Tag Archives: slavery

A Special Man And His Memories

Posted on by under education, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

I’d like to tell you a little bit about a man named George Dawson.  George was born in 1898 in a dirt-floor cabin in Marshall, Texas.  He was the son of a farmer, and both of his grandparents and great-grandparents were African-American slaves. Though freed at the end of the Civil War, they had to stay on the plantation for ten years to work off their debt to their former master’s store. George’s father, Harrison, was three years old when they left. The family walked west and stopped in Marshall because a lumber mill there provided work; they received forty acres of land and a mule from the federal government and started the grueling process of eking out a living. George, the oldest of eight children, began contributing to the family’s survival by age four, combing cotton while his great-grandmother Sylvie made thread with her drop spindle.  At age eight, he went to work on a white neighbor’s farm feeding hogs and cattle, and at twelve, he was sent away from home to live and work on a white man’s farm so his wages could help support his family and allow his brothers and sisters to attend Marshall’s colored school.  George never got the chance to attend school.

George’s life of hard manual labor hardly stopped for the next half century. When he was twenty-one, he left his family and followed the jobs he could find across North America for the next decade. He picked cotton, cut sugar cane, built Mississippi River levees, pounded spikes and laid rails for railroads from Cincinnati to Canada to California, tamed horses all over the Midwest, loaded barge cargo, and worked in Mexican coffee plantations. In 1928, Dawson settled in Dallas, Texas, where he worked on the railroad and did road crew work for the city. For almost twenty-five years he ran the pasteurizing machines at the Oak Farms Dairy.

During all those years, George raised a family, worked hard, but never had the time or the opportunity for an education, never learned to read.  That was, perhaps, the one thing that George wanted most in his life … to learn to read.  Fast forward to 1996 …

George was 98 years young when one day a man knocked on his door.  The man was a volunteer who told George that the Lincoln Instructional Center, just a few blocks away, was offering adult education courses!  FINALLY!!!  The opportunity George had wanted for 98 years was knocking on his door!  George overcame his initial reluctance to reveal his illiteracy, telling himself, “All your life you’ve wanted to read. Maybe this is why you’re still around.”

On first meeting instructor Carl Henry, a retired teacher, he learned that the oldest student until that time had been a woman in her fifties. George Dawson learned the alphabet in a day and a half, moved from printing to cursive writing, and could write his name within a month. After almost two years he could read at a third-grade level. Inspired by his example, students flocked to the Lincoln Instructional Center and enrollment doubled.

George Dawson’s story ‘went viral’ as we would say today.  The Fort Worth Star Telegram wrote an article about Dawson’s one-hundredth birthday celebration and his recent literacy accomplishments. The Associated Press picked up the story and distributed it to newspapers across the country.  One such article was read by elementary school teacher Richard Glaubman in Port Townsend, Washington. Glaubman thought Dawson’s story would make an inspirational children’s book, and he phoned Dawson to propose his idea.  Dawson was leery at first, having been long ago warned by his father about the trouble that can ensue when whites and Blacks mix.  But ultimately, George agreed to meet Glaubman and the two struck up a friendship.

Long story short, after two years of frequent meetings and many late-night trips for George down memory lane, Glaubman realized that George Dawson was more than a children’s book, that his story and that of his ancestors needed to be told in full.  And so it happened that in May 2000, George Dawson’s memories were published in a book, Life Is So Good.

I have just downloaded Mr. Dawson’s book to my Kindle and plan to read it this weekend!

Besides describing Dawson’s life and adventures, the book is said to deliver a wrenching history of the life of black people in the South. A Reading Today reviewer stated …

“He recalls the struggles involved in growing up in rural Texas in the early 1900s, where the Ku Klux Klan was very active and where he saw one of his childhood friends lynched for being accused of being with a white girl. All through his life, even into his retirement years, Dawson has experienced prejudice in many forms.”

The opening scene in his book is one he lived through at age ten when he saw one of his friends lynched … hung to death from a tree by a local sheriff and a band of white supremacists, after falsely being accused of raping a white woman.  Ten years old when he witnessed this!  I cannot even imagine … can you?

