WTF, a Texas school book with an OPPOSING view of The Holocaust ??

[steve2470]

Link to tweet

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/southlake-texas-holocaust-books-schools-rcna2965

SOUTHLAKE, Texas — A top administrator with the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake advised teachers last week that if they have a book about the Holocaust in their classroom, they should also offer students access to a book from an “opposing” perspective, according to an audio recording obtained by NBC News.

Gina Peddy, the Carroll school district’s executive director of curriculum and instruction, made the comment Friday afternoon during a training session on which books teachers can have in classroom libraries. The training came four days after the Carroll school board, responding to a parent’s complaint, voted to reprimand a fourth grade teacher who had kept an anti-racism book in her classroom.

A Carroll staff member secretly recorded the Friday training and shared the audio with NBC News.

“Just try to remember the concepts of [House Bill] 3979,” Peddy said in the recording, referring to a new Texas law that requires teachers to present multiple perspectives when discussing “widely debated and currently controversial” issues. “And make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust,” Peddy continued, “that you have one that has an opposing, that has other perspectives.”

“How do you oppose the Holocaust?” one teacher said in response.

“Believe me,” Peddy said. “That’s come up.

This is fucking BEYOND THE PALE and UNCONSCIONABLE in the United States of America in 2021 ! What is Texas becoming ?? The proto-4th Reich ?

[NCDem47]

1. Six million were exterminated in genocide...

And there needs to be a “both sides” to that? Unbelievable.

[Aristus]

3. It actually shook out to around 12 million.

Six million of whom were Jewish. The rest were Russians and other Slavs, Roma people, gays, Jehovah's Witnesses, the developmentally delayed, etc.

You're right; how could there possibly be "both sides" to that unspeakable horror?

[roamer65]

8. All told, the Axis powers were responsible for about 73,000,000 dead.

The Soviet Union took the brunt of it.

That’s why the call it the Great Patriotic War.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II

Japan, Germany and Italy got what they deserved. A complete ass kicking.

[Jilly_in_VA]

36. Some years ago

Maybe back in the 1970s, TBS (!) ran a multi-part documentary on the Russian Front called "The Unknown War". It was fascinating. We were not taught about that when I was in school (I graduated from HS in 1961) because the USSR was THE ENEMY and therefore not worth learning about. It was a fascinating story and worth looking up. It might be found now on YouTube or someplace, I don't know. Definitely worth looking up though.

[Disaffected]

49. Yes, as much as the allies contributed to the war in Europe,

the Russians did most of the heavy lifting. At any point in the war after the Russian invasion, approximately two-thirds of the German army and air force were ground up on the Eastern front. Their sacrifice was immense yet they often receive little recognition in the west.

[Straw Man]

71. All very true.

There's a historian (whose name now escapes me) who has proposed the thesis that such unimaginable loss and sacrifice as the Russians endured was only possible under a brutal totalitarian regime. He suggests that the Russians were more afraid of their own government than they were of the Germans, and that citizens of a representative democracy would have surrendered at Stalingrad and elsewhere rather than enduring the unspeakable privation and loss.

It's an ugly picture, but it is intriguing.

[Aristus]

73. There's a great deal of truth in that, but there's more to it.

There was also simple Russian patriotism. To Americans, patriotism is waving the flag, shedding crocodile tears during the anthem, and jet flyovers at the Super Bowl.

To the Russian people, patriotism is something approaching the holy and the sacred. The concept of The Motherland as almost a living thing is nearly ineradicable in the Russian character.

Stalin (who was Georgian, not Russian) exploited this facet of the Russian character very cunningly during the war, trusting to the threat of torture and execution to fill in any gaps in the self-sacrificing nature of Russian patriotism.

[obamanut2012]

87. Many Americans bravely fought and died in WWII

It is pretty out of line you are calling their patriotism crocodile tears and flag waving. I have two grandfathers who voluntarily enlisted and fought with valor in the Pacific and DDAy.

[Aristus]

89. I'm not referring to them, am I?

I'm a third-generation war veteran (Grandfather: WWII, Father: Vietnam, Me: Gulf War 1991.) I'm not very partial to armchair patriots for that reason.

