphone or some computer somewhere, with sites such as Google, Wikepedia, Snopes, Politifact, etc.,

some text book is going to have the power to whitewash history?

For the unbelievers



http://lmgtfy.com/?q=jim+crow

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=kkk

If Jim Crow Laws, Civil Rights and Slavery are removed from history books what reason does the student have to look them up? How do they know what they don't know?