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On February 18 2015 11:39 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2015 11:31 Nyxisto wrote:
Sounds like a lot of white guilt nonsense to me. It's probably true, but it's pretty clearly so heavily emphasized to push the idea that white people were all racist imperialists, and native Americans were all peace-loving egalitarian saints.
I don't know about you, but I wasn't alive 300 years ago. I couldn't have been involved.
You do know what history class means right? Usually it's about stuff that happened many years ago. And how you could even use the term 'white guilt' given the actual history of the US just astonishes me. Don't get me wrong, every slave-owner and every soldier who participated in the Indian Wars should feel pretty guilty. But there's none of them around anymore. Making people feel guilty for something they could not possibly have been involved in sounds like white guilt to me.
So you whitewash history and down play the the parts of people acting like assholes? Its not about guilt, its about knowing what happened in the past and learning from it. The history of humanity isn't all sunshine and rainbows, no matter what part of the world you look at and ignoring or down playing the dark side of any region's history is a huge disservice to students.
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On February 18 2015 14:37 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2015 14:34 coverpunch wrote:On February 18 2015 14:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 18 2015 13:43 coverpunch wrote:On February 18 2015 13:26 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 18 2015 12:25 coverpunch wrote:For anyone who wants to debate this topic, I would urge you first to read the two source documents in question and how the curricula differ. AP US History curriculum for the 2014-2015 school year Oklahoma state bill with curriculum outline in section B Thanks for those, spurred me to read Frederick Douglass' Independence Day speech which just blew my mind. That guy should have his own national holiday. He is an American hero in most every sense of the word. Who knows how long it would of taken America to wise up had he not bootstrapped his way into the conversation. It's words like his which eventually helped me square those things I mentioned before. I don't know how he could walk with balls so huge.... What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.
In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenceless, and in diabolical intent this Fugitive Slave Law stands alone in the annals of tyrannical legislation. I doubt if there be another nation on the globe having the brass and the baseness to put such a law on the statute-book. If any man in this assembly thinks differently from me in this matter, and feels able to disprove my statements, I will gladly confront him at any suitable time and place he may select. The Oklahoma list is just a bunch of documents that must be included. But it's not really a curriculum. I don't know how someone could use it "instead" of one? I think it is a pedagogical difference in how this state rep wants history to be taught. The AP curriculum is in line with the Common Core in that it is a technique-driven pedagogy, where the state rep wants to go back to the old fashioned way of teaching history by referring to facts and milestones. The AP curriculum is quite obviously progressive in nature for the facts and themes that it does want to include, while the state rep wants US history to be basically a collection of America's greatest hits. They're not diametrically opposed to each other but it's quite clear they're not on the same page, and both want students to walk away from the class concluding very different things about US history. You could have the AP curriculum incorporate those documents into its curriculum and still complete its own goals, but it would dilute the fact that the current curriculum is weighted towards trends in minority history and away from the Great Men view of history. I find it somewhat unsettling that very few presidents are named explicitly in the curriculum (briefly scanning, only Washington, Lincoln, FDR, LBJ, Reagan, and W Bush). Abigail Adams is mentioned but not her husband or her son, even though both were president. The oppression of minorities in wartime is given far heavier weight than actual casualties fighting the wars or their progression, and no mention is given of the experience of US soldiers in war. But I suppose you could chalk this last point up to the fact that a US history class is necessarily a class about domestic US history and the experiences at home. It's also strange to see more female and black heroes of history mentioned than white men who helped shape US politics. I'm not sure what is included on the OK list that isn't included in the other curriculum? It's not like the curriculum is exclusive? If some president or the experience of the soldier in war is a good way to teach something they are welcome to do it? I'm not sure how much time there is to actually analyze/understand what all those words mean (from the OK list) as opposed to just remembering the names and dates and maybe a hint at what it was actually about or the context it emerged from. How/where are you gathering that black/female heroes are/would be mentioned more than white men (as if every facet of American life isn't already plastered with them)? Hence my saying they're not diametrically opposed. The AP curriculum does not explicitly mention many of the documents and major milestones that the OK state bill does, but it could be included in a textbook. It's unclear how exhaustive the AP curriculum document is. The bill also doesn't say more than "the appropriate grade-level study", which is pretty vague. The AP curriculum explicitly mentions more black and female heroes than it does white men (or at least it's very close) in the framework. But overall it mentions very few people by name and seems to prefer looking at broader trends when possible. Actual textbooks could be and probably are very different. To me then it makes way more sense (if education had anything to do with the dispute) to sort that out. As it stands, it looks like legislators are just throwing a temper tantrum over a problem they don't even know exists without presenting any real remedy?
Well, we'll have to see if this is a serious measure when it goes to the floor and if anyone here bothers to follow up on the story or if it was cover for something else. The same committee passed bills delaying teacher assessments and suspending A-F grades.
If I recall, Kentucky did the same thing to pass Common Core in the first place. They got everyone all excited about intelligent design but didn't end up passing it, citing competitiveness questions. Nobody even saw the much bigger sea change that was Common Core coming until it was already implemented.
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On February 18 2015 11:51 Millitron wrote:
[...]