Anyway, George Dawson’s memoir has withstood the test of time.  He appeared on Oprah and was featured in People magazine. He told his story in the June 2001 issue of the inspirational magazine Guideposts.  Sadly, George didn’t live long thereafter and died on July 5th, 2001, at the age of 103.  After his death, Carroll Independent School District named a middle school after him in Southlake, Texas.  And that might be the end of this story except …

That same school district that named a school for him has now banned his book.  They claim that it contains “inappropriate content.”  The district has thus far declined to specify which parts they found inappropriate but let me take a wild guess:  the parts that have to do with Jim Crow, lynchings, white supremacy, and in general the racial abuse Black people have been subjected to for centuries all the way up to today.  Let’s not allow our children to know how inhumanely white people have treated all humans who didn’t look and believe exactly as they did.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Mr. Dawson’s great grandson, Chris Irvin said that he was confused and hurt by Carroll ISD’s move, considering he and his family have visited the school at least five times for a reading of “Life is So Good.”

“That’s hurtful. You take away the bad and the ugly, and you only talk about the good, that doesn’t add up. Black history is American history. You can’t have one without the other. I can’t go to your history and tell you, ‘hey x that out of your life, that didn’t happen.'”

The attempts to bury and whitewash our history, our real history, must not be allowed to succeed.  It is a slap in the face to every Black person in this country.  Their story must be told!  IT MUST!!!  George Dawson’s story MUST be heard, it must be told and retold!  Otherwise … how can we ever do better???

I hope you’ll take just a couple of minutes to watch this brief video about the life and times of George Dawson.  Oh, and make sure you have a box of tissues at hand.

Understanding Juneteenth (Reprise)

Posted on by under Holidays, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

This is the post I posted on Juneteenth in 2020, but since I couldn’t say it any better today than I did then (actually, Jamelle Bouie did most of the work on this) then I thought it apropos to run it again.

Today is Juneteenth, and I would like to start with a few words from President Barack Obama …

Obama“Juneteenth has never been a celebration of victory, or an acceptance of the way things are. It’s a celebration of progress. It’s an affirmation that despite the most painful parts of our history, change is possible––and there is still so much work to do.”

I planned to write a piece about Juneteenth, but I found that it had already been done, much better and much more authentically than I could possibly have done it, by Jamelle Bouie, an opinion columnist for the New York Times, and former chief political correspondent for Slate magazine.

Why Juneteenth Matters

It was black Americans who delivered on Lincoln’s promise of “a new birth of freedom.”

jamelle-bouieBy Jamelle Bouie

Opinion Columnist

Neither Abraham Lincoln nor the Republican Party freed the slaves. They helped set freedom in motion and eventually codified it into law with the 13th Amendment, but they were not themselves responsible for the end of slavery. They were not the ones who brought about its final destruction.

Who freed the slaves? The slaves freed the slaves.

“Slave resistance,” as the historian Manisha Sinha points out in “The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition,” “lay at the heart of the abolition movement.”

“Prominent slave revolts marked the turn toward immediate abolition,” Sinha writes, and “fugitive slaves united all factions of the movement and led the abolitionists to justify revolutionary resistance to slavery.”

When secession turned to war, it was enslaved people who turned a narrow conflict over union into a revolutionary war for freedom. “From the first guns at Sumter, the strongest advocates of emancipation were the slaves themselves,” the historian Ira Berlin wrote in 1992. “Lacking political standing or public voice, forbidden access to the weapons of war, slaves tossed aside the grand pronouncements of Lincoln and other Union leaders that the sectional conflict was only a war for national unity and moved directly to put their own freedom — and that of their posterity — atop the national agenda.”

All of this is apropos of Juneteenth, which commemorates June 19, 1865, when Gen. Gordon Granger entered Galveston, Texas, to lead the Union occupation force and delivered the news of the Emancipation Proclamation to enslaved people in the region. This holiday, which only became a nationwide celebration (among black Americans) in the 20th century, has grown in stature over the last decade as a result of key anniversaries (2011 to 2015 was the sesquicentennial of the Civil War), trends in public opinion (the growing racial liberalism of left-leaning whites), and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Over the last week, as Americans continued to protest police brutality, institutional racism and structural disadvantage in cities and towns across the country, elected officials in New York and Virginia have announced plans to make Juneteenth a paid holiday, as have a number of prominent businesses like Nike, Twitter and the NFL.

