MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
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MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
The NYT recently reported that high school history textbooks used across the United, but geared for the big sales in California and Texas, tell two different stories about United States. In the Texas version issues like slavery are white washed. A travesty.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/12/us/texas-vs-california-history-textbooks.htm
The NYT 1619 Project tells the history of the United States from a different perspective. The history of slavery is the focus of the history project. Immediately, a group of historians signed a letter complaint that the 1619 Project gives a distorted view.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/magazine/we-respond-to-the-historians-who-critiqued-the-1619-project.html
https://www.theroot.com/notallhistorians-some-white-people-are-upset-that-the-1840616511
Andrew Sullivan said the project was Liberal activism
NY Magazine called it anti-white
The National Review added its complaint about inaccuracies in the 1619 Project because the text does not give white people proper credit.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/history-according-to-the-1619-project/
Welcome to the United States.
Comments
Well, shoving American History into "only about slavery" bucket seems both unfair and not even helpful for Blacks, especially considering the version and permeation of the slavery most abhorred came after even the Constitution was written (giving some forgiveness of that awful 3/5th person kludge appear a much less important issue than post-Cotton Gin madness).
Slavery died 155 years ago in the US - and for the most part globally shortly after. While it still has many knock-on effects, just as serfdom in Russia that persisted til 100 years ago, who wants that to be the centerpiece of their existence in 2020? Hell, women are still fighting for the right to drive & attend sports events in Saudi Arabia, or not be raped by gangs with acid thrown on them in India - as largely society-approved positions. Being Muslim is largely a justification for drone strikes and our indifference to mass deaths. So our problems and beauty are much bigger than a single lens.
A South African immigrant is using the very open US Enterprise system to push out electric cars, new solar, new battery tech, doing the most of anyone in the world to practically push back against global warming. How does that fit into 1619? The US - including black soldiers and workers - stopped Nazi Germany and then held Communism back for 40 years and then freed billions from poverty through its often capricious and dual-sided technology and trade. How's that fit into 1619? Despite our love of heroic names, the heroism in America's past has always been the teeming unwashed masses, the source of any leader's power, as cliched as it sometimes feels.
What the last 30 years in technology (driven greatly by the Internet) have ingrained is teamwork - that a Steve Jobs or Elon Musk can have great ideas, but without an often *huge* innovative, largely independent motivated but cooperative workforce and actively engaged customer base behind it, it won't work (even though Twitter reached $1 billion with about 20 employees, thanks largely to Amazon's Cloud - their users mattered most). Uber? People. Facebook? People. Starbucks? People. AirBnB? People. Oprah? People. Much of it's free form social media or franchise, unwieldly agreements with non-employees, though Elon's being manufacturing, it's about factories, regulations, infrastructure, and of course wealthy and slightly wealthy first adopters.
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 01/17/2020 - 4:29am
The purpose of the 1619 Project was to give a different picture of slavery and how it impacts us today. It is not supposed to be a substitute for a complete history course. The history textbooks are supposed to be a complete course and there are versions with a very biased presentation of history.
by rmrd0000 on Fri, 01/17/2020 - 2:22pm
It was supposed to be a new pivot point on how to talk about US history, slavery centrality station, which as Conersdorff notes, and I try to summarize, misses the boat (pardon the pun).
I'd actually slightly vaguely hoped my last paragraph above might break through your pre-canned pithy dismissal of most anything not in your toolkit, but at least I enjoydled writing it, so pttthhh.
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 01/19/2020 - 2:20am
You have your toolkit, I have mine. I'm OK with that.
1776 is not a unifying point.
The Texas history textbook teaches biased history and effects more students.
Frederick Douglass said the Forth of July meant nothing to him.
Martin Luther King said the United States offered black people a blank check
https://twitter.com/rgay/status/1209196861258715139
Lincoln did not fight the Civil War to free the slaves
by rmrd0000 on Sun, 01/19/2020 - 9:50am
I'm sure 1776 is perfectly fine for lots of people I know, white, black, Asian, whatever. You still want a country for your tribe, maybe Marcus Garvey has the answer for you. Y'all can sit around the bonfire telling stories of slavery vixtimhood til 2619 if it makes you feel any better.
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 01/19/2020 - 11:49am
Obviously, you are free to your opinion and the opinion# of your circle of friends. No one is sitting around the bonfire. People are speaking out, something that would have been difficult in 1776.