I was referring to the kinds of people, and we all know who they are, who express 'patriotism' in exactly the way I described, and never seem to be able to rouse themselves off their couches to do even the smallest service to their country. But they will yell and scream in carefully-calculated, prime-time-ready outrage if they see anyone kneeling in memory of murder victims, or protesting another forever war.

[Disaffected]

76. I'm quite sure that was a significant factor.

IIRC it was not uncommon for KGB (or whatever it was at the time) contingents to station themselves behind the front line troops with orders to execute stragglers, malingerers or deserters. Even being shell shocked or lost was not an excuse.

And as far as being more afraid of their own government, the German invaders were, initially at least, welcomed as liberators by Russians close to the southern border (this being in Ukraine after-all).

[steve2470]

86. in WW2 that unit was still called NKVD

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NKVD

After the German invasion, the NKVD evacuated and killed prisoners. During World War II, NKVD Internal Troops units were used for rear area security, including preventing the retreat of Soviet Union army divisions. Though mainly intended for internal security, NKVD divisions were sometimes used at the front to stem the occurrence of desertion through Stalin's Order No. 270 and Order No. 227 decrees in 1941 and 1942, which aimed to raise troop morale via brutality and coercion. At the beginning of the war the NKVD formed 15 rifle divisions, which had expanded by 1945 to 53 divisions and 28 brigades.[35] A list of identified NKVD Internal Troops divisions can be seen at List of Soviet Union divisions. Though mainly intended for internal security, NKVD divisions were sometimes used in the front-lines, for example during the Battle of Stalingrad and the Crimean Offensive of 1944.[35] Unlike the Waffen-SS, the NKVD did not field any armored or mechanized units.[35]

In the enemy-held territories, the NKVD carried out numerous missions of sabotage. After fall of Kiev, NKVD agents set fire to the Nazi headquarters and various other targets, eventually burning down much of the city center.[36] Similar actions took place across the occupied Byelorussia and Ukraine.

The NKVD (later KGB) carried out mass arrests, deportations, and executions. The targets included both collaborators with Germany and non-Communist resistance movements such as the Polish Armia Krajowa and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army aiming to separate from the Soviet Union, among others. The NKVD also executed tens of thousands of Polish political prisoners in 1940–1941, including the Katyń massacre.[37][38] On 26 November 2010, the Russian State Duma issued a declaration acknowledging Stalin's responsibility for the Katyn massacre, the execution of 22,000 Polish POW's and intellectual leaders by Stalin's NKVD. The declaration stated that archival material "not only unveils the scale of his horrific tragedy but also provides evidence that the Katyn crime was committed on direct orders from Stalin and other Soviet leaders."[39]

[onecaliberal]

17. The same way we have people saying they love God here but scream about killing people they hate.

[Whiskeytide]

19. Well, there's the white supremacy side, I guess. n/t

[sanatanadharma]

23. Ah! But see, they are not arguing numbers..

..the never-right is arguing the acceptability (the morality) of genocide (or torture, or insurrection, or handmaids, etc).

The always-wrong right can never be wrong, even if it means rejecting their own God, scripture, teachings, or even basic kindergarten lessons.

[ShazzieB]

79. Holocaust deniers do argue numbers, though.

At least some do. There are people who deny that the Holocaust happened at all, and there are others who conced that the Nazis killed some Jews but argue that the extent of it was greatly exaggerated, and quibble over the (very well documented) numbers that most of us are familiar with.

Holocaust denial definitely does stem from antisemitism, though, and genocide is based on the idea that some groups of people deserve to live, while others don't.

[catrose]

6. Jewish, Rom, LBGTQ+, etc certainly need to know they'll encounter such views at this school

[abqtommy]

14. Millions of Jews died PLUS millions of "others". Twelve million total is a

conservative estimate.

This site lays it out pretty well:

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/documenting-numbers-of-victims-of-the-holocaust-and-nazi-persecution

It's not pleasing history to study but it's important to know.

[displacedtexan]

42. I had a German prof at TCU in the 70's who served in WWII.

He got swept up in a raid on a beer hall, where Anti-Fascists were rounded up by the Nazis. To prove that he wasn't a subversive, Prof had to join the damned army. Had he refused, he would've been disappeared. Probably that night.
In the 3 semesters I spent in his classes, his hands never stopped shaking, and he chain smoked. Everyone in the department treated him very kindly.