There’s obviously a certain opportunism here, an attempt to respond to the moment and win favorable coverage, with as little sacrifice as possible. (Paid holidays, while nice, are a grossly inadequate response to calls for justice and equality.) But if Americans are going to mark and celebrate Juneteenth, then they should do so with the knowledge and awareness of the agency of enslaved people.

Juneteenth-2

Credit…David J. Phillip/Associated Press

Emancipation wasn’t a gift bestowed on the slaves; it was something they took for themselves, the culmination of their long struggle for freedom, which began as soon as chattel slavery was established in the 17th century, and gained even greater steam with the Revolution and the birth of a country committed, at least rhetorically, to freedom and equality. In fighting that struggle, black Americans would open up new vistas of democratic possibility for the entire country.

To return to Ira Berlin — who tackled this subject in “The Long Emancipation: The Demise of Slavery in the United States” — it is useful to look at the end of slavery as “a near-century-long process” rather than “the work of a moment, even if that moment was a great civil war.” Those in bondage were part of this process at every step of the way, from resistance and rebellion to escape, which gave them the chance, as free blacks, to weigh directly on the politics of slavery. “They gave the slaves’ oppositional activities a political form,” Berlin writes, “denying the masters’ claim that malingering and tool breaking were reflections of African idiocy and indolence, that sabotage represented the mindless thrashings of a primitive people, and that outsiders were the ones who always inspired conspiracies and insurrections.”

By pushing the question of emancipation into public view, black Americans raised the issue of their “status in freedom” and therefore “the question of citizenship and its attributes.” And as the historian Martha Jones details in “Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America,” it is black advocacy that ultimately shapes the nation’s understanding of what it means to be an American citizen. “Never just objects of judicial, legislative, or antislavery thought,” black Americans “drove lawmakers to refine their thinking about citizenship. On the necessity of debating birthright citizenship, black Americans forced the issue.”

After the Civil War, black Americans — free and freed — would work to realize the promise of emancipation, and to make the South a true democracy. They abolished property qualifications for voting and officeholding, instituted universal manhood suffrage, opened the region’s first public schools and made them available to all children. They stood against racial distinctions and discrimination in public life and sought assistance for the poor and disadvantaged. Just a few years removed from degradation and social death, these millions, wrote W.E.B. Du Bois in “Black Reconstruction in America, “took decisive and encouraging steps toward the widening and strengthening of human democracy.”

Juneteenth may mark just one moment in the struggle for emancipation, but the holiday gives us an occasion to reflect on the profound contributions of enslaved black Americans to the cause of human freedom. It gives us another way to recognize the central place of slavery and its demise in our national story. And it gives us an opportunity to remember that American democracy has more authors than the shrewd lawyers and erudite farmer-philosophers of the Revolution, that our experiment in liberty owes as much to the men and women who toiled in bondage as it does to anyone else in this nation’s history.

Rewriting History

Posted on by under education, Environmental Issues, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Re-blogs, religion, Social commentary

So, considering history … if we determine to no longer teach about slavery, about Jim Crow … what will we replace it with? We cannot simply ignore the fact that Black people existed. Young people aren’t stupid … don’t you think they will ask questions? And what about books and movies like “Gone with the Wind” and “To Kill a Mockingbird”??? Will we destroy all copies of those? What do we replace the now-illegal facts of history with? Our friend Michael Seidel has written an excellent, thought-provoking post … thank you, Michael!!!

Michael Seidel, writer

In the Smithsonian Magazine’s excerpt of Narrative Tension, Inc.. From the forthcoming book Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past by Richard Cohen to be published by Simon & Schuster, Inc. Printed by permission, Richard Cohen writes this:

‘Around the same time, between 1934 and 1936, the Politburo, or policy-making body, of the Russian Communist Party focused on national history textbooks, and Stalin set scholars to writing a new standard history. The state became the nation’s only publisher. Orwell had it right in Nineteen Eighty-Four, where the Records Department is charged with rewriting the past to fit whomever Oceania is currently fighting. The ruling party of Big Brother “could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death.”’

