COL State Board of Ed member: ‘U.S. ended slavery voluntarily’

[Ichingcarpenter]

Colorado’s latest education official to condemn high school history course standards wonders why those who wrote the curriculum missed what seems to her an obvious point — that the United States voluntarily ended slavery.

Pam Mazanec, a Larkspur businesswoman who sits on Colorado’s Board of Education, posted on a Facebook discussion thread her concerns that questions asked on the Advanced Placement U.S. history test “portray the negative viewpoint as the correct answer.”
“As an example, I note our slavery history,” she wrote to a woman who teaches AP U.S history. “Yes, we practiced slavery. But we also ended it voluntarily, at great sacrifice, while the practice continues in many countries still today!

“Shouldn’t our students be provided that viewpoint? This is part of the argument that America is exceptional. Does our APUSH (AP U.S. History) framework support or denigrate that position?”

History teachers and civil rights activists question the state Board of Ed member’s understanding of slavery in the United States and the civil war that ended it.

“The idea that the United States voluntarily gave up slavery is an outright misrepresentation of history. The United States engaged in a civil war to end slavery. There was nothing voluntary about it,” said Stephanie Rossi an AP U.S. history teacher at Wheat Ridge High School. “I’m just flabbergasted at anyone who would make that claim. Flabbergasted.”

Patrick Demmer, a pastor at Denver’s Graham Memorial Community Church and longtime civil rights activist, said Mazanec’s take on slavery shows “she’s willfully ignorant at best or she is racially disingenuous at worst.”



http://www.coloradoindependent.com/149589/state-board-of-ed-member-u-s-ended-slavery-voluntarily“She shouldn’t be on the education board.”

[Iggo]

1. Oh good gawd.

See what happens when you teach American Exceptionalism?

You get exceptionally stupid education board members.

The mind.

It's a terrible thing.

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. Here is the updated, more patriotic test

Here is the updated, more patriotic test that conservatives are pushing for.




Women only began voting in the year 1920 because:
a.) they just didn’t want to before then, it was weird
b.) a woman’s tiny hands couldn’t lift the heavy paper ballots of the time
c.) they were all too busy sewing flags
d.) all of the above

Police sprayed African Americans with firehoses because:
a.) they had a bee on them
b.) it was the best way to stay cool in the Alabama heat
c.) they were all wearing suspicious, dark-colored hoodies
d.) that never happened (circle this answer and get a free Personal Pan Pizza from Pizza Hut!)

During World War II, thousands of Japanese Americans were rounded up and sent to internment camps because:
a.) they won a contest
b.) of a clerical error by a White House intern
c.) they were all terrorists, even the babies
d.) oh, they were Japanese? Sorry, I don’t see race.

The Founding Fathers were great because of their:
a.) muscular, syphilis-free physiques
b.) commitment to freedom for all
c.) ability to multitask (preaching freedom while simultaneously owning slaves)
d.) sick ponytails

Which word or phrase best describes the United States' treatment of Native Americans during the age of colonization?:
a.) fun
b.) flirty
c.) super chill
d.) un-genocidal



The bald eagle fucking kicks ass, right?:
a.) strongly agree
b.) patriotically agree
c.) fuck yeah it does!
d.) I once saw one eating the guts out of a smaller bird right in front of its babies, it was awesome.

[Iggo]

4. lol

[hobbit709]

3. "First God made idiots. That was for practice. Then He made school boards"-Mark Twain

If that level of stupid was immediately and excruciatingly painful to the stupid there would be far less of it.

[Paladin]

18. Great quote! Thanks for contributing it. (nt)

[Mike Daniels]

5. Anytime some idiot wants to argue "states rights" vis a vis the Civil War

they need to reminded that the one of the Confederacy's idea of state rights was being allowed to maintain an economic system that treated humans as property.

I was visiting Richmond recently and found a bunch of idiots with their confederate flags sitting in front of the Museum of Fine Arts. My wife had to constantly battle to keep me from engaging the morons as we walked by them.

[jwirr]

6. Hmmm, I guess I will have to rewrite my family tree. Wonder what my great grandfather and his

son were doing down south all that time? They told us they were with the Union Army. In fact we have a few dozen papers to prove it. But I guess that cannot be true.

[procon]

7. This stupidity is not just isolated to one town in Colorado

these conservative activists are controlling state school boards all over the country and most of their skulduggery goes unnoticed.

[Octafish]

8. Slavery gives slaveholders a competitive edge, Amerika!

Geeszh: "...we also ended it voluntarily, at great sacrifice, while the practice continues in many countries still today!"

[Initech]

10. Well we did graduate from slavery to wage slavery so it's a minor improvement.

CEOs make 475:1 what the average employee makes, so really not a lot has changed in that area.

[FiveGoodMen]

12. Yeah, I noticed that too

Sounds like she wishes we had slavery back.

(Awwww... but the OTHER kids are doing it!)

[Initech]

9. 1861 - 1865 is a 404 error in this dolt's head.

[Cali_Democrat]

11. Except of course for that pesky civil war in which hundreds of thousands of Americans were killed

Other than that, slavery was indeed ended voluntarily!

[noiretextatique]

13. ignorant, ugly american...how utterly shocking

seriously...can we just give these people a few states and let them all move there? let them have their all-white utopia where they can ban abortion, have a kazillion guns, let the free market rule without any form of government, revise history to suit their selfish needs, ban gays and people of color and uppity women, and praise their awful gawd 24/7. i want them to have the paradise they are clamoring for.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

14. I don't see the problem with this. I once saw

a gentleman "voluntarily" hand over his wallet to another gentleman who was holding a gun to his head.

[Rex]

15. BUUUUUUULLLLLSHHHITT! You know what it REALLY is about?

Racists that cannot stand the fact that the South LOST! Get the fuck over it already, this is 2014!

[Shrike47]

16. The US did end slavery voluntarily, in the North. Then they persuaded the South they were right.

It was just a matter of convincing them to do the right thing, or, more exactly, to stop doing the wrong thing. Public relations campaign, as I remember it.

[kwassa]

17. It did take a couple of years of polite conversation, as I recall.

Then the South said "Oops!", and everything was alright after that.