[wnylib]

74. In junior high, we had a Russian

music appreciation teacher. He had a lot of nervous mannerisms that kids laughed at until another teacher told us about his service in WWII and said that he suffered from "shell shock," which is what they called PTSD back then.

We behaved like angels after that.

[rurallib]

63. might reflect badly on today's Nazis

this is supposed to be a sarcastic remark, I think

[CurtEastPoint]

2. F TX. F Abbott. F this administrator. F all Republicans. They need to perish. All of them.

[Docreed2003]

4. "Believe me...that's come up"

Of course it has...🤦🏻‍♂️

This is despicable

[intheflow]

34. "Hi, I'm a parent and I want both sides taught about shitting."

"Most people believe shitting should be done in a toilet, but I believe you should only shit in hallways (preferably in Congress), and I'm teaching my children that shitting falls under 'my body, my choice.' Likewise, you need pro-books about how Big Oil is making our waters cleaning with deep drilling, the joys of anti-Semitism, and of course, how vaccines will make you become a werewolf."

[Initech]

65. I'm convinced if you told them that you need to use a toilet...

These people would argue in favor of wearing diapers while voluntarily shitting their pants to prove their point.

[JohnSJ]

5. Sounds like Mark Zuckerberg denfending holocaust deniers

[malaise]

7. But they must have no opposing books dealing with slavery

Fuck these white supremacists - that is all

[Heartstrings]

45. What you said.....

Unbelievable yet…..not totally unreal for this administration.

[ForgedCrank]

9. I'm confused here.

How in sam hall can there be an "opposing view" on this topic? Apparently I'm not alone in my confusion.

1) it really happened
2) it was worse than just a bad thing
3) it was perpetrated by evil bastards

I'm not sure what else really matters regarding this subject. Maybe the *why* part? If so, I don't even see how that is relevant.
Evil people did this and we hung as many of them as we could when we found them.

[Mad_Machine76]

18. And are still arresting and trying those

whom are still alive and on the lam.

[Lonestarblue]

52. The opposing view held by some right wingers is that the Holocaust never happened at all.

These statements are from Wikipedia and outline the gist of what the Holocaust deniers believe.

“Nazi Germany's Final Solution was aimed only at deporting Jews and did not include their extermination.
Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas chambers for the genocidal mass murder of Jews.
The actual number of Jews murdered is significantly lower than the accepted figure of 5 to 6 million, typically around a tenth of that figure.
The Holocaust is a hoax perpetrated by the Allies, a Jewish conspiracy, or the Soviet Union.”

I’ve always thought that Holocaust deniers are also white supremacists who identify with Hitler and Germans because they were white and because they wanted to keep white German blood pure—the whole Aryan superiority trope.

For schools to teach an opposing viewpoint such as this is teach propaganda and conspiracy, not history. Republicans are ruining this country in more ways than we can even imagine. It’s bad enough when elected leaders make stupid comments like this, but when school leaders and teachers make decisions like this they often go unnoticed and end up in the bad education of children.

[soldierant]

69. It was perpetuated by pretty much normal people

who were sucked in by fear of "the other" and mostly kept in by fear of the consequences of getting out. Some, as today, did stay because they had become evil bastards.

To me, that's really why we teach it. I was brought up to believe that it was my personal responsibility to make good choices which would help prevent me from becoming an evil bastard/ But I don't see the "party of personal responsibility" on that bandwagon.

[ForgedCrank]

72. "It was perpetuated by pretty much normal people"

I do not accept that.
Normal people would commit no such horrors. I have zero regard or respect for anyone who would execute such atrocities just to save themselves from reprimand, or hell, even death. I do not consider such people normal, they are weak and selfish, and undeserving of a validated seat within civilized society.

[soldierant]

75. You are not required to accept it. But I stand by it.

Weakness ans selfishness are both well withing the scope of normal human traits, as are meny other traits we don't like, Learning to accept that they exist and also learning not to act on them - that requires rising above the normal. Not everyone can do it - but those who don;t try - because they don't realize they need to - won't be dong it.

