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Tea Party Groups In TN Demand Textbooks Ignore U.S. Founders Slave-Owning History

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A little more than a year after a conservative school board in Texas approved massive changes to its school textbooks to put slavery in a more positive light, a group of Tea Party activists in Tennessee has renewed its push to whitewash school textbooks. The group is seeking to remove references to slavery and mentions of the country's founders being slave owners.

According to reports, Hal Rounds, the Fayette County attorney and spokesman for the group, said during a recent news conference that there has been "an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another."

"The thing we need to focus on about the founders is that, given the social structure of their time, they were revolutionaries who brought liberty into a world where it hadn't existed, to everybody -- not all equally instantly -- and it was their progress that we need to look at," Rounds said, according to The Commercial Appeal.

During the news conference more than two dozen Tea Party activists handed out material that said, "Neglect and outright ill will have distorted the teaching of the history and character of the United States. We seek to compel the teaching of students in Tennessee the truth regarding the history of our nation and the nature of its government."

And that further teaching would also include that "the Constitution created a Republic, not a Democracy."

The group demanded, as they had in January of last year, that Tennessee lawmakers change state laws governing school curricula. The group called for textbook selection criteria to include: "No portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership."

The latest push comes a year after the Texas Board of Education approved revisions to its social studies curriculum that would put a conservative twist on history through revised textbooks and teaching standards.

The Texas revisions include the exploration of the positive aspects of American slavery, lifting the stature of Jefferson S. Davis to that of Abraham Lincoln, and amendments to teach the value of the separation of church and state were voted down by the conservative cadre. Among other controversial amendments that have been approved is the study of the "unintended consequences" of affirmative action.

The measures went as far as to replace instances of the trans-Atlantic slave trade with "Atlantic triangular trade."

"It is going to be extremely psychologically harmful to African-American young people because they are marginalized in the curriculum," Bledsoe said. "It will require them to be taught things such as the benevolence of slavery and the problems with affirmative action rather than the good and the bad."

"They voted down a motion that requires students to be taught about the terrorism brought about by the Ku Klux Klan and what they did to ethnic and racial minorities, but they turn around and pass a provision that requires the teaching of the violence of the Black Panther Party."
 
"They voted down a motion that requires students to be taught about the terrorism brought about by the Ku Klux Klan and what they did to ethnic and racial minorities, but they turn around and pass a provision that requires the teaching of the violence of the Black Panther Party."

Unbelievable, fuck those guys.
 
Not all Republicans, just the racist ones.

DINGDINGDING....correct answer.

Although I do lol whenever someone says the tea party is not racist. Is everyone racist? Nope. Do I think it's a larger percentage than the general populace. I sure do.

Hell there are racist democrats, but you will never see any of them put forth such crazytime ideas.


"a group"? so what? they only matter if they actually have the ability to influence things, which I can't believe they have.

Hopefully true. It's just insane that anyone group would vocalize this wish.
 
A little more than a year after a conservative school board in Texas approved massive changes to its school textbooks to put slavery in a more positive light

Wait, this is a thing that already happened in Texas? smh


Great, more shit for liberal GAF to unfairly equate to all republicans.

The Tea Party isn't the whole Republican party. It's just a decent chunk of especially dumb and racist Republicans.
 
"The thing we need to focus on about the founders is that, given the social structure of their time, they were revolutionaries who brought liberty into a world where it hadn't existed, to everybody -- not all equally instantly -- and it was their progress that we need to look at," Rounds said, according to The Commercial Appeal.
That was what was focused on in US history already without the need to omit slavery.

It was very much a "Yeah, they owned slaves, but look at all the good they did". Now it'll be "Look at all the good they did"

The county appears to be about 30% black too - near Memphis.
"a group"? so what? they only matter if they actually have the ability to influence things, which I can't believe they have.
Inclined to agree.
 
Wait, this is a thing that already happened in Texas? smh

Yes. And that wasn't the beginning. Crispus Attucks is rarely even acknowledged in most K-12 history books at this point. Neither his name, nor his race, nor his status as the first American to be killed in the Revolutionary War are mentioned anymore.

this

image002l.png


is all that remains of him and his sacrifice in many history books. and it was a systematic removal over the course of a few decades. removed piece by piece.

They succeeded in doing it in Texas, so I'm not sure why they couldn't in Tennessee.

one group has nothing to do with the other. tbh, the first sentence of the article doesn't even make sense. school board != random-ass tea party group.
 
Someone I worked with tried to convince me that America HAD to own slaves - that our people were starving and it was only by enslaving blacks (and Indians, but he insists we never enslaved Indians...I suppose it's okay for the Spanish to have though because they're also the bad guys) that we survived.

And I say "we" though my family didn't emigrate until the early 20th century and from Germany.
 