Edit to add:
The Revolutionary War was a time when blacks fought on both sides and still lost.
by rmrd0000 on Tue, 01/21/2020 - 8:23am
More ways to win - Declaration of Independence and Constitution with Bill of Rights are two of the most important humanist documents in all of history, enough for Frederick Douglass to reference them when scolding countrymen that they weren't living up to its pact.
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 01/21/2020 - 10:19am
King said the documents came back to black people as "insufficient funds"
Douglass asked what was the meaning of the Fourth of July.
The original sin of 1619 was the reason for Douglass' scolding.
Edit to add
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2933.html
Again, the documents were created for white people. The landing of black "endentured slaves rapidly led to enslavement.
Nell Irwin Painter discusses the devolution.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/14/slavery-in-america-1619-first-ships-jamestown
1619 was the beginning of the process of degradation. In 1776, a pro-slavery document was signed
Painter mentions Anthony Johnson as a free man. This is true. It is also true that his land was seized because he was magically a Negro and therefore an alien.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1narr3.html
The Declaration was signed by slaveowners
https://www.monticello.org/slavery-at-monticello/liberty-slavery
Edit to add 2
We know that a black indentured servant could be declared a slave
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Punch_(slave)
by rmrd0000 on Tue, 01/21/2020 - 11:36am
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frederick-douglass/
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 01/21/2020 - 1:12pm
I would let it go because: the complexity and nuance inherent in the NYT's 1619 Project is being misrepresented on this thread. For instance, check out https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/black-history-american-democracy.html
by artappraiser on Tue, 01/21/2020 - 1:47pm
“A generation which ignores history has no past – and no future.” – Robert A. Heinlein
“If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree. ” – Michael Chrichton
“Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort.” – Mason Cooley
“No volume of history is insignificant, even the worst chapters. Especially the worst chapters.” – Terri Guillemets
by NCD on Fri, 01/17/2020 - 12:02pm
You're missing these. I think anyone serious about the issue should read them.
For the following two @ The Atlantic I used google cache links to avoid paywall issues:
by artappraiser on Fri, 01/17/2020 - 12:29pm
and perhaps even more so this one, which is scholarly and very thorough about all the arguments, with embedded links
by artappraiser on Fri, 01/17/2020 - 12:37pm
The elephant in the room is that there are textbooks teaching two different versions of history. That difference is not limited to discussions of slavery. Where is the outrage?
by rmrd0000 on Fri, 01/17/2020 - 1:08pm
Curricula of K through 12 is an issue of education theory.. And of politics whenever taxpayers are involved.
Would you rather have a federal totalitarian at the top chose all the curricula? Where there is only one simple "truth" taught to the kiddies?
Of necessity, most K through 12 is simplified into agitprop. I.E., is Charles Dickens the best representative of English literature. Is high school physics really telling you the truth of physics? The NYTimes project is simply a new alternative product for the kids and for people who don't know much about history.
This is why people go to college and specialize. This is why learning is lifelong.
Mho, the best method for K through 12 is to teach the kids how to question and learn. Which in this case, would mean giving them several angles of one or two history narratives (i.e., if you are going to teach 1619, you show them all the disagreements too) rather than trying to teach them a survey.
Survey textbooks are lying by their very nature of what they omit. In this country we don't have a communitariat dictating which survey version people need to know, we have local and or state school boards deciding that. And this is also why there is often vicious competition to get into the schools with the best teachers and students who want to learn.
There very often is outrage at the local level! Parents who care have lots of outrage at the local level, we read about it all the time. Down to how the kids are taught to read at the getgo.
The New York Times has long been involved in providing educational materials and curricula. It's a product like all the others. It is liberal in orientation and definitely revisionist in goal. It is not rigorous historical scholarship, it is an attempt to get people revising their ideas about what kids should be taught, where the stress should be put. That is a political agenda.
by artappraiser on Fri, 01/17/2020 - 1:39pm
So we give the textbooks a pass and focus on the 1619 Project.
by rmrd0000 on Fri, 01/17/2020 - 2:25pm
That's a political fight across the country at every school authority, one by one and fighting textbook publishers and salesman who offer alteration of their texts to please those buying them.
I'm not interested in fighting that fight, I have no kids. I'm interested in scholarly history.
This is a forum for educated grownups. The last few years it hasn't shown any signs of drawing people interested in advocating political activism.
I think if you are trying to advocate for political activism regarding textbooks, you're on the wrong forum.
Plus it's very much a local issue and varies by region.
