#whitewashed history

[alwaysbewoke]

[2bpoliticallycurious]

This is an excellent commentary by Henry Louis Gates Jr. The link above is a gift link, so anyone can read the entire column, even if they don’t subscribe to The New York Times. 

Gates argues convincingly that what far right politicians like Ron DeSantis are doing in trying to control the history that is taught in schools is very similar to what was done by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in their promotion of schools teaching the “Lost Cause” and a rewritten whitewashed history. 

Gates also argues that there has always been rigorous debate within the Black community about many “ideological and theoretical framework[s]” regarding the Black experience in America. He believes these differences are discussed in African American Studies courses and raise important debates for the students who take those classes.

The one important thing Gates left out of this essay was that in the 1920s the KKK also promoted only teaching a history that praised the founders, much like the “patriotic” civics/history DeSantis and other GOP politicians are also pushing. 

Below are some highlights from the column [all emphasis added]:

Lurking behind the concerns of Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, over the content of a proposed high school course in African American studies, is a long and complex series of debates about the role of slavery and race in American classrooms.

“We believe in teaching kids facts and how to think, but we don’t believe they should have an agenda imposed on them,” Governor DeSantis said. He also decried what he called “indoctrination.” [...] Even if we give the governor the benefit of the doubt about the motivations behind his recent statements about the content of the original version of the College Board’s A.P. curriculum in African American studies, his intervention falls squarely in line with a long tradition of bitter, politically suspect battles over the interpretation of three seminal periods in the history of American racial relations: the Civil War; the 12 years following the war, known as Reconstruction; and Reconstruction’s brutal rollback, characterized by its adherents as the former Confederacy’s “Redemption,” which saw the imposition of Jim Crow segregation, the reimposition of white supremacy and their justification through a masterfully executed propaganda effort.

Undertaken by apologists for the former Confederacy with an energy and alacrity that was astonishing in its vehemence and reach, in an era defined by print culture, politicians and amateur historians joined forces to police the historical profession. The so-called Lost Cause movement was, in effect, a take-no-prisoners social media war. And no single group or person was more pivotal to “the dissemination of the truths of Confederate history, earnestly and fully and officially,” than the historian general of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Mildred Lewis Rutherford, of Athens, Ga. Rutherford was a descendant of a long line of slave owners.... Rutherford served as the principal of the Lucy Cobb Institute (a school for girls in Athens) and vice president of the Stone Mountain Memorial project, the former Confederacy’s version of Mount Rushmore.

As the historian David Blight notes, “Rutherford gave new meaning to the term ‘die-hard.’” Indeed, she “considered the Confederacy ‘acquitted as blameless’ at the bar of history, and sought its vindication with a political fervor that would rival the ministry of propaganda in any twentieth-century dictatorship.” And she felt that the crimes of Reconstruction “made the Ku Klux Klan a necessity.” As I pointed out in a PBS documentary on the rise and fall of Reconstruction, Rutherford intuitively understood the direct connection between history lessons taught in the classroom and the Lost Cause racial order being imposed outside it, and she sought to cement that relationship with zeal and efficacy. She understood that what is inscribed on the blackboard translates directly to social practices unfolding on the street. 

[See more under the cut.]

“Realizing that the textbooks in history and literature which the children of the South are now studying, and even the ones from which many of their parents studied before them,” she wrote in “A Measuring Rod to Test Text Books, and Reference Books in Schools, Colleges and Libraries,” “are in many respects unjust to the South and her institutions, and that a far greater injustice and danger is threatening the South today from the late histories which are being published, guilty not only of misrepresentations but of gross omissions, refusing to give the South credit for what she has accomplished, … I have prepared, as it were, a testing or measuring rod.” And Rutherford used that measuring rod to wage a systematic campaign to redefine the Civil War not as our nation’s war to end the evils of slavery, but as “the War Between the States,” since as she wrote elsewhere, “the negroes of the South were never called slaves.” And they were “well-fed, well-clothed and well-housed.”