He is writing about the old U.S.S.R., the Soviet Union, and how…

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Black History Month — Sojourner Truth

Posted on by under History, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary, Tributes

Every year during this month celebrating Black History and those who made it happen, I try to highlight a few of the people who have made outstanding contributions in one area or another that had a positive effect on the nation and the people.  There are so many to choose from that I’ll never run out, I think, although I do periodically redux one from a prior year.  Today, though, I want to tell you a bit about a woman whose name you’ve certainly heard, but you may not know much about her – Sojourner Truth.

Who Was Sojourner Truth?

Sojourner Truth was an African American abolitionist and women’s rights activist best-known for her speech on racial inequalities, “Ain’t I a Woman?”, delivered extemporaneously in 1851 at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention.

Truth was born into slavery but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. She devoted her life to the abolitionist cause and helped to recruit Black troops for the Union Army. Although Truth began her career as an abolitionist, the reform causes she sponsored were broad and varied, including prison reform, property rights and universal suffrage.

Family

Historians estimate that Truth (born Isabella Baumfree) was likely born around 1797 in the town of Swartekill, in Ulster County, New York. However, Truth’s date of birth was not recorded, as was typical of children born into slavery.

Truth was one of as many as 12 children born to James and Elizabeth Baumfree. Her father, James Baumfree, was an enslaved person captured in modern-day Ghana. Her mother, Elizabeth Baumfree, also known as Mau-Mau Bet, was the daughter of enslaved people from Guinea.

Early Life as an Enslaved Person

The Baumfree family was owned by Colonel Hardenbergh, and lived at the colonel’s estate in Esopus, New York, 95 miles north of New York City. The area had once been under Dutch control, and both the Baumfrees and the Hardenbaughs spoke Dutch in their daily lives.

After the colonel’s death, ownership of the Baumfrees passed to his son, Charles. The Baumfrees were separated after the death of Charles Hardenbergh in 1806. The 9-year-old Truth, known as “Belle” at the time, was sold at an auction with a flock of sheep for $100. Her new owner was a man named John Neely, whom Truth remembered as harsh and violent.

Over the following two years, Truth would be sold twice more, finally coming to reside on the property of John Dumont at West Park, New York. It was during these years that Truth learned to speak English for the first time.

Sojourner Truth’s Husband and Children

Around 1815, Truth fell in love with an enslaved person named Robert from a neighboring farm. The two had a daughter, Diana. Robert’s owner forbade the relationship, since Diana and any subsequent children produced by the union would be the property of John Dumont rather than himself. Robert and Truth never saw each other again.

In 1817, Dumont compelled Truth to marry an older enslaved person named Thomas. The couple marriage resulted in a son, Peter, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Sophia.

Early Years of Freedom

The state of New York, which had begun to negotiate the abolition of slavery in 1799, emancipated all enslaved people on July 4, 1827. The shift did not come soon enough for Truth.

After John Dumont reneged on a promise to emancipate Truth in late 1826, she escaped to freedom with her infant daughter, Sophia. Her other daughter and son stayed behind.

Shortly after her escape, Truth learned that her son Peter, then 5 years old, had been illegally sold to a man in Alabama. She took the issue to court and eventually secured Peter’s return from the South. The case was one of the first in which a Black woman successfully challenged a white man in a United States court.

Truth’s early years of freedom were marked by several strange hardships. Truth converted to Christianity and moved with her son Peter to New York City in 1829, where she worked as a housekeeper for Christian evangelist Elijah Pierson. She then moved on to the home of Robert Matthews, also known as Prophet Matthias, for whom she also worked as a housekeeper. Matthews had a growing reputation as a con man and a cult leader.

Shortly after Truth changed households, Elijah Pierson died. Robert Matthews was accused of poisoning Pierson in order to benefit from his personal fortune, and the Folgers, a couple who were members of his cult, attempted to implicate Truth in the crime.

In the absence of adequate evidence, Matthews was acquitted. Because he had become a favorite subject of the penny press, he decided to move west. In 1835, Truth brought a slander suit against the Folgers and won.

After Truth’s successful rescue of her son, Peter, from slavery in Alabama, mother and son stayed together until 1839. At that time, Peter took a job on a whaling ship called the Zone of Nantucket.

Truth received three letters from her son between 1840 and 1841. When the ship returned to port in 1842, however, Peter was not on board. Truth never heard from him again.

