[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
I don’t think it’s “trivial.” I don’t think it’s “irrelevant.” I don’t think it needs to be the main focus either. I do think it should be included in a rudimentary curriculum of American history and not just reserved for someone in a Master’s or Doctorate program as implied by TB.
I do think white supremacists get some things right; I do think the Black Panthers get some things right; the Truth is the truth regardless of who’s spouting it. If Louis Farrakhan says the sky is blue he’s probably right. If David Duke says water’s wet he’s probably right. If either of them say colonial and early American republic slavery was not just applied white-on-black as many Americans would probably believe then they’re probably right.[/quote]
I don’t have much of a problem with this, other than to note that I don’t think anybody is arguing that anything is trivial in a grand-scheme, absolute kind of way – only that all other forms of American slavery are trivial relative to racialized (i.e., explicitly racial in character, justification, theology) black slavery because it was racialized black slavery that took hold, proliferated, gave rise to a centuries-spanning politico-moral ideology, and became a driving historical force responsible or contributing to many of the most important, nation-making developments in the story of this country.[/quote]
Exactly. As you mentioned earlier, this entire debate sprang from NickViar’s absurd claim the slavery was nit a race-based issue and therefore shouldn’t be taught as such. That’s preposterous on its face, as has been explained over and over, and - and in my view, most importantly - slavery being taught that way is not being dishonest about what happened or ideologically driven to unfairly attack or scorn white people.
I’ve said it so many times I am tired of saying, but since Push can’t be bothered to remember from one post to another - information about unconventional slave relationships is interesting and certainly relevant in the most global sense of learning about a comprehensive study of the history of slavery.
But the American history of slavery is a narrower subject than that, and it’s great if a teacher like JR finds time to discuss it. If he doesn’t, though, the history lesson is not intrinsically incomplete (relative to the subject), dishonest, or biased.
Such information just is not directly relevant to the big subjects in a general survey course. And of course, let’s not forget that slavery isn’t the only part of American history being covered. Slavery is more like a chapter, and unconventional slave relationships are more of a footnote to that chapter, as there are much bigger parts of American history to cover (elections, wars, economic history, demographic changes, natural catastrophes, and on and on).
But whatever the motive to include such information in a general survey course, it should never be to make sure and cover the “sins of the red, brown, black and yellow man” for the sake of rectifying “political correctness.” If that is the motivation, that’s a problem.