Last, do you really believe America could've become the thriving superpower it is today if it weren't for westward expansion?
[...].
Holy crap, please don't let that ever be a reasoning for wether or not something should be included in history lessons...
In the sense ofOn February 18 2015 12:07 GreenHorizons wrote:
[...]
I like the Holocaust example. Your (milli) argument is basically like "But do they teach about all the bad stuff Jews did before the Holocaust...? What about the things Hitler was right about..?? Sounds like a bunch of German guilt crap to me!" let's flesh that out as well.
Picture a world in which WW2 had ended a little different. Picture, maybe 60 or 70 years later some guy on the internet saying that we shouldn't be learning about all the bad things because the (fictional) place in which he's living in wouldn't be the same anymore...
Like GreenHorizons said there's obviously a massive difference here but come on... that just can't be a reason to leave something out in history class.
What about japanese and their "comfort women" as well as the shitstorm they're (rightfully!) getting for some of the rightwing politicians who want to leave that part out because it's shaming japanese people nowadays that havn't done any of that? There's noone left alive who raped or killed anyone during that period either but trying to tell a story that makes it look nicer is quite grotesque in that regard as well.
Think about the spanish in southern america, I doubt (guess on my part) they're completly ignoring that in their classes.
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On February 18 2015 14:49 Slaughter wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2015 11:39 Millitron wrote:On February 18 2015 11:31 Nyxisto wrote:
Sounds like a lot of white guilt nonsense to me. It's probably true, but it's pretty clearly so heavily emphasized to push the idea that white people were all racist imperialists, and native Americans were all peace-loving egalitarian saints.
I don't know about you, but I wasn't alive 300 years ago. I couldn't have been involved.
You do know what history class means right? Usually it's about stuff that happened many years ago. And how you could even use the term 'white guilt' given the actual history of the US just astonishes me. Don't get me wrong, every slave-owner and every soldier who participated in the Indian Wars should feel pretty guilty. But there's none of them around anymore. Making people feel guilty for something they could not possibly have been involved in sounds like white guilt to me. So you whitewash history and down play the the parts of people acting like assholes? Its not about guilt, its about knowing what happened in the past and learning from it. The history of humanity isn't all sunshine and rainbows, no matter what part of the world you look at and ignoring or down playing the dark side of any region's history is a huge disservice to students.
basically this.
the TPM/tulsa world article even quotes this dan fisher guy as "the new curriculum basically eradicates american exceptionalism"...
people, maybe it should not have been there in the first place? critical thinking and honest reflection about yourself will carry you farther than blind trust and "I am so awesome, I don't care what others say about me".
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On February 18 2015 14:49 Slaughter wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2015 11:39 Millitron wrote:On February 18 2015 11:31 Nyxisto wrote:
Sounds like a lot of white guilt nonsense to me. It's probably true, but it's pretty clearly so heavily emphasized to push the idea that white people were all racist imperialists, and native Americans were all peace-loving egalitarian saints.
I don't know about you, but I wasn't alive 300 years ago. I couldn't have been involved.
You do know what history class means right? Usually it's about stuff that happened many years ago. And how you could even use the term 'white guilt' given the actual history of the US just astonishes me. Don't get me wrong, every slave-owner and every soldier who participated in the Indian Wars should feel pretty guilty. But there's none of them around anymore. Making people feel guilty for something they could not possibly have been involved in sounds like white guilt to me. So you whitewash history and down play the the parts of people acting like assholes? Its not about guilt, its about knowing what happened in the past and learning from it. The history of humanity isn't all sunshine and rainbows, no matter what part of the world you look at and ignoring or down playing the dark side of any region's history is a huge disservice to students.
But let's be honest, if a white guy came out and said "I know that my ancestors owned slaves, massacred native peoples around the world and destroyed their cultures, and ravaged natural habitats to feed their greed for resources, and I don't feel bad at all. I just won't do it myself", we would think that guy was a total dickhead, yeah?
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No. I don't feel bad about it.
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On February 18 2015 16:37 coverpunch wrote:
See what I mean? lol
Learning about white privilege as it's related to history, or the sins of ones fathers, isn't about shaming/guilting white people for things that happened in the distant and not so distant past. It's about learning how to do what Frederick Douglass, MLK Jr. and others were talking about, in including all Americans (and to the extent reasonable all people) in the ideals set out by the best of us.
There is a sense of guilt associated with enjoying all the privilege without any conscious for learning about how it came to be or how to use that privilege to ensure all Americans are granted the righteous dignity our founders intended (even if they and generations afterwords didn't/don't realize their hypocrisy in leaving out so many). Let alone the people who enjoy white privilege and show disdain for the notion that it exists and/or anyone who promotes awareness of it.
So the comparable phrase that should elicit shame would look something like "I don't have to learn about slavery and all that colored history/white privilege because it's over now and I wasn't alive for it." which should generate the denigration you mentioned.