Abolition and Women’s Rights

On June 1, 1843, Isabella Baumfree changed her name to Sojourner Truth and devoted her life to Methodism and the abolition of slavery.

In 1844, Truth joined the Northampton Association of Education and Industry in Northampton, Massachusetts. Founded by abolitionists, the organization supported a broad reform agenda including women’s rights and pacifism. Members lived together on 500 acres as a self-sufficient community.

Truth met a number of leading abolitionists at Northampton, including William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass and David Ruggles. Although the Northampton community disbanded in 1846, Truth’s career as an activist and reformer was just beginning.

In 1850, Truth spoke at the first National Women’s Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts. She soon began touring regularly with abolitionist George Thompson, speaking to large crowds on the subjects of slavery and human rights.

As Truth’s reputation grew and the abolition movement gained momentum, she drew increasingly larger and more hospitable audiences. She was one of several escaped enslaved people, along with Douglass and Harriet Tubman, to rise to prominence as an abolitionist leader and a testament to the humanity of enslaved people.

‘The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave’

Truth’s memoirs were published under the title The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave in 1850.

Truth dictated her recollections to a friend, Olive Gilbert, since she could not read or write. Garrison wrote the book’s preface.

‘Ain’t I a Woman?’ Speech

In May 1851, Truth delivered an improvised speech at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron that would come to be known as “Ain’t I a Woman?” The first version of the speech was published a month later by Marius Robinson, editor of Ohio newspaper The Anti-Slavery Bugle, who had attended the convention and recorded Truth’s words himself. It did not include the question “Ain’t I a woman?” even once.

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that ‘twixt the Negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it? [member of audience whispers, “intellect”] That’s it, honey. What’s that got to do with women’s rights or Negroes’ rights? If my cup won’t hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ‘cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it. The men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say.

There is also a poem, but I am given to understand that Sojourner herself did not write it, but rather the poem was adapted by Erelene Stetson. from her speech.

It seems to me that despite a hard life, Sojourner Truth stood for the things that matter in life, stood her ground for what is right, to eradicate slavery and give women the rights they should have always had.  My hat is off to this fine woman.

My thanks to Biography.com for the above information.

Let’s talk American History

Posted on by under education, Free Press Issues, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Re-blogs, Social commentary

The U.S. has a uniquely diverse history, parts of which are often glossed over, ignored, or revised in its teaching. That needs to stop … we need to learn the history of the nation — the good, the bad, and the ugly. Those who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it. Yet, there are those who would simply erase parts of the history of this nation. Blogging buddy Brosephus has once again knocked the ball out of the park with his take on this topic … thank you, Brosephus!

The Mind of Brosephus

American history has been a hot topic as of lately, primarily because of Republicans striking out against what they’re calling “wokeism”, revisionism, or whatever the code word is for the day. There’s been a lot of crap being spewed from the Tennessee Republican claiming the Three-fifths Compromise was passed to end slavery to Tim Scott claiming America isn’t a racist country.

Individually, the statements that have been made are outrageously stupid and wrong. Collectively, these statements all feed into the cult-like behavior Republicans now exhibit where up is down, the sky is green, and grass is blue. This is dangerous because this creates a society ignorant of its own history of accomplishments and mistakes. You can’t know who you are if you don’t what you have and haven’t done.

So, first up is Rick Santorum and his statement on Native Americans. The easiest and quickest way to disprove his statement…

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Filosofa Takes on Mitch

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, education, History, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Rants, Social commentary

Mitch McConnell has found a permanent home on my radar, it would seem.  Every day he says or does something to spark my temper and this week he’s been on a veritable roll.

Mitch McConnell, aka Moscow Mitch, says we don’t matter!

I have never been a fan of the ignoble, inglorious Mitch McConnell, but now he has crossed my red line.  Referring to President Biden’s plan to increase taxes on corporations and on the wealthy (such as Mitch himself), McConnell claimed he would not support Biden’s infrastructure plan because of the “massive tax increases on all the productive parts of our economy.”  Think about that one for a minute, friends.  “All the productive parts of our economy” in Mitch’s mind, are the wealthy like himself.  We, the people who have worked 40+ hours per week every week of our adult lives, the people who built the cars, mined the coal, grew the food, educated our children, are nothing!  F*ck you, Mitch McConnell!