These Tea Party activists need to prove why ignoring uncomfortable truths about our history is necessary to teach students about how amazing our founding fathers and their accomplishments were.

They also need to prove that their motive is purer than to whitewash history in a way that suits their viewpoint at the expense of an accurate education.

And that they aren't full of shit, as well.

Great, more shit for liberal GAF to unfairly equate to all republicans.

You're the only one I see making false equivocations in here.
 
And I say "we" though my family didn't emigrate until the early 20th century and from Germany.
Slavery benefited immigrant families
Immigrants who arrived after the Civil War still benefited from slavery and its aftermath
Immigrants flocked to the “land of opportunity” made possible by the unpaid labor of enslaved people
Immigrants found routes to prosperity which were closed to the families of former slaves
Federal programs in the 20th century provided white families with aid for education, home ownership, and small businesses
http://www.tracesofthetrade.org/guides-and-materials/historical/myths-about-slavery/
 
The Tea Party is only marginalizing itself this way. The masses will eventually smell the trail of shit that follows these psychotics around.
 
When I was in school the fact the founding fathers owned slaves was rarely touched upon. All my teachers ever said were that they owned estates and plantations where they had "workers" on them. It was like they whitewashed the topic and it was never clarified these workers were actually African slaves and/or slaves of African descent. But, when I found out these workers were slaves it all made sense and was not surprising at all. If I ever end up teaching in TN I will tell my students the founding fathers owned and purchased slaves, no matter what the textbooks say or don't say.
 
Revisionist history is disgusting. Just tell the truth: The founding fathers were revolutionary men that helped create the basis of our democracy, yet they were ultimately flawed men like all human beings and many of them participated in the great horror of slavery.

What the fuck is so terrible about conceding this?
 
1. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
2. Whitewash history books to ensure no one learns from history, ensuring we are doomed to repeat it.
3. America regresses into ignorant, racist hellhole.
4. ???
5. Profit!

Clever, Tea Party!
 
Teachers gonna have to step up. When I was in school they white washed the fuck out of the textbook for Georgia History. So my teacher [white] shortened her lectures so towards the end of the school year we watched the ENTIRE series of Roots.
 
Parents should have their children read "A People's History of the United States" instead. Mine will.

Another good one is "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong" by James Loewen (inlcudes stuff about the removal of Crispus Attucks as Dreams-Visions mentioned). Basically our entire nation is exercising revisionist history, not just Texas, TN and the Tea Partiers.
 
Revisionist history is disgusting. Just tell the truth: The founding fathers were revolutionary men that helped create the basis of our democracy, yet they were ultimately flawed men like all human beings and many of them participated in the great horror of slavery.

What the fuck is so terrible about conceding this?

The only terrible thing is that it goes against those who wish to craft a narrative of white purity and superiority. Hence, other attempts to remove terrorism by the KKK, but emphasize terrorism by the "lower" races.

The "founding fathers" are popular figures to deify. Some efforts directly insinuate that they're like figures out of the bible - not just men, but divinely inspired, that god was working through them to found America. It would aid in that to simplify the image of the founding fathers to the point they're merely characters that fit the narrative.
 
God damn it...you know, whenever it came up, I've always been quick to say that we don't have a reason to believe that the tea party is an inherently racist organization, despite the fact that I find them so disagreeable on most other things. Well, I guess I was fuckin wrong about that. They're a bunch of racists.

EDIT: Someone else up there had it; the key is that they need to have these figured deified, because a lot of their platform is based on the 'founding fathers' being infallible in their viewpoints. The implication of tea party logic is "If the founding fathers believed it, we don't have to think about it." That doesn't work if even one thing any of them ever thought is incorrect.
 
I think this illustrates how religions are started. People white-wash the history of their leaders. Some new facts get fudged. And after a while, that long-gone leader was born of a virgin and spouting a message from god.
 
These Tea Party activists need to prove why ignoring uncomfortable truths about our history is necessary to teach students about how amazing our founding fathers and their accomplishments were.

Because you don't create a zealot without shielding them from doubt.
 
I'm studying to become a high school history teacher and shit like this makes me livid. I feel like this is just as important as the struggle to keep creationism out of science classes and it doesn't get the attention that it should.
 
This is the most absurd thing I've read all day, but it's still early.

I don't quite get their meaning, here. Do we not already put enough focus on the founders' non-reprehensible activities? I can understand that their legacy could be clouded if the fact that they owned slaves became the sole avenue of study in their regard, but as far as I'm concerned there's plenty of room for a complete historical picture. In fact, it could be said that we don't elaborate on their negative traits enough.

Such a weird demi-religion around the founding fathers. In 10,000 years scholars knowing nothing else of our culture will be convinced he was a god to us, or something.
 
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