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On February 18 2015 11:51 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2015 11:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 18 2015 11:27 Millitron wrote:On February 18 2015 11:20 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 18 2015 11:04 Millitron wrote:On February 18 2015 11:01 Mohdoo wrote:http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/oklahoma-ban-ap-us-historyHow in the hell can republicans support shit like this? State Rep. Dan Fisher (R) introduced a bill at the beginning of the month that keeps the state from funding AP U.S. History unless the College Board changes the curriculum. The bill also orders the state Department of Education to establish a U.S. History program that would replace the AP course.
Since the College Board released a new course framework for U.S. history in October 2012, conservative backlash against the course has grown significantly. The Republican National Committee condemned the course and its "consistently negative view of American history" in August. Numerous states and school districts have now taken action to denounce the exam.
Do you know the curriculum of the course? It's possible it actually is biased against America. White guilt is definitely a thing, and is just as ignorant as the white man's burden. "Instead of striving to build a 'City upon a Hill,' as generations of students have been taught, the colonists are portrayed as bigots who developed 'a rigid racial hierarchy' that was in turn derived from 'a strong belief in British racial and cultural superiority,'" the letter reads. "The new Framework continues its theme of oppression and conflict by reinterpreting Manifest Destiny from a belief that America had a mission to spread democracy and new technologies across the continent to something that 'was built on a belief in white racial superiority and a sense of American cultural superiority.'" SourceI thought manifest destiny was bullshit every time I heard it. This sounds a lot more accurate than what I was taught. Sounds like a lot of white guilt nonsense to me. It's probably true, but it's pretty clearly so heavily emphasized to push the idea that white people were all racist imperialists, and native Americans were all peace-loving egalitarian saints. I don't know about you, but I wasn't alive 300 years ago. I couldn't have been involved. Probably hard for you to imagine but particularly for young black/native/female students it's kind of hard to square the "freedom loving" forefathers and all the blind pro America propaganda with the fact that if those kids were around back then the forefathers would of thought that they were property/subhuman. Hard to love and revere someone who would of thought you were practically worthless because of your color or gender. Hearing how great of people they were and how they were/are celebrated and things like "manifest destiny' being painted as a positive experience is also hard to reconcile with the fact that for native and black students they are learning about the systematic extermination and subjugation of their ancestors in this country. So while they deal with finding out many of the most revered people in their home country systematically oppressed, murdered, and enslaved their ancestors, we have people worried about it pushing "white guilt"... If those student's can't separate the founding fathers personal lives from their philosophies, they shouldn't be in AP history. A good idea is a good idea no matter who says it. What this course probably doesn't cover is that Native Americans fought each other constantly, and black people were the ones selling slaves. The slave trade had been going on for hundreds, if not thousands of years before Europeans ever showed up in West Africa. Practically everyone back then would be considered monsters by modern standards.
Native Americans were mostly wiped out by disease. Even if Europeans had treated them like royalty, they still would've been decimated because nobody at the time had any idea about germ theory.
Last, do you really believe America could've become the thriving superpower it is today if it weren't for westward expansion?Show nested quote +On February 18 2015 11:42 Nyxisto wrote:
Given the challenges African-Americans face today in the country I think the topic is more relevant than ever. That racism is a thing of the past is completely delusional. Keep making them feel like victims and it never will be a thing of the past.
The African slave trade as conducted by Africans before the arrival of the Europeans was an entirely different social ecology complete with different property and debt regimes. You seem to be intimating that Africans were already capturing hundreds of thousands of people as slaves and it just so happened that the Europeans came along in the 17th and 18th centuries and fulfilled an unmet demand. The reality is that Europeans came in and completely reoriented African societies, creating systems of debt and privilege that incentivized the massive selling and kidnapping of peoples by powerful Africans who interfaced with the Europeans in high-profile European trading ports.
At the height of the slave trade British ships were bringing in large quantities of cloth, iron, and copper to trade for slaves to bring to the new world. But in order to trade those goods, they had to set up a system of debts amongst the locals in order to leverage their increased capital positions and at the same time reduce risks. So they would demand security in the form of debt pawns, wherein their labor in captivity kind of substituted for interest. That kind of debt peonage was similar to form of slavery that existed in Africa before the Europeans showed up, a slavery that was based on raiding villages and viewed captives as a kind of human resource, separate from chattel, and tied to honor and dignity. "How much" a person is worth is a complicated process, because human beings are both priceless, but also must be given a price, like you can see in primitive marriage transactions and the like. The point here is that this human economy flavor of slavery is both qualitatively different and different in scope from the massive shipping of chattel slaves across the Atlantic.
As Europeans sunk their claws deeper into the trade and debt networks dotted along the African coasts, the distinction between debt pawns and chattel slowly eroded. African peoples there responded with wars, raids, massive fines, and general chaos in order to feed the insatiable demand. It was a total societal collapse in many cases, with the breakdown of traditional norms, normal chains of trade, and ways of life. So saying something like, "slavery has existed for thousands of years (and the Americans in the 17th-19th centuries were just continuing this almost noble tradition)," is to speak a grotesque misunderstanding.
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I always find it absurd to look at history, especially distant one, through the lenses of modern morality. Morality in human societies has evolved over time, even if some people cannot seem to accept it. If we have to judge historic persons morally at all, we have to judge them by the standards of their time.
Also both guilt and pride are misplaced in history. We can learn from what our ancestors did, but neither have we helped with their achievements nor have we perpetrated their sins.