You should get in touch in Dana Goldstein of the New York Times. She's one that's really interested in that:
I Read 4,800 Pages of American History Textbooks
Here’s how I did it, and what I learned about how the curriculum has changed since my own school days.
Hot tip, though: textbooks change with every era, they are both political tools and they change with the culture. It's the way society raises the kids is at issue. Check out Hillary writing It takes a village to raise a child and libertarians of all stripes getting all het up about that, thinking that only the parents should raise a child.
by artappraiser on Fri, 01/17/2020 - 2:59pm
Excerpt from Dana Goldstein's article:
You are mixing apples and oranges wanting to discuss the scholarly reception of the 1619 Project with Dana Goldstein's work. It's not just about teaching slavery, it's about how history, and all other subjects, for that matter, are taught in K through 12.
If you want to blog about what kids should be taught, have at it, but I'm not interested.
by artappraiser on Fri, 01/17/2020 - 3:04pm
Others are interested in the discussion.
by rmrd0000 on Fri, 01/17/2020 - 3:25pm
Name them.
by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 01/18/2020 - 4:12am
The NYT engaged the letter from the historians
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/magazine/we-respond-to-the-historians-who-critiqued-the-1619-project.html
Adam Serwer
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:y-DDdp7ZSjIJ:https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/historians-clash-1619-project/604093/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Fact check by Phillip Magness
https://www.aier.org/article/fact-checking-the-1619-project-and-its-critics/
Slate
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/1619-project-conservative-backlash-history-wars.html
Newt Gingrich called the project, led by black writers, “propaganda
https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/8/19/20812238/1619-project-slavery-conservatives
Northeastern University
https://news.northeastern.edu/2019/08/21/what-we-can-learn-from-the-backlash-to-the-new-york-times-1619-project-a-history-of-slavery-in-america/
The discussion is going on. History classrooms are discussing the project in high schools and universities. The 1619 book project will be made better by the discussion.
by rmrd0000 on Sat, 01/18/2020 - 11:34am
Oh, you mean out there. Sure, there are even people interested in the genealogy of fruit flies and the mating habits of orangutans.
by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 01/18/2020 - 1:32pm
Not really though. The first three are the very same exact links I posted at the top of this very same subthread on Fri, 01/17/2020 - 12:29pm. And the quotes don't say anything about curricula in schools. So he's just throwing links at you and at the same time proving he doesn't look at anyone else's links?
by artappraiser on Sat, 01/18/2020 - 2:17pm
The links help prove that there is a discussion. There is a series of books planned to be distributed to schools. The discussions will continue in classrooms, that is obvious.
Edit to add:
From a post at the Pulitzer Center
https://pulitzercenter.org/blog/1619-project-sparks-dialogue-and-reflection-schools-nationwide
by rmrd0000 on Sat, 01/18/2020 - 2:52pm
Why 1619 should matter as much to America as 1776
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/why-1619-should-matter-much-america-1776
by rmrd0000 on Sat, 01/18/2020 - 2:56pm
Go back to http://dagblog.com/comment/275345#comment-275345 read what I said again. I basically said I am interested in the scholarship but not in discussing the textbook issue. Rather than just taking it as a statement of my preference and move on, you replied as if I was arguing with you, that others are interested in the textbook issue, implying I did something wrong by not sharing your interest. PP asked who. What you answer is first with some of my own links to scholarly arguments!!! Not about textbooks and curricula. Then you add more!!! Then in answer to PP's question about who, you think if you link to several things that mention the word education it's proof that there are people out there interested in the textbook/curricula issue which is not the same thing as the 1619 issue! Do you think we are idiots? It's absurd. It's also insulting. Either you want to interact or you don't. There is no halfway. Don't respond if all you want to do is post mixed links or have had too much wine to communicate with others or something. You just did similar to oceankat on another thread. Do you think we don't know?
by artappraiser on Sat, 01/18/2020 - 4:14pm
I stated accurately that there is debate in classrooms. I thought that classroom discussion with teachers or college professors was consider knowledge acquired by study (scholarship)
Edit to add:
Doesn't have to be at the master's or doctorate level.
https://www.yourdictionary.com/scholarship
High schools have quiz bowls testing mastery of knowledge
https://blog.collegevine.com/high-school-quiz-bowl-how-trivia-can-help-you-get-into-college/
Edit to add:
I advised the child of a friend that Bass Reeves might be a good subject for review. The student came across an article suggesting Bass Reeves was a fraud not not the possible model for the Lone Ranger. I get suggested that he search out other sources to see if they were in agreement. Turned out that it was one guy who was the outlier. The student learned something about doing deeper research.