[ShazzieB]

80. I stand by it, too.

I accept it in large part because historians who have devoted their careers to studying the Holocaust and to writing and teaching about it say so. These are people who know more about it than I will ever know, and I believe they know what they're talking about.

Also, there is work that has been done by social psychologists that backs up the contention that "pretty much normal people" can be influenced to do some pretty awful things.

No one has to accept this view, but I know what I know, and what I know convinces me that it is true.

[soldierant]

91. +1000

[kimbutgar]

10. Everyone of those individuals need to get a free trip to the Holocaust museum in DC

Then come back and try to write their opposition textbook.

[Jilly_in_VA]

12. Better yet

to Auschwitz and Dachau, the way Israeli schoolkids get. THEN to the museum.

I remember my trip to the museum. I went with my daughter, who was 19 and pregnant with a baby she later lost. They give you a "passbook" with the details of someone who went to the camps. I remember mine being a 39 year old housewife with 3 sons. None survived. The most poignant exhibit to me was the one with all the shoes. My daughter was uncharacteristically quiet the rest of the day. Her reaction was the same as my son's was to seeing "Schindler's List"---"I'm glad I went, and I hope I never have to again."

There IS no opposing view.

[Marius25]

32. The sad thing is, most young people in the US

know nothing about the Holocaust. They either don't know it happened, or don't think it was nearly as bad as claimed.

[ShazzieB]

81. Depends on where in the US one lives.

20 US states now require Holocaust education as part of the public school curriculum. Granted, 19 out of 50 aren't nearly enough (and I'm sure the content varies greatly), but it's something at least.

https://www.ushmm.org/teach/fundamentals/where-holocaust-education-is-required-in-the-us

[Heartstrings]

46. Touring Dachau was a very sobering experience.

And I was a mere 20year old. I remember vividly how quiet it was….eerily quiet.

[onecaliberal]

22. The Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles also has a Holocaust exhibit that includes

storytelling by survivors. It was heartbreaking. I cried the entire time I was there.

[ForgedCrank]

25. I took an entire dedicated history class in college that

focused strictly on this event.
This was before internet/youtube, etc., and it really changed the way I viewed the world. I already knew what had happened because there were so many veterans still around me at the time, but the details that many people still aren't even aware of couldn't be conjured up by even the best horror fiction writers. It's safe to say that this class was in part responsible for shaping my views of life in general. Completely void of political or any other influences, the class was profound to say the very least. There were more days than not where most of the class would leave and had very obviously been crying.
I've always insisted that it should be a part of any curriculum, even as horribly uncomfortable as it is to be exposed to such information.
I have a very fragile level of trust in authority and government to this day because of the things I saw in that class.

[crimycarny]

11. And yet it still won't work

As infuriating as the attempts to quash ideas/history the far right to conform with their own twisted views it ultimately won’t work. At least not with the vast majority. Because it’s exposure to the same people being made “the enemy” that breaks apart this propaganda.

A coworker of mine once shared with me that he was raised in an extremely conservative family, close to white supremacists. I would never have known this based on his current views which were very liberal. I asked what opened his eyes and he said it was going to college. Not so much exposure to knowledge, more due to exposure to such a diverse population. He realized all he had been taught by his parents about “the other” were outright lies.

[Srkdqltr]

13. So they are not suggesting what book is the opposite view?

How impossibly stupid.

[plimsoll]

40. Mein Kampf.

TFG apparently kept a copy.

[Patton French]

15. Insane and

Dangerous.

[crud]

16. that would be

mein kämpf. Go ahead TX make it required reading...

[maxsolomon]

20. This book says Black People are equal to Whites?

Better have a book that gives other perspectives!

This book says the Civil War was about Slavery and the rebels were traitors?

Better have a book that gives other perspectives!

[Chicago1980]

24. Let's be honest...

They've been rewriting the Civil War, Slavery and the traitorous confederacy since 1865.....

