Whitewash: New Texas history books will downplay slavery, omit KKK and Jim Crow

[Ken Burch]

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/07/whitewash-new-texas-history-books-will-downplay-slavery-omit-kkk-and-jim-crow/

Social studies books for Texas public schools will minimize the importance of slavery in the Civil War and omit any mention of both Jim Crow laws and the Ku Klux Klan, the Washington Post reported.

Lessons covering the Civil War will list the reasons behind the conflict as being, “sectionalism, states’ rights and slavery,” in that order.

As Business Insider noted, the new textbooks come five years after the state board of education revised the curriculum. Republican board member Pat Hardy stated at the time that he considered slavery “a side issue” in the war.

The books are set to be issued to the state’s 5 million public school students not long after the renewed debate regarding the Confederate flag, spurred by Dylann Roof’s terrorist attack inside a South Carolina church last month that killed nine people, including state Sen. Clementa Pinckney.

“It’s the obvious question, it seems to me,” Texas Freedom Network spokesperson Dan Quinn told the Post. “Not only are we worried about the flags and statues and all that, but what the hell are kids learning?”

[Art_from_Ark]

1. Pat Hardy should read the Texas Declaration of the Causes of Secession

Slavery was most definitely not a "side issue"

https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.html

[Whiskeytide]

2. I doubt he really thinks it...

... was a "side issue". It's a deliberate attempt to revise history. When one of Bush's advisors (I've forgotten which one) said "the winners get to write the history books", I should have taken it more literally.

[Cleita]

4. Actually, I think that was Josef Stalin, but I can see why that crowd

would quote him. He would be a secret hero to them being an iron fisted dictator and all. Also, I believe Stalin was quoting an older source yet. But my memory is fuzzy at this time of night.

[Whiskeytide]

11. I'm sure your right ...

... and it's an accurate statement. The textbooks I read back in the 70s were sanitized as well. But with this and the dinosaurs living with men texts, I genuinely feel bad for the children of Texas.

[Cleita]

34. I was wrong. It was 1984 author, George Orwell. eom

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

36. I've also seen it attributed to Churchill, Napoleon and Pliny the Elder. N/T

[Cleita]

37. Maybe Pliny the Elder was the original. n/t

[underpants]

47. W & Dick repeatedly said that history will decide

They were speaking of the history of their fiasco but with their publishing houses and their control of the over spending Texas board I knew what they meant.

[DefenseLawyer]

38. You may be thinking of this quote from noted war criminal Karl Rove:

"That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."

[Whiskeytide]

43. I remember that one...

... That's a scary mindset.

[underpants]

49. I knew exactly what he meant

The right has created a cadre of writers,publishing houses, and a marketing system (RW "news&quot to do just this. Completely retell the story.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

30. You expect him to read? He doesn't need to.

FoxNoise tell him all he needs to know.

[bluestateguy]

3. Of course

Good teachers in Texas could just blow off what's in the state mandated textbook and just say in class that the books are wrong. And write their own exams that ignore what's in the books.

[Cleita]

5. Some of my teachers did that back in the fifties. Said the textbooks

were inaccurate and outdated and gave us reading assignments instead from books available in the library. However, the Texas teachers may not be as free to do so today.

[BrotherIvan]

6. They will be fired

This is a very serious problem and is a very pointed campaign to raise a new generation of racists.

[Betty Karlson]

7. Or at the very least a generation of oblivious voters. n/t

[BrotherIvan]

8. They want ignorant, angry, racists

who will support them as they shovel more money up the ladder. It's fucking disgusting. The fact that the nation adopts Texas books should be stopped for this very reason. Ebooks with accurate historical information and science should take over. Our country is really splintering because of these evil people.

[raouldukelives]

12. Yes sir. Some fight against them, some invest in them.

So far, the investors are winning.

[BrotherIvan]

19. It's because they keep lighting the fires

and we keep running around trying to put them out. What if we took the offense for once?

[Igel]

9. Depends on how scripted the district's curriculum is.

In some districts, the scope and sequence is squishy. In others, it's outlined virtually day by day and common course materials are used. Still, inevitably something gets lost in the shuffle.

Typically teachers have input into the lock-step course materials, however. It's not like the districts buy a curriculum.


I'd note that the OP is talking about 5th and 7th grades, part of one unit.

It doesn't come up in high school, which I think is a bigger problem.

[BrotherIvan]

10. I think any teacher that says the adopted curriculum is wrong

will have cause to be fired. Especially if they are defying the rw slant. I don't think teachers should have to put their careers on the line. We should make sure that lying in text books is illegal. How we do that, I don't know. If they put Holocaust denial in a textbook, would that be ok? How can we allow them to deny the fact of slavery?

[on point]

20. Which is the historical reason teachers were tenured. So they couldn't be fired for teaching truth

[BrotherIvan]

21. Yup

And it's why they want to get rid of tenure.

