On Civil War's 150th anniversary, tension between whites

[marmar]

from the LA Times:




By Gregory Rodriguez
April 25, 2011


The fourth-grade teacher in Virginia who performed a mock slave auction in her classroom April 1 — with the white kids pretending to buy and sell the black kids — was duly chastised by school officials for her racial insensitivity. Given that she meant to be giving a lesson on the Civil War, she should also have been scolded for pedagogical inaccuracy.

Think about it. If she really wanted to have her students act out a representative scene from that conflict, which began 150 years ago this month, she should have moved the black children to the side of the room and let the white kids start tearing each other apart.

For all our legitimate concern about racial tensions in this country, it's easy to forget that the deepest and most fundamental social fault line in the nation — the one that provoked the nation's bloodiest war — is between two halves of white America.

Sure, in our increasingly diverse society, we face all sorts of tensions among racial, ethnic and religious groups. Less than half a century ago, we endured bloody fights over racial equality. More recently, racially tinged battles over immigration have captured headlines. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rodriguez-other-20110425,0,5326980.column

[slackmaster]

1. Unrec for creating false dichotomy and using the word between rather than among

Please forgive me for characterizing the piece as an example of black-and-white thought.