I had my first full-time job when I was 13 years old, and apart from a few years off to raise three children and earn three college degrees, I worked my entire adult life until I retired in 2008.  Throughout my career, I often worked long hours, sometimes as much as 16 hours a day … but I’m not one of the “productive parts of our economy”???  Today, my daughter works 12-14 hour days as a nurse, but according to McConnell, the rich bastard sheltering his assets offshore is a more productive part of our economy than she is?

President Biden guaranteed there would be no tax increase on anyone earning less than $400,000 per year.  In my wildest dreams, my most profitable year, I came nowhere close to making $400,000 per year, or even $100,000 per year.  Anyone making more than $400,000 per year ought to pay a higher tax rate!  Corporations profiting hand over fist ought to be paying their fair share.  And those millionaires and billionaires who have long enjoyed paying accountants to create tax shelters and loopholes rather than pay their fair share in taxes ought to have to make amends!  For years, the wealthy and the corporations they own have paid a smaller percentage in taxes than the average working stiff.

The backbone of our economy is the people who produce the goods and services, and they already pay more than their fair share in taxes.  They are the productive parts of our economy.  NEVER forget that, Mitch McConnell!

And in other Mitchie-related news …

I wrote in August 2019 about the New York Times venture into history in the 1619 Project

… a worthy project …

The 1619 Project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.

I haven’t spent as much time as I had hoped reviewing the project, but everything I’ve seen of it has been absolutely excellent … a factual, honest view of our history.  But yesterday we learned that Mitch McConnell sent a letter to Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona asking him to abandon the factual recounting of the true beginnings of the United States as perpetuated by such as the 1619 Project.  McConnell calls this “revisionist history”!  WHAT, Mitchie … do you think your friggin’ ancestors didn’t own slaves, beat them with whips, and sell their children to the highest bidder?  Do you think that is all a myth?  Do you think that Black people were brought here on tourist cruise boats and made to feel welcome at the Ritz-Carlton???

McConnell claims these programs such as the 1619 Project “re-orient” the view of American History “away from their intended purposes toward a politicized and divisive agenda.”

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr …

In fairness, Mitch makes a valid point near the beginning of his letter …

“A 2020 survey found that only 51% of Americans can name the three branches of our federal government. A 2019 study found that majorities of Americans in 49 states and the District of Columbia would earn an “F” on the U.S. Citizenship Exam. The most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress found that just 15% of American eighth-graders are “proficient” in U.S. history. School closures during the COVID-19 pandemic have almost certainly intensified these problems by triggering substantial learning losses, particularly for students from underserved backgrounds.”

He is right, our children are not being taught the things they need, and the former Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, added a heaping dose of ignorance to our education system.  But then he continues, putting down the administration’s proposal to update American history curricula to more fully flesh out the consequences of slavery and contributions of Black Americans.

The most ludicrous statement in Mitch’s letter is …

“Americans do not need or want their tax dollars diverted from promoting the principles that unite our nation toward promoting radical ideologies meant to divide us.”

Say WHAT???  I cannot speak for everyone in this country, but for my part I want our children to be taught truth – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Facts, man, just the facts.  Fact:  the United States was a slave-owning nation from 1619 until 1865 … nearly 250 years!  Fact:  even today, in the 21st century, Black people are still fighting for equality, to be treated as equals.  Children need to learn all of the history of their nation, not just the rosier parts.  In the words of Winston Churchill …

“Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”

The U.S. has some very ugly things and dark periods in its history, along with some wonderful, bright moments.  They are all part of our history, from slavery, the Japanese internments, turning away the St. Louis, the white man’s treatment of the original people who were here long before Europeans came.  The United States is no worse, no better than most Western nations and we must remember both the good and the bad.

If the civil rights legislation that was passed in the 1960s were put forth today, no doubt Mitch McConnell would filibuster and ensure it didn’t pass.  Perhaps it is Mitch that needs to be educated.

Please do not rewrite history – there is too much to learn (a still needed reprise)

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, education, Global Issues, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Re-blogs, Social commentary

Our friend Keith has reprised one of his older posts about the whitewashing of history, the attempts to erase the mistakes we’ve made (and there have been many!) throughout the years. But, if we don’t remember our mistakes, we are doomed to repeat them. Thanks, Keith, for an excellent post, a timely reminder.

musingsofanoldfart

The following post was written about six years ago. Unfortunately, the white washing of US history continues as would typically be done in more autocratic regimes. If we do not bother to know history, we are destined to repeat it, especially by some who do not want us to know.

