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Black history 'Underground Railroad' forms across US after DeSantis, others ban books
(www.usatoday.com)
this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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As a white person that grew up and still lives in the south, around bigotry of all flavors. Learning the truth about our past is sooooo important. The history of the human race is not usually a particularly pretty history.
But, just like we should want a better life for our kids than we had. We should also want our kids to grow up and become better adults than we were. The only way that will ever happen is if we are honest about the good, and the bad.
As a child of Asian immigrants, I learned about the horrors of Japanese interment camps way into my adult life.
It took me into my mid 30s to realize just how muted US History classes were.
Most folks had no idea about the Tulsa race massacre until the first episode of Watchmen on HBO, and there was a surge of people googling to see if it had actually happened after it aired. I even read an article about how some people in Tulsa didn’t even know about it until then.
Same. I didn't know what Juneteenth was until my company started observing it a few years ago.
And bare in mind that I am a kid of the 80s. I can't imagine the curriculum that kids have today.
I didn't know what it was because that's a silly name for celebrating the end of slavery.
Weird how we never get taught about any of the bad things white people do unless they do it to other white people, isn't it?
Unfortunately, propagating ignorance is useful as a tool to keep change from ever occurring.
I'm a white dude that lived in the South for 42 of my 51 years. I was fortunate that my parents were flower children that didn't fit in with the hate scene of the time, and they taught me to respect everyone.
Their biggest hurdle was the limit of their knowledge. Like me, they weren't taught the history of atrocities that we're perpetrated against our citizens. The advantage that I had as a parent, over what my parents had, was the good fortune to live in an age of enlightenment through information.
I did my best to make sure that I passed on that part of my parents legacy to my, now adult, children while also making sure they understood what the actual history looked like in our country. I'm hopeful they'll levy their advantages to continue to help break the cycle.
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Slavery in the US is widely taught in the US public school system. That fact alone completely devastates your idea the US does not 'teach about any of the bad things white people do unless they do it to other white people'. It is also pretty common to teach about the Japanese internment camps in WWII, albeit less so.
But the quality of that education depends on where you live. For instance I grew up in Birmingham, Al. We were taught slavery happened, and some places it was bad, and some places it was ok. We were taught about the civil war, and how the south was just fighting for states rights. But that was about it. Our history books were a decade old.
We didn’t learn about Japanese internment camps at all. If you want to really learn about the problem a non standardized book situation causes in America. Look up the states that use PragerU books. Then look up PragerU.
That's basically exactly what I learned. The civil war was all about states rights, but they refused to say what those rights were. They also "taught" that after the civil rights movement, everything was perfect and there was no racism anymore.
It is taught and Civil Rights is taught, but we didn't really learn about ongoing injustices against the black community (redlining and imminent domain, racial biases in the war on drugs, sund9wn towns, etc.) so US history classes painted a picture of it all being largely over with.
For us, they didn’t cover “modern” history at all. For example, neither Korean norVietnam wars were covered
My husband, who grew up in the south, was taught about The War of Northern Aggression (that is what his teacher called the Civil War).
I am having our kids read The Autobiography of Malcolm X and A People's History of the United States.
ETA: My kids' Elementary and Middle schools taught the book Stamped.
ETA2: Are students in Florida going to know what the Underground Railroad even was?
I didn't learn a thing about those internment camps when I was in high school. Shameful.
Grew up in Tennessee and I learned about them, but I was fortunate enough to go to one of the top public schools in the country that was pretty diverse. Fairly certain there's very few public schools of that caliber left in the southern US.
Don't look into the building of the US railroads, then. It's brutal.
As an aside, there were actually German internment camps in the US too. I don't know where all of them were, but I know there was one in East Texas.
My daughter's school just had 'Hawaiian Day' as part of 'spirit week' where every day was wear something stupid. My daughter didn't want to participate anyway, but I took it as an opportunity to teach her about how we committed genocide against the native Hawaiians. She asked why it wasn't taught in school. I didn't have a good answer besides "Republicans don't want you to know about it."
That’s a good approach. So many things are left out and passed over. Unfortunately it’s up to us as parents to fill in the gaps. Here’s my own personal brush with infamy.
I live and grew up in Birmingham, Al. In school we had a page or 2 about the civil rights movement. We learned about Bull Connor, and the water cannons, and the dogs. We learned about Fred Shuttlesworth and Rosa Parks. That was about it.
I was in my 30’s when I learned that my uncle was the last man to arrest Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. before he was assassinated. My family didn’t talk about it. My school didn’t talk about it, and it made me realize just how much of our lesson on that subject had been glossed over.
Since my uncle lived longer than King. My uncle got to say in interviews much later that “he knew he was in the presence of greatness” and “I didn’t want to arrest him but I had to”. He may have fooled someone with that nonsense. But, I know that generation of my family used the n-word daily till they died.
A history that’s as truthful as possible is super important. It doesn’t matter who it embarrasses, or upsets, because it’s already happened. We can’t change it, but we can try not to do it again.
That's why my kids know the truth about religion, especially Christianity.
Heh Yeah same here. I also try to warn them about people who say things like “X is coming for your jobs, kids, way of life, everything you hold dear, but I will protect you.”
I do t remember much coverage of Hawaii at all. Apparently came into existence with a naval base ready for wwii