Of the more than 25 books and pamphlets that Rutherford published, none was more important than “A Measuring Rod.” Published in 1920, her user-friendly pamphlet was meant to be the index “by which every textbook on history and literature in Southern schools should be tested by those desiring the truth.” The pamphlet was designed to make it easy for “all authorities charged with the selection of textbooks for colleges, schools and all scholastic institutions to measure all books offered for adoption by this ‘Measuring Rod,’ and adopt none which do not accord full justice to the South.” What’s more, her campaign was retroactive. As the historian Donald Yacovone tells us in his recent book, “Teaching White Supremacy,” Rutherford insisted that librarians “should scrawl ‘unjust to the South’ on the title pages” of any “unacceptable” books “already in their collections.”

On a page headed ominously by the word “Warning,” Rutherford provides a handy list of what a teacher or a librarian should “reject” or “not reject.”

“Reject a book that speaks of the Constitution other than a compact between Sovereign States.”

“Reject a textbook that does not give the principles for which the South fought in 1861, and does not clearly outline the interferences with the rights guaranteed to the South by the Constitution, and which caused secession.”

“Reject a book that calls the Confederate soldier a traitor or rebel, and the war a rebellion.”

“Reject a book that says the South fought to hold her slaves.”

“Reject a book that speaks of the slaveholder of the South as cruel and unjust to his slaves.”

And my absolute favorite, “Reject a textbook that glorified Abraham Lincoln and vilifies Jefferson Davis, unless,” she adds graciously, “a truthful cause can be found for such glorification and vilification before 1865.”

And what of slavery? “This was an education that taught the negro self-control, obedience and perseverance — yes, taught him to realize his weaknesses and how to grow stronger for the battle of life,” Rutherford writes in 1923 in “The South Must Have Her Rightful Place.” “The institution of slavery as it was in the South, far from degrading the negro, was fast elevating him above his nature and race.” For Rutherford, who lectured wearing antebellum hoop gowns, the war over the interpretation of the meaning of the recent past was all about establishing the racial order of the present: “The truth must be told, and you must read it, and be ready to answer it.” Unless this is done, “in a few years there will be no South about which to write history.”

In other words, Rutherford’s common core was the Lost Cause. And it will come as no surprise that this vigorous propaganda effort was accompanied by the construction of many of the Confederate monuments that have dotted the Southern landscape since.

While it’s safe to assume that most contemporary historians of the Civil War and Reconstruction are of similar minds about Rutherford and the Lost Cause, it’s also true that one of the most fascinating aspects of African American studies is the rich history of debate over issues like this, and especially over what it has meant — and continues to mean — to be “Black” in a nation with such a long and troubled history of human slavery at the core of its economic system for two-and-a-half centuries.

Heated debates within the Black community, beginning as early as the first decades of the 19th century, have ranged from what names “the race” should publicly call itself (William Whipper vs. James McCune Smith) and whether or not enslaved men and women should rise in arms against their masters (Henry Highland Garnet vs. Frederick Douglass). Economic development vs. political rights? (Booker T. Washington vs. W.E.B. Du Bois). Should Black people return to Africa? (Marcus Garvey vs. W.E.B. Du Bois). Should we admit publicly the pivotal role of African elites in enslaving our ancestors? (Ali Mazrui vs. Wole Soyinka).

Add to these repeated arguments over sexism, socialism and capitalism, reparations, antisemitism and homophobia. It is often surprising to students to learn that there has never been one way to “be Black” among Black Americans, nor have Black politicians, activists and scholars ever spoken with one voice or embraced one ideological or theoretical framework. Black America, that “nation in a nation,” as the Black abolitionist Martin R. Delany put it, has always been as varied and diverse as the complexions of the people who have identified, or been identified, as its members. [...] As a consultant to the College Board as it developed its A.P. course in African American studies, I suggested the inclusion of a “pro and con” debate unit at the end of its curriculum because of the inherent scholarly importance of many of the contemporary hot-button issues that conservative politicians have been seeking to censor, but also as a way to help students understand the relation between the information they find in their textbooks and efforts by politicians to say what should and what should not be taught in the classroom.