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On February 18 2015 19:01 Maenander wrote:
I always find it absurd to look at history, especially distant one, through the lenses of modern morality. Morality in human societies has evolved over time, even if some people cannot seem to accept it. If we have to judge historic persons morally at all, we have to judge them by the standards of their time.
Also both guilt and pride are misplaced in history. We can learn from what our ancestors did, but neither have we helped with their achievements nor have we perpetrated their sins.
Slavery (particularly as practiced by the US) was abhorrent even in it's time around the world.
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On February 18 2015 17:09 GreenHorizons wrote:Learning about white privilege as it's related to history, or the sins of ones fathers, isn't about shaming/guilting white people for things that happened in the distant and not so distant past. It's about learning how to do what Frederick Douglass, MLK Jr. and others were talking about, in including all Americans (and to the extent reasonable all people) in the ideals set out by the best of us. There is a sense of guilt associated with enjoying all the privilege without any conscious for learning about how it came to be or how to use that privilege to ensure all Americans are granted the righteous dignity our founders intended (even if they and generations afterwords didn't/don't realize their hypocrisy in leaving out so many). Let alone the people who enjoy white privilege and show disdain for the notion that it exists and/or anyone who promotes awareness of it. So the comparable phrase that should elicit shame would look something like "I don't have to learn about slavery and all that colored history/white privilege because it's over now and I wasn't alive for it." which should generate the denigration you mentioned.
I feel it would be difficult for you to square this away with the fact that you seem to think many of these issues are still relevant today or that you frequently rail against the rich for perpetuating inequality. So I find it quite odd that you would argue against a sense of guilt since many white people live with a privilege based on the wrongs of their ancestors. Being aware of the history is far more guilt-inducing than ignorance, and it feels like you might be trying to give some groups the double-whammy of telling them they're ignorant and then teaching them your approved version of history.
I'm not taking the position that the curriculum needs to be changed to make way for American exceptionalism, but I think it's facetious to insist history is being taught pedagogically as an objective social science.
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On February 18 2015 19:59 coverpunch wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2015 17:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 18 2015 16:37 coverpunch wrote:
See what I mean? lol Learning about white privilege as it's related to history, or the sins of ones fathers, isn't about shaming/guilting white people for things that happened in the distant and not so distant past. It's about learning how to do what Frederick Douglass, MLK Jr. and others were talking about, in including all Americans (and to the extent reasonable all people) in the ideals set out by the best of us. There is a sense of guilt associated with enjoying all the privilege without any conscious for learning about how it came to be or how to use that privilege to ensure all Americans are granted the righteous dignity our founders intended (even if they and generations afterwords didn't/don't realize their hypocrisy in leaving out so many). Let alone the people who enjoy white privilege and show disdain for the notion that it exists and/or anyone who promotes awareness of it. So the comparable phrase that should elicit shame would look something like "I don't have to learn about slavery and all that colored history/white privilege because it's over now and I wasn't alive for it." which should generate the denigration you mentioned. I feel it would be difficult for you to square this away with the fact that you seem to think many of these issues are still relevant today or that you frequently rail against the rich for perpetuating inequality. So I find it quite odd that you would argue against a sense of guilt since many white people live with a privilege based on the wrongs of their ancestors. Being aware of the history is far more guilt-inducing than ignorance, and it feels like you might be trying to give some groups the double-whammy of telling them they're ignorant and then teaching them your approved version of history. I'm not taking the position that the curriculum needs to be changed to make way for American exceptionalism, but I think it's facetious to insist history is being taught pedagogically as an objective social science.
That's the MO of certain posters here, if you haven't noticed :p
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On February 18 2015 20:07 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2015 19:59 coverpunch wrote:On February 18 2015 17:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 18 2015 16:37 coverpunch wrote:
See what I mean? lol Learning about white privilege as it's related to history, or the sins of ones fathers, isn't about shaming/guilting white people for things that happened in the distant and not so distant past. It's about learning how to do what Frederick Douglass, MLK Jr. and others were talking about, in including all Americans (and to the extent reasonable all people) in the ideals set out by the best of us. There is a sense of guilt associated with enjoying all the privilege without any conscious for learning about how it came to be or how to use that privilege to ensure all Americans are granted the righteous dignity our founders intended (even if they and generations afterwords didn't/don't realize their hypocrisy in leaving out so many). Let alone the people who enjoy white privilege and show disdain for the notion that it exists and/or anyone who promotes awareness of it. So the comparable phrase that should elicit shame would look something like "I don't have to learn about slavery and all that colored history/white privilege because it's over now and I wasn't alive for it." which should generate the denigration you mentioned. I feel it would be difficult for you to square this away with the fact that you seem to think many of these issues are still relevant today or that you frequently rail against the rich for perpetuating inequality. So I find it quite odd that you would argue against a sense of guilt since many white people live with a privilege based on the wrongs of their ancestors. Being aware of the history is far more guilt-inducing than ignorance, and it feels like you might be trying to give some groups the double-whammy of telling them they're ignorant and then teaching them your approved version of history. I'm not taking the position that the curriculum needs to be changed to make way for American exceptionalism, but I think it's facetious to insist history is being taught pedagogically as an objective social science. That's the MO of certain posters here, if you haven't noticed :p
But you know, it's okay if we're being open that it is an editorial remark, an opinion, or a personal perspective. The kinds of thing where the value is judged by how interesting it is or if it makes us think about things in a different way.
