Texas wants to rename slave trade as "Atlantic triangular trade"
The Texas Board of Education's conservative members are going on the deep end. As the one of the largest buyers of textbooks in the country, the board wants to change and re-write the history books. Smaller states who have no textbook buying power would essentially have to read and study the new Texas version of history.
The changes are ideological and distort history, but conservative Board of Education argue they are correcting a long-standing liberal bias in education. Read the running history of this very interesting "culture war" here and if you want details, read the exact changes here.
One of the most controversial changes is to deny the slave trade. The Texas Board of Education wants to refer to the slave trade as the "Atlantic triangular trade". What the he** is the "Atlantic triangular trade"? What do you call the millions of African-Americans whose ancestors came here as slaves? Descendants of triangulates?
Say what?
Capitalism can only be referred to as "free enterprise system", largely because of the negative connotations of the word "capitalism". Personally I don't think there is anything wrong with capitalism but they should consider teaching that unfettered greed can be bad for society.
The board also wants to diminish Thomas Jefferson's role in history because of his belief in the separation of church and state. Students also are required to learn that America's founding documents were influenced by various intellectual traditions, "especially biblical law," and principles laid down by Moses. From the tenor of the changes, the board wants to build the foundation for a fundamentalist Christian theocracy. It would be kinda like Iran, only it would be the right Christian kind. Social conservatives, creationists and religious fanatics who dominate the Texas State Board of Education want to redefine the Constitution as an explicitly Christian document and highlight the role of God in the establishment of the US.
-snip
Read more:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/ybenjamin/detail?blogid=150&entry_id=63935#ixzz0obnuBerU