Why shouldn’t students be introduced to these debates? Any good class in Black studies seeks to explore the widest range of thought voiced by Black and white thinkers on race and racism over the long course of our ancestors’ fight for their rights in this country. In fact, in my experience, teaching our field through these debates is a rich and nuanced pedagogical strategy, affording our students ways to create empathy across differences of opinion, to understand “diversity within difference,” and to reflect on complex topics from more than one angle. It forces them to critique stereotypes and canards about who “we are” as a people and what it means to be “authentically Black.” I am not sure which of these ideas has landed one of my own essays on the list of pieces the state of Florida found objectionable, but there it is.

[emphasis added]

There is much more in this essay that is worth reading. As I said before, the gift link above will allow you to read the entire essay. I encourage you to do so.

[edited]

[itsstillsweetiebythealtar]

I really need white Americans to understand that just because they all “played together as kids” does not mean that racism was not alive and well in your little precious hometown ffs

[slimethought]

GOP politicians across several states have all introduced bills that plan to ban Critical Race Theory from being taught in schools and universities. These bills are coded in a way that completely strawmans CRT and makes it difficult to teach American history without whitewashing it. In this video I discuss how this anti-CRT wave may become another “red scare”. ~~ FOLLOW ME: Twitter: @Philosynoir Twitch: @Philosynoir Instagram: @Philosynoir

DONO: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Philosynoir

[bethetiesthatbind]

“Since Christendom rejected Christ and prostituted itself to empire, when the American church is confronted with systematic, transgenerational, communal sins, there is no theological space to wrestle with such transgressions.” (185-186)

- Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery, Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah

[odinsblog]

This is what misinformation + selective outrage + indifference looks like

Me: Gotdammit

[shinobicyrus]

A friend told me once about one of his professors back in college. She was from South America and taught history here in America. So as a historian, she was exited about a trip to Chicago because it's where the infamous Haymarket Massacre occurred; a bloody incident of labor agitation, police violence, rigged trials, and political persecution that is apparently very well known where she's from.

Imagine this historian's surprise when she found that most people living in the Chicago area have never heard of the Haymarket Massacre or the wider history of Chicago's labor movement. That it's a much more famous story in her country than in the place where it actually happened.

Whenever I remember this I'm really just struck by how much this encapsulates Americans' relationship with their own history.

[bixels]

I'm not explaining why re-imagining characters as POC is not the same as white-washing, here of all places should fucking understand.

[maladaptations]

exactly. asian families will never forget. my father has told me what the japanese did to my great-grandmother and what she witnessed. they killed, raped, beheaded, lynched, desecrated infants’ bodies, set up an internment camps, shot down local shipping boats so people would starve (she would buy sacks of rice that divers hauled in from the bottom of the bay and thoroughly rinsed it of seawater bc it was the only food available and rice is our staple food). my great-grandma lived to her 80s and kept her routine like it was still wartime. she cooked dinner in the afternoon at 3pm bc during the war, if any light shown, they’d get shot at or bombed. dinnertime was 7pm at the earliest and it was always cold.

sharing this meme again:

Criminal, op turned off reblogs

[thatdiva]

[dougielombax]

No, Jimmy.

A people’s indigeneity does not expire.

This is a universal fact that applies to all indigenous peoples.

Whether it’s the Irish, the Basques, Jews, Palestinians, Circassians, Assyrians, Armenians, Yazidis, Mandaeans, Sami people, Mari people (as in the Mari El), Rapa Nui, Māori, Ainu people, Ryukyuan peoples (Okinawa), Tibetan people or any others.

This still applies even if they change things like their religion or language too btw.

Try telling them that and see how they react!

What other lies are you gonna start spouting?

Are you gonna say that Ireland has always been British? Or that the Armenian genocide didn’t happen?

Because neither of those are true either.

Also.