What peeves me is doing this and claiming it is objective, that the only interest in it is scientific or historical fact or worse, that it is part of the methodology to discovering scientific or historical fact. You can't call it the search for truth if you think you're already in possession of it.
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Since when did this become about the search for truth?
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On February 18 2015 17:52 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2015 11:51 Millitron wrote:On February 18 2015 11:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 18 2015 11:27 Millitron wrote:On February 18 2015 11:20 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 18 2015 11:04 Millitron wrote:On February 18 2015 11:01 Mohdoo wrote:http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/oklahoma-ban-ap-us-historyHow in the hell can republicans support shit like this? State Rep. Dan Fisher (R) introduced a bill at the beginning of the month that keeps the state from funding AP U.S. History unless the College Board changes the curriculum. The bill also orders the state Department of Education to establish a U.S. History program that would replace the AP course.
Since the College Board released a new course framework for U.S. history in October 2012, conservative backlash against the course has grown significantly. The Republican National Committee condemned the course and its "consistently negative view of American history" in August. Numerous states and school districts have now taken action to denounce the exam.
Do you know the curriculum of the course? It's possible it actually is biased against America. White guilt is definitely a thing, and is just as ignorant as the white man's burden. "Instead of striving to build a 'City upon a Hill,' as generations of students have been taught, the colonists are portrayed as bigots who developed 'a rigid racial hierarchy' that was in turn derived from 'a strong belief in British racial and cultural superiority,'" the letter reads. "The new Framework continues its theme of oppression and conflict by reinterpreting Manifest Destiny from a belief that America had a mission to spread democracy and new technologies across the continent to something that 'was built on a belief in white racial superiority and a sense of American cultural superiority.'" SourceI thought manifest destiny was bullshit every time I heard it. This sounds a lot more accurate than what I was taught. Sounds like a lot of white guilt nonsense to me. It's probably true, but it's pretty clearly so heavily emphasized to push the idea that white people were all racist imperialists, and native Americans were all peace-loving egalitarian saints. I don't know about you, but I wasn't alive 300 years ago. I couldn't have been involved. Probably hard for you to imagine but particularly for young black/native/female students it's kind of hard to square the "freedom loving" forefathers and all the blind pro America propaganda with the fact that if those kids were around back then the forefathers would of thought that they were property/subhuman. Hard to love and revere someone who would of thought you were practically worthless because of your color or gender. Hearing how great of people they were and how they were/are celebrated and things like "manifest destiny' being painted as a positive experience is also hard to reconcile with the fact that for native and black students they are learning about the systematic extermination and subjugation of their ancestors in this country. So while they deal with finding out many of the most revered people in their home country systematically oppressed, murdered, and enslaved their ancestors, we have people worried about it pushing "white guilt"... If those student's can't separate the founding fathers personal lives from their philosophies, they shouldn't be in AP history. A good idea is a good idea no matter who says it. What this course probably doesn't cover is that Native Americans fought each other constantly, and black people were the ones selling slaves. The slave trade had been going on for hundreds, if not thousands of years before Europeans ever showed up in West Africa. Practically everyone back then would be considered monsters by modern standards.
Native Americans were mostly wiped out by disease. Even if Europeans had treated them like royalty, they still would've been decimated because nobody at the time had any idea about germ theory.
Last, do you really believe America could've become the thriving superpower it is today if it weren't for westward expansion?On February 18 2015 11:42 Nyxisto wrote:
Given the challenges African-Americans face today in the country I think the topic is more relevant than ever. That racism is a thing of the past is completely delusional. Keep making them feel like victims and it never will be a thing of the past. The African slave trade as conducted by Africans before the arrival of the Europeans was an entirely different social ecology complete with different property and debt regimes. You seem to be intimating that Africans were already capturing hundreds of thousands of people as slaves and it just so happened that the Europeans came along in the 17th and 18th centuries and fulfilled an unmet demand. The reality is that Europeans came in and completely reoriented African societies, creating systems of debt and privilege that incentivized the massive selling and kidnapping of peoples by powerful Africans who interfaced with the Europeans in high-profile European trading ports. At the height of the slave trade British ships were bringing in large quantities of cloth, iron, and copper to trade for slaves to bring to the new world. But in order to trade those goods, they had to set up a system of debts amongst the locals in order to leverage their increased capital positions and at the same time reduce risks. So they would demand security in the form of debt pawns, wherein their labor in captivity kind of substituted for interest. That kind of debt peonage was similar to form of slavery that existed in Africa before the Europeans showed up, a slavery that was based on raiding villages and viewed captives as a kind of human resource, separate from chattel, and tied to honor and dignity. "How much" a person is worth is a complicated process, because human beings are both priceless, but also must be given a price, like you can see in primitive marriage transactions and the like. The point here is that this human economy flavor of slavery is both qualitatively different and different in scope from the massive shipping of chattel slaves across the Atlantic. As Europeans sunk their claws deeper into the trade and debt networks dotted along the African coasts, the distinction between debt pawns and chattel slowly eroded. African peoples there responded with wars, raids, massive fines, and general chaos in order to feed the insatiable demand. It was a total societal collapse in many cases, with the breakdown of traditional norms, normal chains of trade, and ways of life. So saying something like, "slavery has existed for thousands of years (and the Americans in the 17th-19th centuries were just continuing this almost noble tradition)," is to speak a grotesque misunderstanding.
