For myself I say, "Amen." This issue is angry, and we should be, in my estimation. We have been deprived of the opportunity to investigate and explore truths - past mistakes of our nation. Some people don't have perspective and don't want it. They don't want anyone telling them they're wrong, either, or that they've missed something. We flawed humans are compelled to comfort ourselves. True courage and strength of character comes through when people welcome different perspectives. Thanks for speaking your mind, as always. Good to have people both minds and communication skills around!
You wrote in part, "No, the problem with Parents Defending Education is that they don’t believe in systemic racism. They are not (quite) the equivalent of Holocaust deniers, but they are the equivalent of those who begrudgingly accept the truth of the Holocaust, but deny the present-day reality of anti-semitism. Sure, they say, slavery was horrid, but now get over it already."
There's a distinct difference for most American kids between learning about the Holocaust, which happened in Germany and other European countries, and the enslavement of Africans and their offspring/descendants, which happened in the United States.
Teaching the former is problematic for only a small group of extremist Holocaust denialists in the US. Few parents would publicly object, few children, if any, would come away feeling that they are directly or indirectly being asked to feel responsible for what happened to Jews and other minorities in Nazi concentration camps.
Like it or not, the same cannot be said about what quite a few people these days feel should happen with education about slavery. There's a definite push to try to impart guilt to white people. While I personally reject most of what's being purveyed in the book WHITE FRAGILITY, I've been to a few anti-racist presentations in which a few of the other white people in the audience apparently felt that they were personally being held accountable by much of what was said (I would tend to disagree with their perception, but I can only really state for certain that I didn't feel called to account).
The two subjects simply don't have the same meaning to American audiences. And to the extent that anyone is pushing an agenda that is designed to make white audiences of adults (let alone schoolchildren) feel personally responsible for slavery, it's simply off-base to compare the lessons or the two sets of historical facts and issues.
There's a lot more to this topic than whether a set of American parents (and interested adults, some of whom happen to be politicians) comprises bad people whom we should judge harshly for questioning the current trends in how American slavery and concomitant issues are taught and discussed. Reducing the conversation to good guys and bad guys is in itself part of the broader problem we continue to struggle with as a nation. And in my opinion, that's an approach that is very unlikely to improve matters.
For myself I say, "Amen." This issue is angry, and we should be, in my estimation. We have been deprived of the opportunity to investigate and explore truths - past mistakes of our nation. Some people don't have perspective and don't want it. They don't want anyone telling them they're wrong, either, or that they've missed something. We flawed humans are compelled to comfort ourselves. True courage and strength of character comes through when people welcome different perspectives. Thanks for speaking your mind, as always. Good to have people both minds and communication skills around!
You wrote in part, "No, the problem with Parents Defending Education is that they don’t believe in systemic racism. They are not (quite) the equivalent of Holocaust deniers, but they are the equivalent of those who begrudgingly accept the truth of the Holocaust, but deny the present-day reality of anti-semitism. Sure, they say, slavery was horrid, but now get over it already."
There's a distinct difference for most American kids between learning about the Holocaust, which happened in Germany and other European countries, and the enslavement of Africans and their offspring/descendants, which happened in the United States.
Teaching the former is problematic for only a small group of extremist Holocaust denialists in the US. Few parents would publicly object, few children, if any, would come away feeling that they are directly or indirectly being asked to feel responsible for what happened to Jews and other minorities in Nazi concentration camps.
Like it or not, the same cannot be said about what quite a few people these days feel should happen with education about slavery. There's a definite push to try to impart guilt to white people. While I personally reject most of what's being purveyed in the book WHITE FRAGILITY, I've been to a few anti-racist presentations in which a few of the other white people in the audience apparently felt that they were personally being held accountable by much of what was said (I would tend to disagree with their perception, but I can only really state for certain that I didn't feel called to account).
The two subjects simply don't have the same meaning to American audiences. And to the extent that anyone is pushing an agenda that is designed to make white audiences of adults (let alone schoolchildren) feel personally responsible for slavery, it's simply off-base to compare the lessons or the two sets of historical facts and issues.
There's a lot more to this topic than whether a set of American parents (and interested adults, some of whom happen to be politicians) comprises bad people whom we should judge harshly for questioning the current trends in how American slavery and concomitant issues are taught and discussed. Reducing the conversation to good guys and bad guys is in itself part of the broader problem we continue to struggle with as a nation. And in my opinion, that's an approach that is very unlikely to improve matters.