Whitewashing History, One Textbook at a Time

This is getting scary.

Arizona Schools Ban Ethnic Studies Classes

Arizona has actually signed a bill into law that bans ethnic studies classes. The bill bans schools from teaching classes that are designed for students of a particular ethnic group or promote resentment or advocate ethnic solidarity. The bill also bans classes that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government.

So, instead of teaching students about history and different cultures, and allowing them to make their own judgments on how they feel about these events, the school district is just going to censor any information that could make a student dislike the U.S.?

This is ridiculous. I don't advocate promoting an anti-U.S. filled curriculum, but that hasn't been what has been taught anyway! The now banned Arizona textbooks wouldn't have made it to students hands if they promoted an anti-U.S. point of view. The reasoning is just a veil for targeting the Mexican American studies programs in AZ.

I don't know how it works in other people's schools, but in my 16 years of schooling, ethnic studies classes were taken by individuals of all ethnicities, and didn't turn people against the U.S. or each other, but rather, educated people about people different from themselves.

Texas Board of Education debates whether to include President Obama's Middle Name, "Hussein," in Textbooks.

From what I've read on this story, Obama supporters in the Texas Board of Education did not want President Obama's middle name to be listed in new text books, citing that individuals who did want it there had ulterior motives to un-dignify the president by listing "Hussein."

You know what the problem is here? That the use of the name "Hussein" could be used as a derogatory jab at our president, OR that the use of it would make President Obama supporters take offense. It is indeed his name. It's not John, Jacob, or David. Yes, there is an obvious tie to Saddam Hussein when people hear the name. However, there were people in history who did unspeakable things named John (Wilkes Booth), Timothy (McVeigh) and Theodore (Kaczynski).

We don't need to "cleanse" our president's name by removing "Hussein" from it. Hussein is Arabic and means "good; small handsome one." But we don't care what it means, but it's Arabic, and we cannot have ethnic sounding names in our textbooks for good people.

Texas Board of Education (again, with Texas) Wants to Rename the Slave Trade to the "Atlantic Triangular Trade."

Why does this bother me? Because it is only the beginning in trying to sugar coat one of our nation's darkest times and absolve any guilt. I don't believe "Atlantic Triangulars" were being traded, I believe it was SLAVES, men, women, and children, killed, beaten, put into bondage and treated like property, with less decency than cattle.

This scares me. Where are we without history, real history? True depictions of what has happened. Our children spend 16 years of their lives in schools. I just want them to have the truth. Lay the information on the table, and let them decide for themselves.