Happy Independence Day

[Louis VI the Fat]

American history, the presentation thereof, is also critised for being often prone to a politicised narrative. America's history keeps being rewritten. Especially where it concerns sensitive topics like race and minorities.

A very timely article in today's NYT:

Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change


Published: March 12, 2010


AUSTIN, Tex. — After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.


The vote was 10 to 5 along party lines, with all the Republicans on the board voting for it.
The board, whose members are elected, has influence beyond Texas because the state is one of the largest buyers of textbooks. In the digital age, however, that influence has diminished as technological advances have made it possible for publishers to tailor books to individual states.



In recent years, board members have been locked in an ideological battle between a bloc of conservatives who question Darwin’s theory of evolution and believe the Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles, and a handful of Democrats and moderate Republicans who have fought to preserve the teaching of Darwinism and the separation of church and state.
Since January, Republicans on the board have passed more than 100 amendments to the 120-page curriculum standards affecting history, sociology and economics courses from elementary to high school. The standards were proposed by a panel of teachers.



“We are adding balance,” said Dr. Don McLeroy, the leader of the conservative faction on the board, after the vote. “History has already been skewed. Academia is skewed too far to the left.”
Battles over what to put in science and history books have taken place for years in the 20 states where state boards must adopt textbooks, most notably in California and Texas. But rarely in recent history has a group of conservative board members left such a mark on a social studies curriculum.



Efforts by Hispanic board members to include more Latino figures as role models for the state’s large Hispanic population were consistently defeated, prompting one member, Mary Helen Berlanga, to storm out of a meeting late Thursday night, saying, “They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don’t exist.”



“They are going overboard, they are not experts, they are not historians,” she said. “They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/ed...me&ref=general

[The Lurker Below]

That's very unfortunate. School textbooks cater to Texas and California. The publisher's please the curriculum needs of one or the other and the districts throughout the rest of the country have little choice but to work with whatever they offer.

[Megas Methuselah]

Live forever!

[Meneldil]

I'm not being racist, or a xenophobe, and I'm not being self-reliant, I just happen to have more first-hand resources than some dude on an island really far away drinking his damn tea. You came in here saying there was mass expulsion and now you're changing your words around to match mine and SFTS so I'm not gonna bother reading the links cuz now all of a sudden what your'e saying and what we're saying matches.

There seems to be a movement in our modern times to sully history. "HEY LOOK! THIS WELL-KNOWN HERO WAS REALLY NOT THAT GREAT A GUY!!!" Were there ethnic tensions? Yes. Were they unavoidable? No. You can't take your twenty-first century mind and try to plant it in a 1 18th-19th century person's head. They were of a vastly different mindeset. We're talking about a time when many people actually considered the Irish to be sub-human. Whites hating whites. It's unavoidable for any history scholar and it's something I've never shied away from and am willing to admit: yes, there was racism in Texas. But don't come in here trying to degrade us by saying we were genocidal maniacs. You want a maniac you can make one right here, but I'll represent no one but myself.

Haha, way to encourage a calm, open-minded and honest discussion about history. Maybe you should contact Krook and open a club with him :)

[Megas Methuselah]

I am the alpha.