Constitutional Convention

[quote]JR249 wrote:

As I noted previously, it really depends on the individual teacher or district, as there are no national requirements here.
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This is pretty much the heart of the issue here.

For all we know NickViar went to a school that didn’t actually teach about black slave owners and the fact that slavery in the U.S. didn’t originate with racism, but instead developed into it due to a variety of reasons.

But the rest of us arguing against him did, and so our experiences are radically different.

There’s not much we can do about that besides say-

SECONDARY EDUCATION FUCKING SUCKS IN THE U.S. FIX THAT BEFORE MAKING COLLEGE FREE OBAMA.

[quote]JR249 wrote:

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

Yes, and great point. This whole debate is based on taking NickViar’s claim - that it isn’t taught - at face value. I don’t even know if that is true, and the people who know best are people who most recently went to such a school.

Well, to be more precise, those who went to such a school and actually paid attention. :wink:
[/quote]

As I noted previously, it really depends on the individual teacher or district, as there are no national requirements here.

Personally, I have to spend an entire quarter teaching the U.S. Constitution and then testing over it, per state mandate, so in my American history classes, the era pre-1865 gets more compartmentalized than the era from 1865-present (this is not the case in AP European history, however).

I think it’s more important for students to understand how American slavery became intertwined with European exploration, the Columbian exchange, mercantilism and the ensuing economic, political and social developments in Europe, the Americas and Africa between the 1400s and the 19th century. It’s good to point out to students that slavery, in the U.S., wasn’t always a cut-and-dried black vs. white chattel system, and I’m always sure to point out that it wasn’t exclusive to the south either (slavery existed in northern territories and states too, including IL), but the focus is inevitably on how and why it came to be most closely tied to enslavement of African-Americans in the U.S. The difference between indentured servitude and slavery merits distinction, in my opinion, as well as a discussion of the sharecropper system and racial hierarchies from a social standpoint through and beyond the antebellum years (e.g., Jim Crow era). I’ve always saved room for discussion of slavery and racial relations between Native American Indian tribes and other racial/ethnic groups too, e.g., both European treatment of natives as well as some intertribal atrocities that push and perhaps one other poster mentioned previously.

How other academic professionals in the K-12 system approach the topic does vary, and if I didn’t have 9 weeks of the Constitution to teach, I’d be able to spend more time on the diversity of the subject, but it just isn’t realistic for me due to some time constraints. I’m sure you have a range of presentations throughout the country, from “white guilt” to outright dismissal of any particular racial or ethnic responsibilities altogether.
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This is great. This is a class people would want to take. Sounds like you do a great job. Seriously. Very impressive.

The compliments are appreciated, and I agree with some of the above sentiments that yes, there are problems with secondary education in general (though I don’t believe schools are the sole place to lay all of the blame) and the number of people employed in academia who could otherwise be classified as “educated idiots” isn’t a tiny number either.

I suppose this is all fodder for a different thread, but this was a most interesting discussion. In terms of history and/or the social sciences, in referencing some of the academic gaps noted in this thread that might present themselves when discussing a topic such as slavery, many of these courses have historically been taught more as rote memorization of random facts or dates, especially at the K-12 level. This approach doesn’t do anything to enhance a critical, deeper understanding of many social, political or economic issues. Most anyone can memorize the date and number of the amendment that abolished slavery, but getting students to be able to write 3-4 paragraphs analyzing the causes and consequences, for example, in an extemporaneous or expository manner, certainly requires a more nuanced approach to teaching.

More nonsense. Now you’re trying to claim my position was at odds with what someone like JR is doing in his classroom? After I have repeatedly said I have no problem with having that information be a part of a teaching of American history? And applauding him for the curriculum he teaches?

Yeah, that isn’t plausible to any reader.

This has gotten bad. Now you’re moving into the territory of not arguing in good faith. Disappointing.

[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]pushharder wrote:
And TB, you indeed DID try to play the racist trump card. That’s plain as day.

No big deal. It’s in vogue.[/quote]

Well, no. When a poster laments that a school doesn’t teach him about how blacks owned slaves but forces him to learn about how “whitey lynched blacks”, it’s pretty plain to see - assuming you’re paying attention and not being willfully ignorant.