[JackInGreen]

45. Maybe if a

Majority did and weren't tarred and feathered for their trouble. Id love to see it but I think it'd turn out poorly.

[betterdemsonly]

13. How do these people get elected?

What is wrong with TX voters? It is shitty so many businesses move their operations to Tx and force their employees to put up with this.

[spanone]

14. 'a side issue' ??? who are these fucking aliens?

[vkkv]

15. I'm still waiting for TX, MO, OK, KS, AZ and the ENTIRE South to secede so we Northerners can

finally get going on that BORDER FENCE.

The North has enough sensible, leftist voters to rule over any WI, MT, NV, NE, ME or UT Wingnuts.

[Angry Dragon]

32. WI?? ----- where you have Walker and repugs destroying the state

[Kevin from WI]

46. I can vouch for that

All that will be left when Walker's done is smoldering ash... and that is what he hopes to share with the nation. If Walker becomes president you will see the death of a nation. The country will go up in flames and the Koch brothers will supply the fuel.

[valerief]

42. Stupid Massachusetts voted for a stupid Republican as governor.

Teh Stooopid is killing us!

[niyad]

16. well, you cannot control and manipulate a population capable of critical thinking, and possessed

of accurate information and knowledge.

[hunter]

17. U.S.A. K-12 history textbooks are generally awful already.

Good job, Texas, for making them worse.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

39. In the late 1980s, one of my sons got a brand new world history textbook for 7th grade

I started leafing through it, and quickly found an error of fact. I looked at it more closely, and found over a dozen, many of them quite stupid (the poet Byron's name was not "George Gordon Byron"; nor are "Shogun" and "Mikado" synonymous).

I had a biology textbook in high school that did not mention the names Charles Darwin or Gregor Mendel.

[progree]

40. Didn't they ride the first dinosaurs?

I had a biology textbook in high school that did not mention the names Charles Darwin or Gregor Mendel.

[heaven05]

18. white privilege

at it's starkest hatefulness. What a joke texas is but hell didn't a majority vote for cruz? What can be expected. The kids will continue to be ignorant of truth, therefore can't challenge lies and they'll learn Orwellian think-speak.

[JackInGreen]

22. Orwell comes to Texas

Or "How I learned to stop worrying and love hating everyone else". The levels of absurdity are mindblowing.

[lark]

23. Texas sure love's it's tall tales.

Guess that even extends to history books now? Aren't they the state that also added Creationism to all their science books statewide? Is there no room for the truth in that giant state?

[Octafish]

24. Ignorance is Strength

Wonder if they'll skip the bits about America's presidents lying America into war, especially the big batch outta Texas.

[Avalux]

25. The head of the Texas Board of Ed is a RW homeschooler.

In the new state issued history book, Moses and the ten commandments are tied to our founding fathers and the beginning of the United States. It's insanity, and no one can do much about it with people like these in charge of the state. This excerpt from the wonkette article is old, these have since been adopted:

"And so, here are some of the things that Texas textbooks will teach Texas schoolchildren, if they’re adopted by the SBOE in November:

In a section titled “Where did the Founders get their ideas?” one text lists Moses first (the others are John Locke, Charles de Montesquieu, and William Blackstone), and explains what Moses contributed to the Constitution: “A nation needs a written code of behavior.” Also, too, kids will learn this important American History Fact:
During their years of wandering in the desert of the Sinai, Moses handed down God’s Ten Commandments to the Hebrews. These commandments now form the bedrock on which the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian codes of behavior are based. The full account of Moses’ life can be found in the Bible’s Book of Exodus.

Not that “God’s Ten Commandments” is at all an endorsement of religion — it’s just history!

Another text provides a “Biography of Moses” and explains that Moses was “a lawgiver and a great leader. Like the founders of the United States, he helped establish a legal system to govern his people.” Not that the Founders talked much about Moses, but kids have to know this stuff.
And then there’s the world history text that explains that Jesus is where we get the political notion of equality under the law:
Because one of Jesus’s basic principles was the equality of all people in the eyes of God, equality before the law became a central belief within the Judeo­-Christian tradition.

That’s pretty much exactly what nobody said during the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, you know."

http://wonkette.com/560133/new-texas-schoolbooks-moses-wrote-the-constitution-for-slavery-segregation

There's more at the link, if you can keep from screaming your head off.

[Ken Burch]

44. In Texas, the Board of Education likes Moses so much...

...they can ALMOST forgive him for being a Jew...they still wouldn't let him live there, though...

[Avalux]

53. Yeah that whole Jewish thing gets a little fuzzy with the bible beaters.

If Jesus from the bible showed up here in Texas, they wouldn't recognize him, they'd call him names and they'd run him out too.

[nikto]

59. Jesus would not survive Texas

Matter and anti-matter.

[geardaddy]

50. I love Wonkette's reviews of textbooks.

I think their reviews should be a required appendix for any whacky textbook.