This post is OFF-LIMITS to anyone who denies another people’s indigeneity. Or who tries to erase or deny their existence or right to exist.

But that should go without saying.

[helyeahmangocheese]

guys do you know how absolutely cracked the british!Grace siblings dynamic is... punk british Thalia who is so anti establishment bc look at the fucking monarchy and the british empire.... BLACK JASON GRACE, SON OF THE KING OF GODS, GRAPPLING WITH THE HISTORY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, THE BRITISH EMPIRE, AND THE EMPIRE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. the implications... and yet they're just kids who want to fit in... the family story, yall, fucking ouch.

[former-leftist-jew]

Question: How did Palestinian Arabs massacre Jews living in Hebron and Safed in 1517, 1834, and 1929, if Jews didn't arrive till 1948?

Also, Hebron is located in what we now call the West Bank.

How were Jews living in Hebron centuries before they first arrived to build "illegal settlements" after 1967?

[mollysunder]

I wonder if the mural of Vander already existed and someone else painted Jinx into it after she became so well regarded?

I just feel like the portraits aren't that well integrated in theme. You have Vander's profile bordered in yellow flowers to represent friendship and joy. Then you have the more detailed painting of Jinx looming over Piltover exploding it with smoke bombs. Jinx is framed around doves while stylized into her latest attacks.

It feels like the artist(s) wanted to associate Jinx with Vander rather than the other way around because the actual subject of the Jinx's portion of the mural is Jinx violently provoking Piltover, but the nature of Jinx's portion is practically whitewashed to make it work with Vander's theme to the point Jinx is surrounded by DOVES. It might be an attempt to harmonize Jinx's persona with the ideals Vander left behind, which are the complete opposite of what Jinx is actually doing.

I think this is on purpose because Jinx is the most politically relevant member of her family now. Jinx is the one being valorized and venerated, and EVERYONE knows none of this would have been possible without Silco. Silco was the one who dedicated his resources to train Jinx and was openly anti-Piltovan to Jinx and the rest of Zaun.

I've seen some claims that Vander and Jinx are together because Vander was more beloved than Silco. But Silco never made it illegal to mourn or even celebrate Vander's memory. Silco allowed and a giant statue of Vander to be built in the middle if Zaun and he'd TALK to it.

But now Silco's dead and there are people running around in the background wearing Jinx's X and Silco's color scheme on their clothes. It feels like there's an ideological custody battle on behalf Silco and Vander through their supporters on who was Jinx's "true" father and gets the lions share of historical parental acclaim.

Tldr: The mural seems more like an effort to save face for Vander rather than bolster Jinx because Vander's actual values inexplicably lead his KNOWN favorite to becoming an enforcer. Meanwhile, everyone knows, especially Silco's supporters, that Silco's responsible for how Jinx turned out, and she's currently Zaun's favorite.

[the-way-astray]

genuinely don't believe they will get that far, but if they do, i hope the kotlc moviemakers don't do the thing with tam and linh's hair. and maruca's

[magnetothemagnificent]

If I wasn't getting ready for Shabbat and had the spoons for it I'd talk about how "classic" Jewish productions like 'Yentl' and 'Fiddler' deliberately present a sanitized and idealized version of Shtetl life and Jewish culture and history, when in reality living in the Shtetls was a life of poverty and constant terror and people weren't dancing around petting chickens and goats all the time and singing and actually pogroms happened all the time and children often died or were kidnapped before they reached adulthood and sometimes Jews were just outright forced to leave their villages and leave all their possessions behind and all the while in the Shtetls they were treated as the permanent underclass, underneath even the gentile serfs and had constant restrictions on their dress, their food, and their economy. This contributes to a warped view of Shtetl life even within Jewish communities, where they romanticize the "good old days" of the Shtetl before the Holocaust when in reality there were never any "good old days" because the Shtetl itself was a symbol of forced social isolation and oppression, and antisemitism always existed in Europe long before the Holocaust. And because most of the Jews who've lived in these conditions have died, new generations of Jews are growing up with a distorted narrative of their own history.