Truth to be told people were always being dicks to eachother. Abusing others and using them for their own needs. I am not going to apologize for the facts that white people were better at this than any other. Hell, most of my family comes from peasantry lines so they were the ones being abused. The point is i dont think white Americans should feel ashemed for crimes done by their forefathers.
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On February 18 2015 16:21 coverpunch wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2015 14:49 Slaughter wrote:On February 18 2015 11:39 Millitron wrote:On February 18 2015 11:31 Nyxisto wrote:
Sounds like a lot of white guilt nonsense to me. It's probably true, but it's pretty clearly so heavily emphasized to push the idea that white people were all racist imperialists, and native Americans were all peace-loving egalitarian saints.
I don't know about you, but I wasn't alive 300 years ago. I couldn't have been involved.
You do know what history class means right? Usually it's about stuff that happened many years ago. And how you could even use the term 'white guilt' given the actual history of the US just astonishes me. Don't get me wrong, every slave-owner and every soldier who participated in the Indian Wars should feel pretty guilty. But there's none of them around anymore. Making people feel guilty for something they could not possibly have been involved in sounds like white guilt to me. So you whitewash history and down play the the parts of people acting like assholes? Its not about guilt, its about knowing what happened in the past and learning from it. The history of humanity isn't all sunshine and rainbows, no matter what part of the world you look at and ignoring or down playing the dark side of any region's history is a huge disservice to students. But let's be honest, if a white guy came out and said "I know that my ancestors owned slaves, massacred native peoples around the world and destroyed their cultures, and ravaged natural habitats to feed their greed for resources, and I don't feel bad at all. I just won't do it myself", we would think that guy was a total dickhead, yeah?
Let's do a test.
I am german. I know about World War 2, I know about the holocaust. And i do not feel guilty about it, because it happened 45 years before i was born, and 20 years before my parents were born. I think the whole affair was disgusting and evil, but it also was definitively NOT my fault, causality says that there is absolutely no way i could have affected any of that in any way. And thus i do not need to feel guilty.
Do i look like a dickhead saying that?
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On February 18 2015 20:59 Silvanel wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2015 17:52 IgnE wrote:On February 18 2015 11:51 Millitron wrote:On February 18 2015 11:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 18 2015 11:27 Millitron wrote:On February 18 2015 11:20 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 18 2015 11:04 Millitron wrote:On February 18 2015 11:01 Mohdoo wrote:http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/oklahoma-ban-ap-us-historyHow in the hell can republicans support shit like this? State Rep. Dan Fisher (R) introduced a bill at the beginning of the month that keeps the state from funding AP U.S. History unless the College Board changes the curriculum. The bill also orders the state Department of Education to establish a U.S. History program that would replace the AP course.
Since the College Board released a new course framework for U.S. history in October 2012, conservative backlash against the course has grown significantly. The Republican National Committee condemned the course and its "consistently negative view of American history" in August. Numerous states and school districts have now taken action to denounce the exam.
Do you know the curriculum of the course? It's possible it actually is biased against America. White guilt is definitely a thing, and is just as ignorant as the white man's burden. "Instead of striving to build a 'City upon a Hill,' as generations of students have been taught, the colonists are portrayed as bigots who developed 'a rigid racial hierarchy' that was in turn derived from 'a strong belief in British racial and cultural superiority,'" the letter reads. "The new Framework continues its theme of oppression and conflict by reinterpreting Manifest Destiny from a belief that America had a mission to spread democracy and new technologies across the continent to something that 'was built on a belief in white racial superiority and a sense of American cultural superiority.'" SourceI thought manifest destiny was bullshit every time I heard it. This sounds a lot more accurate than what I was taught. Sounds like a lot of white guilt nonsense to me. It's probably true, but it's pretty clearly so heavily emphasized to push the idea that white people were all racist imperialists, and native Americans were all peace-loving egalitarian saints. I don't know about you, but I wasn't alive 300 years ago. I couldn't have been involved. Probably hard for you to imagine but particularly for young black/native/female students it's kind of hard to square the "freedom loving" forefathers and all the blind pro America propaganda with the fact that if those kids were around back then the forefathers would of thought that they were property/subhuman. Hard to love and revere someone who would of thought you were practically worthless because of your color or gender. Hearing how great of people they were and how they were/are celebrated and things like "manifest destiny' being painted as a positive experience is also hard to reconcile with the fact that for native and black students they are learning about the systematic extermination and subjugation of their ancestors in this country. So while they deal with finding out many of the most revered people in their home country systematically oppressed, murdered, and enslaved their ancestors, we have people worried about it pushing "white guilt"... If those student's can't separate the founding fathers personal lives from their philosophies, they shouldn't be in AP history. A good idea is a good idea no matter who says it. What this course probably doesn't cover is that Native Americans fought each other constantly, and black people were the ones selling slaves. The slave trade had been going on for hundreds, if not thousands of years before Europeans ever showed up in West Africa. Practically everyone back then would be considered monsters by modern standards.