In the US, a few states have acquiesced to the push by some conservative funding groups to whitewash history. The target is the Advanced Placement US History curriculum. The problem the group is solving in their minds is we do not pat ourselves on the back enough and discuss American exceptionalism. I will forego the word exceptionalism as I can devote a whole post to this, but when we try to hide our warts and how we have protested or overcome those warts, we are missinga key part of our greatness – our ability as citizens to protest and…

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Roots Cause Analysis

Posted on by under History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Re-blogs, Social commentary

Blogging friend Brosephus … well, he has written a post that will make you stop and think. Truer words were never spoken than … “Our society has never acknowledged that America was built upon stolen land and became what it is today from stolen labor.” And yet, our society is one of arrogance, of racism, of entitlement. Please read his post, think about what he says. Is there common ground we can find to heal the ‘great divide’? Perhaps, but we are going to have to take a long, hard look at ourselves first. Thank you, Brosephus, for this very thoughtful and thought-provoking post!

The Mind of Brosephus

Root cause analysis, as the website Tableau defines it, “is the process of discovering the root causes of problems in order to identify appropriate solutions”. RCA is used to solve all types of problems, and I thought about this process while digesting the news of the week.

In this one week in 2021, we’ve seen the GOP become the GQP by refusing to reject Marge and her illogical logic. We saw more arrests and indictments come down from the Trump Insurrection of 2021. A country music singer got his music yanked from the radio when a video surfaced of him using a racial slur. In not so mainstream news, there was also the suicide of Lafayette Parish Sheriff Deputy Clyde Kerr III. This particular story hit close to the heart for me because I can empathize with his struggle.

I honestly believe that a majority of America’s problems could…

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If we don’t know our history, we are destined to repeat it

Posted on by under education, Election 2020, Global Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Re-blogs, Social commentary

My jaw dropped when I read the first sentence in this thoughtful and thought-provoking post by our friend Keith. I think yours will too. Trump’s desire to teach revisionist history can only lower us even further in the eyes of the world … it can only be thought of as the ‘dumbing-down of America’. Please take a minute to read Keith’s post and ponder on the direction we are headed. Thanks, Keith!

musingsofanoldfart

I read this week from a UPI article that 60% of millennials and Gen-Zers are unaware that 6 million Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust by the Nazis in World War II. I use the word “exterminated” as that is what the Nazis did by gassing Jews after they rounded them up. If the brashness of this statement offends – I apologize for the needed candor. It is meant to wake people up.

But, the Nazi genocide of Jews is among too many persecutions around the world and over time. The United States has had three persecutions of groups of people, two of which leading to many deaths. We should never forget these sad parts of our history or white-wash (word intentionally chosen) them away.

– European settlers of the US over time seized land from, killed many and moved Native Americans over the course of three centuries. Even today…

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Trump’s Attack on History: The 1776 Project, Racism, Nationalism, and Fraudulent Patriotism to Conform History to his Twisted Ideology

Posted on by under education, Election 2020, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Today, in yet another extreme abuse of the power of his office, Trump signed an ‘executive order’ to demand that public schools teach revisionist history, that they exclude the darker past of this nation. I tried to write about this, but was too furious to put coherent words on paper. Fortunately, Padre Steve was more successful than I, so I share his work with you. Please do read this … it is another step … a huge one … in the destruction of the United States. Thank you, Padre!

The Inglorius Padre Steve's World

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Today President Trump launched a major attack on the history of the United States by announcing what he called The 1776  Project, a direct attack on the 1619 Project which aims to tell the story of how the English Colonists introduced what became the institution of slavery and entrenched racism in the United States. I know the subject well, my book which will be published sometime in the next year “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory!” Racism, Religion, Ideology and Politics in the Civil War Era and why they Continue to Matter” deals extensive with this history, and I can say based on his actions and utterances that the President is using this to further divide the country on racial lines and to open American history as his next front of his culture war.

Trump said he would create a national commission to promote a…

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