Mightly noble of you to try and rush to cover the stink of NickViar’s revelations about how he thinks, but it stinks just the same.

[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.

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
And TB, you indeed DID try to play the racist trump card. That’s plain as day.

No big deal. It’s in vogue.[/quote]

Well, no. When a poster laments that a school doesn’t teach him about how blacks owned slaves but forces him to learn about how “whitey lynched blacks”, it’s pretty plain to see - assuming you’re paying attention and not being willfully ignorant.

Mightly noble of you to try and rush to cover the stink of NickViar’s revelations about how he thinks, but it stinks just the same.[/quote]

  1. The FIRST slave owner in America was a black man.
  2. The man mentioned above sued for legal ownership of a black man who had served him for the agreed time and gone to work for a white man. *(I’m not sure that this is as trivial as some would like to believe-we are talking about the creation of the institution of slavery in America, as well as a court deciding for a black man and against a white man)
  3. In 1860, just over 1% of whites in the U.S. owned slaves; just under 5% of whites in the south owned slaves.
    ( http://americancivilwar.com/authors/black_slaveowners.htm )
  4. I’m pretty sure that there were 3,000+ black slave owners in the U.S. at one point. (I can’t quickly locate a link that says it, and I know that wouldn’t matter anyway, so dispute this if you want…there were obviously many more black slave owners in America if the entire length of time slavery existed in the U.S. is taken into account)
  5. The Tuskegee Institute has reported that 3,446 blacks(and 1,297 whites) were lynched in the U.S. during the time period between 1882 and 1968.

I would guess that the number of blacks enslaved by other blacks(assuming at least 3,000 black slave OWNERS and assuming that many of them owned at least a few slaves) in America was probably greater than the number of blacks lynched in the U.S. during the time period in which white on black violence tends to be emphasized in schools. What makes one so much more important than the other?

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
And TB, you indeed DID try to play the racist trump card. That’s plain as day.

No big deal. It’s in vogue.[/quote]

Well, no. When a poster laments that a school doesn’t teach him about how blacks owned slaves but forces him to learn about how “whitey lynched blacks”, it’s pretty plain to see - assuming you’re paying attention and not being willfully ignorant.

Mightly noble of you to try and rush to cover the stink of NickViar’s revelations about how he thinks, but it stinks just the same.[/quote]

I dunno. It’s hard to imagine, but maybe it’s true, that Nick is accustomed to burning crosses in his front yard.

I don’t get that vibe from him but maybe in this regard you’re savvier than I am.[/quote]

What would be the point of burning a cross in one’s own front yard?

The Ku Klux Klan burned crosses in other people’s front yards, as a warning to them.

If one were a Scottish clan leader (to be distinguished from a Scottish Klan leader), perhaps one would do it, to rally the clans together in an emergency.

Or if one wanted to protest Christianity, or perhaps the institution of capital punishment in Ancient Rome.

But no, it doesn’t sound like something Nick would do.

Push and Varq, thanks for coming to my defense, but I’m afraid that tb may be right about me. Until tonight, I had never thought of myself as a racist; but now that I’ve been called one by a random fellow(who, in case you were wondering, is absolutely, positively NOT a racist) on an internet message board, I’m pretty sure that reality is probably 180 degrees from my perceptions.

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

What would be the point of burning a cross in one’s own front yard?

The Ku Klux Klan burned crosses in other people’s front yards, as a warning to them.

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Well, maybe the racist, dirtbag, Viar motherfucker has black folks in his basement.
[/quote]

Ah. So he would be burning the cross on his own front lawn to warn himself that if he doesn’t git rid of them black folks, then he and a bunch of the boys are gonna come ridin’ back an’ giv 'im what fer? Sounds about right.

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Yep, cuz any yahoo who thinks that learning the multi-faceted origins of slavery in North American history is not just suitable only for honors degree students must be a card-carrying, repugnant sumbitch that wears pointy hats late at night and is one step away from lynching darkies or at least fantasizes about it incessantly. [/quote]

Careful, push, or you will soon wake up to learn that you have joined me in the Legion of Racism.