Native Americans were mostly wiped out by disease. Even if Europeans had treated them like royalty, they still would've been decimated because nobody at the time had any idea about germ theory.
Last, do you really believe America could've become the thriving superpower it is today if it weren't for westward expansion?On February 18 2015 11:42 Nyxisto wrote:
Given the challenges African-Americans face today in the country I think the topic is more relevant than ever. That racism is a thing of the past is completely delusional. Keep making them feel like victims and it never will be a thing of the past. The African slave trade as conducted by Africans before the arrival of the Europeans was an entirely different social ecology complete with different property and debt regimes. You seem to be intimating that Africans were already capturing hundreds of thousands of people as slaves and it just so happened that the Europeans came along in the 17th and 18th centuries and fulfilled an unmet demand. The reality is that Europeans came in and completely reoriented African societies, creating systems of debt and privilege that incentivized the massive selling and kidnapping of peoples by powerful Africans who interfaced with the Europeans in high-profile European trading ports. At the height of the slave trade British ships were bringing in large quantities of cloth, iron, and copper to trade for slaves to bring to the new world. But in order to trade those goods, they had to set up a system of debts amongst the locals in order to leverage their increased capital positions and at the same time reduce risks. So they would demand security in the form of debt pawns, wherein their labor in captivity kind of substituted for interest. That kind of debt peonage was similar to form of slavery that existed in Africa before the Europeans showed up, a slavery that was based on raiding villages and viewed captives as a kind of human resource, separate from chattel, and tied to honor and dignity. "How much" a person is worth is a complicated process, because human beings are both priceless, but also must be given a price, like you can see in primitive marriage transactions and the like. The point here is that this human economy flavor of slavery is both qualitatively different and different in scope from the massive shipping of chattel slaves across the Atlantic. As Europeans sunk their claws deeper into the trade and debt networks dotted along the African coasts, the distinction between debt pawns and chattel slowly eroded. African peoples there responded with wars, raids, massive fines, and general chaos in order to feed the insatiable demand. It was a total societal collapse in many cases, with the breakdown of traditional norms, normal chains of trade, and ways of life. So saying something like, "slavery has existed for thousands of years (and the Americans in the 17th-19th centuries were just continuing this almost noble tradition)," is to speak a grotesque misunderstanding. Truth to be told people were always being dicks to eachother. Abusing others and using them for their own needs. I am not going to apologize for the facts that white people were better at this than any other. Hell, most of my family comes from peasantry lines so they were the ones being abused. The point is i dont think white Americans should feel ashemed for crimes done by their forefathers.
Where did I ask for an apology? What are you talking about?
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On February 18 2015 21:09 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2015 16:21 coverpunch wrote:On February 18 2015 14:49 Slaughter wrote:On February 18 2015 11:39 Millitron wrote:On February 18 2015 11:31 Nyxisto wrote:
Sounds like a lot of white guilt nonsense to me. It's probably true, but it's pretty clearly so heavily emphasized to push the idea that white people were all racist imperialists, and native Americans were all peace-loving egalitarian saints.
I don't know about you, but I wasn't alive 300 years ago. I couldn't have been involved.
You do know what history class means right? Usually it's about stuff that happened many years ago. And how you could even use the term 'white guilt' given the actual history of the US just astonishes me. Don't get me wrong, every slave-owner and every soldier who participated in the Indian Wars should feel pretty guilty. But there's none of them around anymore. Making people feel guilty for something they could not possibly have been involved in sounds like white guilt to me. So you whitewash history and down play the the parts of people acting like assholes? Its not about guilt, its about knowing what happened in the past and learning from it. The history of humanity isn't all sunshine and rainbows, no matter what part of the world you look at and ignoring or down playing the dark side of any region's history is a huge disservice to students. But let's be honest, if a white guy came out and said "I know that my ancestors owned slaves, massacred native peoples around the world and destroyed their cultures, and ravaged natural habitats to feed their greed for resources, and I don't feel bad at all. I just won't do it myself", we would think that guy was a total dickhead, yeah? Let's do a test. I am german. I know about World War 2, I know about the holocaust. And i do not feel guilty about it, because it happened 45 years before i was born, and 20 years before my parents were born. I think the whole affair was disgusting and evil, but it also was definitively NOT my fault, causality says that there is absolutely no way i could have affected any of that in any way. And thus i do not need to feel guilty. Do i look like a dickhead saying that?
I dunno but this makes my point, because you totally omit the elephant in the room, which is what your grandparents did during the war. If they were just German civilians who survived the war, then no, you have nothing to regret in your family. If your grandfather was an SS trooper lining people up at Dachau, then we have a very different question of guilt, don't we?
