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Showing content with the highest reputation on 05/06/2022 in all areas

  1. 4 points
    An excellent example. By reframing the Civil War as a "war of northen aggression" having nothing to do with slavery, whites in the south could avoid any residual feelings of shame associated with the position they took on slavery. They could instead take pride in their ancestors who stood up to an evil north, rather than trying to reconcile their heritage of slavery with a more modern view of civil rights. We are seeing the same thing happen today with the attempted cancellation of both CRT and the 1619 project. These studies of history make many white people feel bad, because it reminds them that a significant part of this country came from the labor of slaves. This make them feel - not bad, exactly, but like they cannot be as proud of their history as they otherwise could be. "Make America Great Again" doesn't work if those halcyon days included slavery (or enforced segregation, or redlining, or any of the other structural racisms that the early and mid US incorporated.) So they try to ban it. They realize that banning history is something of a bad look, so they dress up the ban in flowery language and mix in a few "won't someone please think of the children" memes. We've seen these a lot lately - "why are teachers teaching our children to hate themselves?" CRT teaches kids "to be ashamed that they are white." One theoretically real child tearfully asked her far-right mother "Why am I hated so much?" - and then supposedly needed therapy to overcome all the damage that CRT did. (How fortunate that that child did it just in time for Marsha Blackburn's political campaign.) Others spend thousands of words trying to define CRT to mean something other than CRT. It's an "unremitting attack on Western institutions." It teaches that "America is systemically racist and must be dismantled." It was created by Karl Marx to destroy democracy. It is a "monstrous evil" that gives black people "the whip handle" over white people. (That last was from Pat Robertson; what a fascinating metaphor to use when one is advocating ignoring what slavery did to the country.) Underlying all this blather is a simple belief common amongst the right - that education can and should be curtailed because it makes some people feel uncomfortable or threatened. We have seen several examples right here on this forum. George Orwell once said that "he who controls the past controls the future." Conservatives are trying to take control of the past and alter it to something that works better for them. The question is - will we let them?
  2. 3 points
    Well, according to Herodotus (who wrote what's generally considered to be the first history), it includes a study of cause and effect. Is there value in looking at the past via data that wasn't considered by previous historians? Ask the students during pre-Civil Rights South, when they were commonly taught about the War of Northern Aggression. Ask the students during the Communist era in the Soviet Union. Ask the students in North Korea (I have no idea what they study, but I'm sure it's a pretty single-focus view). There is always value in looking at history through different lenses, particularly as the study of history reveals power structures that might have colored what was recorded. That calls into doubt the completeness of the record. Even if you disagree with the premise, even if you think that slavery is a normal part of human social evolution, even if you think that the US was really founded by the Pilgrims, and that the stage wasn't set by all the Spaniards and others who came earlier, spreading horses and disease among other things, there's value in studying all that other stuff. Wendy P.
  3. 2 points
    Hunter Biden?!?!?!? No you fool! The answer is right there in the title: windfall. It's those damn renewable activists at it again!
  4. 1 point
    Like everything it comes down to money. The anti-wokers, white nationalists, GOP nationalists don't want to pay compensation for slavery, for land stolen from native Indians, Blacks, etc. While in Australia to establish $280 million reparations fund for ‘Stolen Generation’ While in Canada: "The Liberal government is preparing to spend $40 billion to compensate First Nations children harmed by Ottawa’s underfunding of child and family services on reserve, as well as on reforming the current system." In the US there is no discussion of compensation. Its branded as "wokeism". Even though $1.5 billion was paid to interned Japanese Americans.
  5. 1 point
    If athletes get athletes foot what do astronauts get........................Missile toe.
  6. 1 point
    Exactly the same level of reasoning you always use, but at least this time you only used one word instead of disguising it with a thousand others.
  7. 1 point
    Or the village idiot who was bragging with his mates at the pub: "Me and my two mates Joe and Dave, have decided to take up astronauting, and we're in training for our first mission". Barman: "Thats interesting, what's your first mission going to be?" VI: "We're gonna be the first humans to land on the sun" BM: "But its really hot up there, you'll get all burnt up". VI: "We're not stupid you know, we thought of that, we're going to be landing at night".
  8. 1 point
    The reaction to the 1619 project is an example of suppression of history.
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