[inthewind21]

33. Such as Texas

I was born and raised in Texas. They have been bass ackwards for as long as I've been alive. I wish the powers that be would stop acting shocked and just recognize and loudly declare, often, that the confederate states have NEVER stopped fighting the civil war.

https://press.nbcnews.com/2021/09/02/nbc-news-digital-to-release-new-original-documentary-southlake-racial-reckoning-in-a-texas-suburb/.

[rickyhall]

41. I grew up in Texas, too. I was taught about Damn Yankees and The War of Northern Aggression

And, of course, the Alamo story, that had nothing in it about slavery and Mexico outlawing it.

[barbtries]

55. they've been doing that for centuries.

states' rights don't you know.

[LiberalFighter]

21. Personally I think all Texas school books should be banned by other states.

[Mister Ed]

29. They should. But unfortunately, what really happens is the opposite.

Other states find themselves to some degree having to adopt Texas schoolbooks.

I've read that the reason for this is that Texas has such a large student population, and therefore has a large influence on the schoolbook publishers. It's too costly for the publishers to try to custom-tailor their offerings state by state. Instead, they publish textbooks on a nationwide basis.

This leads to a situation where Texas, to a certain degree, sets the national standard by virtue of its large purchasing power, with the toxic misinformation that Texas demands finding its way into the curricula of other states.

[Ms. Toad]

35. Absoluely correct.

With one twist - unlike most other states (in which the books are selected at the local school district level), books used in Texas school are approved by the state school board. Not on the list, you generally can't use it. That's why they carry such weight. It isn't JUST population (texas isn't the largest there) - it is the largest buying block.

[ret5hd]

26. So, keep a copy of Mein Kampf on a pedestal...

in the front of the classroom, eh?

Should the pedestal be gold plated? Lighted? Garlands maybe? Should the authors bust be beside it?

[struggle4progress]

27. ... Clay Robison, a spokesman for the Texas State Teachers Association .. said ...

“We find it reprehensible for an educator to require a Holocaust denier to get equal treatment with the facts of history” ...

Southlake school leader tells teachers to balance Holocaust books with 'opposing' views
Oct. 14, 2021, 3:00 PM EDT / Updated Oct. 14, 2021, 4:27 PM EDT
By Mike Hixenbaugh and Antonia Hylton

[steve2470]

28. 1000000000000000% correct nt

[TxGuitar]

38. whoopie,

like anything will happen with this person. She'll go on to greater heights no doubt, a bright shining star of the Republican party. Nobody will challenge her in the media, people will still vote for her.

[Ms. Toad]

30. Nope.

“Just try to remember the concepts of [House Bill] 3979,” Peddy said in the recording, referring to a new Texas law that requires teachers to present multiple perspectives when discussing “widely debated and currently controversial” issues. “And make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust,” Peddy continued, “that you have one that has an opposing, that has other perspectives.”

Widely debated? Nope. Just by a few ignorant fools
Currently controversial? Probably growing (thanks to the ignorant fools having a ignorant fool for a figurehead), but still probably not currently controversial.

So the Holocaust should not fall within the purvue of the (ignorant and foolish) statute.

[Marius25]

31. As a Jew, I really wish I could leave the US.

This place gets sicker and worse by the day.


Ironically, Germany is actually a better place to live than the US these days.

[Ilsa]

37. I have a Jewish friend in north Georgia who

is very careful about whom she lets know of her birthright. I've told her that if I hear of any antisemitism here, I'll call out the offender. But still it's getting more dangerous.

[marble falls]

39. Texas isn't only dumbing down Texas, they're dunbing down small school districts all over the US ...

Texas is the largest single market for textbooks and as such put a lot of pressure on publishers to edit textbooks, and this also by buying power cheapens the prices of text books which poorer independent districts across the US also buy.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

82. I'd known TX had that power previously, but hoped that had changed.

So disappointing it's still the case.

[marble falls]

83. As long as the state helps write textbooks and and provides a list Texas schools, we're screwed ...

... here in Texas, but we're sharing the pain with a lot of schools across the US.

[smirkymonkey]

43. I really can't believe what is happening in this country.

If we lose in the mid-terms, it is basically over in this nation. Get out while you can.

[roamer65]

44. They also should teach from where the Nazis got the idea to use Zyklon B.

The United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zyklon_B

[Reader Rabbit]

47. So...teach kids "Yes, it's okay to kill people who are different from you?"

Because that's the only opposing viewpoint to teaching the Holocaust.