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On February 18 2015 19:59 coverpunch wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2015 17:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 18 2015 16:37 coverpunch wrote:
See what I mean? lol Learning about white privilege as it's related to history, or the sins of ones fathers, isn't about shaming/guilting white people for things that happened in the distant and not so distant past. It's about learning how to do what Frederick Douglass, MLK Jr. and others were talking about, in including all Americans (and to the extent reasonable all people) in the ideals set out by the best of us. There is a sense of guilt associated with enjoying all the privilege without any conscious for learning about how it came to be or how to use that privilege to ensure all Americans are granted the righteous dignity our founders intended (even if they and generations afterwords didn't/don't realize their hypocrisy in leaving out so many). Let alone the people who enjoy white privilege and show disdain for the notion that it exists and/or anyone who promotes awareness of it. So the comparable phrase that should elicit shame would look something like "I don't have to learn about slavery and all that colored history/white privilege because it's over now and I wasn't alive for it." which should generate the denigration you mentioned. I feel it would be difficult for you to square this away with the fact that you seem to think many of these issues are still relevant today or that you frequently rail against the rich for perpetuating inequality. So I find it quite odd that you would argue against a sense of guilt since many white people live with a privilege based on the wrongs of their ancestors. Being aware of the history is far more guilt-inducing than ignorance, and it feels like you might be trying to give some groups the double-whammy of telling them they're ignorant and then teaching them your approved version of history. I'm not taking the position that the curriculum needs to be changed to make way for American exceptionalism, but I think it's facetious to insist history is being taught pedagogically as an objective social science.
I actually want way more discussion. For contentious issues I would love to see at minimum debate projects where people take opposing sides of an issue. I think there is plenty of room for debate about what represents white privilege and what doesn't. As it isn't an objective social science, I think the most important aspect along with actual content is developing the skills outlined in the framework.
Okay reading it more in depth and realizing what it really was, this contention or worry is even more dumb than I thought. It isn't even a curriculum (at least in the traditional sense of the word). It's just the things colleges expect you to know. Teachers can still teach practically anything they (or their schools) want. So long as they teach them the skills.
The concept outline does not attempt to provide a list of groups,
individuals, dates, or historical details, because it is each teacher’s responsibility
to select relevant historical evidence of his or her own choosing to explore the
key concepts of each period in depth. These concepts are open to differences
in interpretation
The AP scoring rubrics award points based on accurate use of historical
evidence, not on whether a student takes the concept outline’s exact position on
an issue. Accordingly, teachers may wish to use these concepts as opportunities
for students to examine primary and secondary source material and participate
in discussion and debate.
I'm not against analyzing the listed documents but I also don't want to see a bunch of lame wrote memorization with only random pieces remaining by summers end. If you had to sacrifice some in-class time of passing out photocopies of speeches and other documents in order to discuss what the Civil War was about and who started it. And... encouraged students to try to win the argument from the "War of northern Aggression" side I think that would be many times better.
Let them research and find differing accounts and try to build the South's case. In building both cases and hearing both sides and discussing the strengths and weaknesses of each others arguments and their historical support they will gain a far more comprehensive understanding of the history. The same can be for whatever controversy people are worried about.
Allow/force them to develop the skills needed to decipher conflicting accounts and source biases, and to build sound historically supported arguments from as large a variety of sources as practical.
Particularly since this is AP history, and intended to represent college level, I would like to see the teacher as more of a facilitator than an instructor. Guiding kids toward developing the framework's skills rather than slamming them with piles of texts and telling them to read/report back on their content.
While I would like certain things to definitely be covered or others I can imagine skipped without missing much I would think I would be in agreement with conservatives that I would prefer teachers/schools/districts make those decisions rather than state or federal governments.
For instance a LOT of those documents would of been covered several times before they would even get to these classes. It's really dumb to make them get included again just for the sake of putting them on the list to make it seem like they wouldn't be taught at all otherwise.
As for the wealth thing I don't think it's always malicious, but wealthy people play an important role in wealth distribution and there is no way around that.
Guilt:
+ Show Spoiler +As for the guilt , again the guilt isn't in having had ancestors who did bad things, at least that's not the point of discussing it (although it may be an unfortunate consequence of evil deeds) to use the German example: Lets say his grandparents were SS and personally commandeered a jewelry store of some Jewish family and currently owns it in a completely legal way. He shouldn't feel guilty about it. What he would/should feel guilty about is doing nothing to right the wrongs he can. No one is suggesting tracking down some family and giving the business back (as that very well might not even be an option) but if you inherit a formally Jewish jewelry store stolen by your grandparents maybe you use some of the profits to feed starving Jews or something. You're not trying to make up for what your grandparents did you are trying to take the spoiled fruits you inherited and turn it into a positive force for the communities it was stolen from. It's not about guilt as much as a responsibility to your fellow man. What one should feel guilty about is if you did things like try to brag about how your hardworking great grandpa fought in the first world war and your grandpa fought in world war two before opening his own jewelry shop. While glossing over the fact that the "shop he opened" was actually stolen at the point of a gun. All the while hoarding the wealth for your own enrichment, even though you yourself did nothing and your inheritance was (at least originally) stolen from the people who earned it. In that case yeah you're a prick.
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