[Avalux]

54. Yes I do too!

They're very well done. I'm glad I don't have kids in school anymore, since I live in Texas. Not all of Texas is horrible though, I actually like where I live, good Democrats running the show here.

[jtuck004]

26. All the good white folk who allow this, and the teachers who don't refuse to teach from it,

are no less racist that the people who are sending them the book. Sometimes people get too comfortable.

Besides, it takes a village to screw up an education.

That's ok, however. I know a couple of HR folks, and I am sure there are others who have a little game they play, and if you were educated in Texas or Kansas in the past few years, just assume your resume went in the trash. This won't help that. ;rofl:

Wonder if they will remember back on who failed them, and try not to fuck up their own kids?

[Ezlivin]

27. Why burn them?

When you can simply fill them with incendiary nonsense?

[Scalded Nun]

28. Attention ALL non-voters (lazy, frustrated, pissed, etc.)

Elections STILL have consequences.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

29. What does it say about a group that doesn't want the truth told about it?

It says a lot, and none of it good.

[benld74]

31. HOW are the individuals who MAKE textbook decisions PLACED into their roles??

WHO appoints them?
HOW can they make textbook decisions for the ENTIRE state of Texas?
How long has this been going on? WHat is the history on this?

[happyslug]

57. The Texas State School Board is elected

Last edited Wed Jul 8, 2015, 11:00 PM - Edit history (2)

Each member of the board is elected by district. Thus the voters vote them in.

http://tea.texas.gov/About_TEA/Leadership/State_Board_of_Education/SBOE_-_State_Board_of_Education/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Education_Agency

Membership of the Board:

http://tea.texas.gov/index4.aspx?id=2147506719

[SunSeeker]

33. What a whitewash! The Civil War was about slavery. Period.

Lessons covering the Civil War will list the reasons behind the conflict as being, “sectionalism, states’ rights and slavery,” in that order. 

The "sectionalism" was that the South was the section that wanted to keep slavery, and opposed the section of the country that did not. The "state's right" they were fighting for was the "right" to keep slaves. The Civil War was about SLAVERY. And the South fired the first shot at Fort Sumter.

[One_Life_To_Give]

35. We went too soft in Reconstruction

Just like Germans learning about the Holocaust. Our kids should be learning what really happened and what all the fighting was about. The whitewashing of our past has been going on for far too long. We can't learn from our mistakes if we refuse to admit what we really did.

[CTyankee]

41. Hey, that sounds like the Texas I grew up in circa 1955...

I was in segregated schools all throughout my school years, went East to college and never came back to live there...

[DuckBurp]

48. This nothing new. They taught me the same thing ...

when I was a kid growing up in Texas. That the civil war was all about states' rights. That it was a war of northern aggression. Fortunately most cities in Texas (e.g., Houston, Dallas, San Antonio) are not as slanted as the rural areas.

[xocet]

51. Here is a link to the Texas Freedom Network's executive summary...

Writing to the Standards:
Reviews of Proposed Social Studies Textbooks
for Texas Public Schools

Reports from the

Texas Freedom Network Education Fund
September 2014

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Full reports available at tfn.org/TextbookReview

...


Findings
Our reviewers’ broad findings noted below are followed by a listing of specific examples of problems they identified during their examination of the textbooks up for adoption in Texas:

• A number of government and world history textbooks exaggerate Judeo‐Christian influence on the nation’s founding and Western political tradition.

• Two government textbooks include misleading information that undermines the Constitutional concept of the separation of church and state.

• Several world history and world geography textbooks include biased statements that inappropriately portray Islam and Muslims negatively.

...

http://www.tfn.org/site/DocServer/FINAL_executivesummary.pdf?docID=4625

[randys1]

52. Idiocracy is here

[uppityperson]

64. I am genuinely curious why you continue to sign up only to get banned again and again and again

Seriously, why? if you'd channel that energy somewhere positive, think of the impact you could make.

I don't expect an answer as that rarely happens, but please think about it.

[kentuck]

56. You cannot know what you have not experienced or have not been taught...

I saw an excerpt on TV yesterday where a black college student in Texas was asked about the Civil War and he did not know what it was? That's scary.

[nikto]

60. Sounds like Mission Accomplished

[nikto]

58. That sounds like the kind of "History" text that would include a 50-page chapter entitled ...

"The Greatness of Reagan".











How much ya' wanna' bet?

[IHateTheGOP]

61. Jesus I wish Texas would fucking secede.

[jtuck004]

62. Maybe we could do a kickstarter campaign and buy them printers, they could

work with any of several orgs and write their own god damn textbook.

I bet it would outsell the ones they buy from the "authorities".

[Stellar]

63. Pretty soon the history books will show how black people came to America...

on the mayflower with the rest of the pilgrims and seeking jobs as unpaid laborers.

[kyburbonkid]

65. Just another piece of skunk works we will have to undo when we take over

Bullshit will eventually rot away. This is where good teachers make a difference.