[Paladin]

48. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick needs to present the "opposing" book. In public. At a press conference.

If anybody can find a pro-nazi extermination book and then enthusiastically show it off to the world, ol' Dan's the mench.

It wouldn't work quite as well with Gov. Greg Abbott, sitting there in his wheel chair. After all, the Third Reich did away with plenty of less-than-perfect physical specimens...

[Mr.Bill]

50. Okay, I got this.

Just insert a paragraph that says: "Over the years there have been people who have presented alternative views about the Holocaust. These people have been shown to be idiots."

[Zambero]

51. In opposition to "Critical Holocaust Theory"

Just because. It's only a matter of time before Holocaust denying becomes "mainstream".

[treestar]

53. "widely debated and currently controversial issues"

there is no current controversy; the Holocaust was bad, evil, and so on. Does Peddy actually think there is an issue with that?

[AllaN01Bear]

54. my sister was in nyc and had friends there who acted or had relatives who acted

like somone had happend as a number of them were acting like they lost somone or knew somone who lost somone . also how do u explain those star of david or their tatooed number on them , smarty pants ? photo shop didnt exist during that time period.

[yardwork]

56. This is how our democracy dies.

[DET]

57. Beam Me Up, Scottie

The ‘opposing view of the Haulocaust’ is that there was no Haulocaust. These are the Haulocaust deniers, of the same ilk as the Proud Boys and other bottom dwellers. It’s a lot easier to deny the murder of millions of people than to justify it.

[Evolve Dammit]

58. "Alternate Facts". Where's Spicey and KellyAnne to 'splain it to you? Resting for the next admin.

"We make our own reality." Bush/Cheney/Rummy. They started this shit. Orange Boy and his ilk just built on the model of the "unitary executive."

[3catwoman3]

59. "Opposing, that has other perspectives."

Other perspectives like what?

What the bloody effing hell other perspective could there possibly be?”

THIS IS MADNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ffr]

60. Dear Tesla employees moving to Texas from California. You might want homeschool

your children. Brainwashing is the order of the day in Texas.

[LaMouffette]

61. Funny how they're only interested in opposing views when the facts go against their racist worldview

[Politicub]

62. With a foreword from Madison Cawthorne n/t

[Initech]

64. There is no opposing viewpoint! Six million dead BAD!

Anyone with an opposing viewpoint of that should be told to fuck off and be tossed in the nearest dumpster.

[ecstatic]

66. First they came for critical race theory...

Now everything's fair game.

[LiberalArkie]

67. How about an opposing viewpoint to the American Revolution, or even Christ any number of things

Edit to add: how about an opposing viewpoint about the Alamo?

[niyad]

68. I have just expressed my "opposing view" about this f'n insanity to this twit.

[dalton99a]

70. Yay, Texas

Goddamn Fucking Texas

[LetMyPeopleVote]

77. There is no place for antisemitism in the classroom, in Texas, or in our country

Link to tweet

[Solly Mack]

78. Sometimes I just want to scream.

If I do I may never stop.

[Blue Owl]

84. Co-authored by Marjorie Taylor Greene

Currently working on the sequel about the Jewish space lasers

[BeckyDem]

85. Horrifying when we see the state ensuring hatred/lies continue.

Heartbreaking too, but that is what they're doing.

[tishaLA]

88. NBC (MSNBC?) did a great podcast series abt this district

Its race issues came to the fore when white students started telling black students that Rosa Parks is dead, so go to the back of the bus, etc. The school responded by enacting an inclusionary pedagogy, which the white parents insisted was critical race theory, and it's been downhill since then.

[traitorsgalore]

90. I hope Texas tries to secede, resulting in 2 possible results

1: They get the F out of the U.S. and never come back.
2: It finally flushes all the Rs in Texas down the toilet they came from and the Dems in the state can help Texas become a state in which the rest of the country can work with.

[paulkienitz]

92. They want every Christian family to be able to privately rewrite history to suit themselves.

And if different neighbors want to teach different lies, that's fine. What they don't ever want is to be forced to face any facts.