[nfbmi-talk] Disgusting and Scary: Blind and PWD Should Beware

[Fred Wurtzel]

hello,

 

Sorry for the off topic post.  This is a civil rights matter and could
affect us, too.  Those old tin cups weren't so bad and what's wrong with
begging, anyway, at least it's a job.  I can hear it now.

 

mary and I just came back from Colonial Williamsburg.  jefferson, Washington
and the gang were great thinkers, but remember only white, male, landowners
could vote  So the whole liberty thing was fine for some, but had its
limits.  Judging from the article, below, which I googled from Google news
with the search terms "tennessee Textbook Slavery," was just 1 of several
newspaper and TV articles.

 

Warm Regards,

 

Fred

 

 

 

A little more than a year

after the conservative-led state board of education in Texas approved
massive changes

to its school textbooks to put slavery in a more positive light, a group of
Tea

Party activists in Tennessee has renewed its push to whitewash school
textbooks.

The group is seeking to remove references to slavery and mentions of the
country's

founders being slave owners.

According to reports

, Hal Rounds, the Fayette County attorney and spokesman for the group, said
during

a recent news conference that there has been "an awful lot of made-up
criticism about,

for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or
being hypocrites

in one way or another."

"The thing we need to focus on about the founders is that, given the social
structure

of their time, they were revolutionaries who brought liberty into a world
where it

hadn't existed, to everybody -- not all equally instantly -- and it was
their progress

that we need to look at," Rounds said,

according to The  Commercial Appeal.

During the news conference more than two dozen Tea Party activists handed
out material

that said, "Neglect and outright ill will have distorted the teaching of the
history

and character of the United States. We seek to compel the teaching of
students in

Tennessee the truth regarding the history of our nation and the nature of
its government."

And that further teaching would also include that "the Constitution created
a Republic,

not a Democracy."

The group demanded, as they had in January of last year, that Tennessee
lawmakers

change state laws governing school curricula. The group called for textbook
selection

criteria to include: "No portrayal of minority experience in the history
which actually

occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding
Fathers, or

the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of
leadership."

The latest push comes a year after the Texas Board of Education approved
revisions

to its social studies curriculum that would put a conservative twist on
history through

revised textbooks and teaching standards.

The Texas revisions include the exploration of the positive aspects of
American slavery,

lifting the stature of Jefferson S. Davis to that of Abraham Lincoln, and
amendments

to teach the

value of the separation of church and state

were

voted down

by the conservative cadre. Among other controversial amendments that have
been approved

is the study of the "unintended consequences" of affirmative action.

The board approved more than 100 amendments affecting social studies,
economics and

history classes for Texas's 4.8 million students.

The influence of the amended textbooks will likely reach far beyond the
state of

Texas. The state is one of the largest purchasers of textbooks, and many
other states

adopt Texas's books and standards.

The curriculum changes were pushed through by a majority bloc of
conservative Republicans

on the Texas school board, who have said the changes were made to add
balance to

what they believe was a left-leaning and already-skewed reflection of
American history.

"There is some method to the madness besides vindicating white privilege and
making

white students feel as though they are superior and privileged and that that
it is

the natural order of things," Gary Bledsoe, president of the Texas State
NAACP, told

The Crisis magazine last year about this time. "The agenda being pushed and
the ultimate

impact intended is to make young people automatically identify with one
political

party."

A number of groups, including the NAACP, the Texas League of United Latin
American Citizens and the Texas Association of Black Personnel in Higher
Education have joined forces

to beat back the measures, which they said would have a negative impact on
minority

children.

The groups sought a federal review of the state's public education and have
raised

claims that the Texas State Board of Education has violated federal civil
rights

laws. In a formal complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education, the
groups

charge that the new curriculum was devised to "discriminate."

The measures went as far as to replace instances of the trans-Atlantic slave
trade

with

"Atlantic triangular trade."

"It is going to be extremely psychologically harmful to African-American
young people

because they are marginalized in the curriculum," Bledsoe said. "It will
require

them to be taught things such as the benevolence of slavery and the problems
with

affirmative action rather than the good and the bad."

"They voted down a motion that requires students to be taught about the
terrorism

brought about by the Ku Klux Klan and what they did to ethnic and racial
minorities,

but they turn around and pass a provision that requires the teaching of the
violence

of the Black Panther Party."