Texas history curriculum to emphasize that slavery played 'central role' in Civil War

[highplainsdem]

Source: The Hill

The Texas Board of Education voted Friday to approve several changes to the state’s curriculum, one of which will require history lessons to teach that slavery played a “central role” in starting the Civil War.

Previously, the state’s standards said there were three causes for the Civil War, in order: sectionalism, states’ rights and slavery. The new curriculum will go into effect in the 2019-2020 school year, according to NPR.

Changes to the curriculum were first proposed in September by Democrats on the board.

"What the use of 'states' rights' is doing is essentially blanketing, or skirting, the real foundational issue, which is slavery," Democratic board member Marisa Perez-Diaz said at a Tuesday board meeting.

-snip-

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/417224-texas-education-board-now-requires-history-to-teach-that-slavery-played

[Honeycombe8]

1. Well, blow me down. Good. It's been a long time coming, as they say. nt

[Hoyt]

2. No chit. White wingers just figuring that out, or deciding no one believes their

attempts to cover up truth.

[AZ8theist]

3. Where's the fucking creatard Don McLeroy when you need him???

Amazing what happens to "reality" when you vote out imbeciles like McLeroy....

[Proud liberal 80]

4. It's funny

It’s funny how states can manipulate and brainwash kids about history. I remember living in South Carolina in the 8th grade and having to take South Carolina history. You would have thought that Strom Thurman was a noble wise hero the way he was portrayed in our text book. I remember reading about him the text book and everything was so positive, but when I read between the lines I was like this dude was a racist asshole.

[Yavin4]

5. Did the books talk about his rapes? n/t

[Proud liberal 80]

6. No

More about how he was defending South Carolina’s honor from the evil federal government and Harry Truman.

[Judi Lynn]

24. Whoa! What a heroic figure! Bless his heart trying to protect them from that mean old Harry Truman.

As a Democrat, he had to be one of the scariest commies in the whole world!

Too bad Thurman couldn't live even far longer, and live to be a couple of hundred years old, and they could continue to roll him out every time from his hotel room, to vote for Republican legislation.

[OrlandoDem2]

7. Why is this news? Shouldn't slavery always be taught as the central cause?

Oh wait. Nevermind.

[JohnnyRingo]

8. And that the Earth is round in science class.

Welcome to the real world, Texas. We've been expecting you.

The article mentions "sectionalism" as a previous reason. Maybe they meant secession-ism.

[Quackers]

12. Easy there.

Don’t push them too far too fast. Let this sink in first. We’ll get to science eventually.

[mysteryowl]

9. Good work!

[old guy]

10. Welcome to the modern, educated world, Texas.

[zentrum]

11. Amazing. Huge.

[SunSeeker]

13. About fucking time. nt

[True_Blue]

14. The were States rights issues but

they were caused by slave owners refusing to give up their slaves in the Free States.

When Dred Scott's owners moved to a Free State, he sued for his & his family's freedom, but the judge ruled in favor of the slave owners. That terrible ruling infuriated the Free States, which felt slavery should not be allowed in Free States. That case was a huge catalyst to the Civil War.

[sakabatou]

15. But states rights!

[czarjak]

16. Uncle Walter Williams is gonna be pissed!

[kyburbonkid]

17. Brovo!

It's about time the revisionist rightwing history gets corrected.

[bluecollar2]

18. Pigs are flying

The fat lady is singing and there's an ice factory in hell...

WTF happened?

[SergeStorms]

19. Trump's base is gonna' have a fit about this!

I smell a Supreme Court case in the air. They're destroying the right-wing world view. About time!

[Takket]

20. wow... usually whenever i see a thread like this it is rethugs covering up history

nice to see something going in the right direction.

[cstanleytech]

21. Aye, slavery was the main reason and trying to paper over that it was even partly a state rights

issue has always been complete bullshit as it came down to the ones in power in the southern states wanted to keep slavery and spread it even further.

[Adrahil]

23. The "states' rights" argument is bullshit.

The slave states were NOT in favor of states' when free states refused to enforce the fugitive slave act.

[SweetieD]

25. Can't believe it is 2018 and people can't accept that the civil war was about maintaining

slavery and white supremacy. Yes that is the term the confederacy used "supremacy". The basis of their fight was to maintain supremacy of the white man over the black man. They said it plainly and yet their descendants 150 years later hem and haw about the reason.

[malthaussen]

26. Tell it to the people on the ground.

Funny how one can read many letters from people who fought in the war and find little reference to slavery, and the importance of its preservation/elimination, and many references (on the US side) to "preserving the Union" or (on the CS side), "protecting our homes." Revisionism is all very well, and it is a useful corrective for the Confederate states to acknowledge the central role of human bondage in the conflict, but it is a distortion of history to suggest that slavery was the only cause, or a primary driving force for the majority of the men who actually fought the thing. Lincoln's Gettysburg address, which could serve as a summary of the whole thing, never mentions slavery by name. We could argue about whether the mentions of liberty and freedom are code words, but then the very fact that code words would have been necessary argues against the contention that slavery was the single cause of the war. In general, I think that monocausal explanations for something as complex as a war are overly reductionist.

-- Mal