Im sure other students come across stories that don't agree. The Lost Cause is a good example. You get an assignment and you find something approaching the truth.
by rmrd0000 on Sat, 01/18/2020 - 6:30pm
I really don't care that that you dismiss the issue of the textbooks. It is important that the 1619 Project has people climbing the walls because of inaccuracies, but biased textbooks distributed nationally are not a problem. Hypocrisy on steroids.
by rmrd0000 on Sat, 01/18/2020 - 7:44pm
Straw man as usual. I did not say textbook content debates were not important, I said they were local politics and something that did not interest me that much, as I am not interested in K-12 education policy issues in general. It's about education policy, not about history scholarship, which does interest me. Your inability to see the difference is actually quite damning. Survey textbooks are not scholarship!!! Not in any field!!! They are even often titled "Introduction to" whatever, biology, English literature, go figure. They are simplified introductions to a field. If the person is interested after having a survey, they then commence upon trying to learn the nuanced truth through much more reading, research and scholarship.
One simply cannot fit all of American history into one book! Things have to be omitted! It's a created edited narrative, always, it's spin one way or another, always.
by artappraiser on Sun, 01/19/2020 - 1:25am
Agree with AA, " the best method for K through 12 is to teach the kids how to question and learn"...and .. " most K through 12 is simplified into (propaganda) ".
The objective for the "propaganda" in high schools is to paint a coherent glossy narrative that makes the nation's history and personalities look a lot better than they actually were. All to create the "city on a hill" image of national "exceptionalism". Almost everything by David McCullough falls in this category. Henry Louis Gates is the exact opposite, worthwhile history.
Projects like the 1619 one, that cover facts and find unethical or unscrupulous motivations for the heroes, are always derided by the "conservatives". Many of that type today are as much lying hypocrites and grifters as any war profiteering, tax avoiding, Confederate Georgia politician during the Civil War. If you upset that bunch you've done a good job. The NYT did a great service as with the web, the 1619 project likely opened a lot of minds even at high school level, encouraging many to go to the book references given, including "The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism" by Baptist, for myself.
by NCD on Fri, 01/17/2020 - 3:07pm
History is literally alive. New scholars are looking through a different lens. Gates has been a Godsend.
by rmrd0000 on Fri, 01/17/2020 - 3:27pm
Here's the usual Flavius " Motherhood and God" comment. You can skip it , you've heard it over and over and ov..
........................
I was discussing competition with Jim . Used to be Marketing VP of RCA . "You always have to do something" Jim said . "You can't leave the sales force with no script.. But you never do the same thing as the other guy. '" Oh yeah they do have that discount .. Have I showed you our 'open easy ' latch.?"
Jim had a lot more to say on that topic . Whatever .I'm only using it to open an analogy.
Just say "1776" is more interesting than "1619" . MEG0. But try " Samuel . K.W. Bilderbash's has a fascinating description of unusual Wedding Nights in" "Everything you always wanted to know about 1619 but forgot to ask" "
Your object isn't to say they're wrong about 1776 . Maybe they are . maybe not .Who cares?, You're trying to nudge them towards 1619.
"
by Flavius on Sat, 01/18/2020 - 10:09pm
No idea what you're saying, but have a great weekend.
by rmrd0000 on Sat, 01/18/2020 - 5:51pm
"instead of bashing their choice, sweeten yours"
by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 01/18/2020 - 7:48pm
Martin Luther King Jr. bashed their choice
William Barber bashes their choice.
by rmrd0000 on Sat, 01/18/2020 - 8:33pm
And here's some convenient LINKS! Right in the first sentence of Conor Friedersdorf's piece at The Atlantic, 1776 Honors America’s Diversity in a Way 1619 Does Not, which I posted upthread, in my first comment, along with three other links which you later copied as if you had found them elsewhere and as if the contents of my comment didn't exist:
To paraphrase the famous edjumacation tagline for history scholarship purposes: reading (a variety of opinion and sources, including original sources, with an open mind) it's fundamental! Not just hunting for bias verification over and over and over and over. (Um, isn't hunting for bias verification a favorite thing for racists to do?)
I'm fully confident of anyone else that reads this thread having read around all the angles here. For you, though: sort of the opposite, you haven't shown an open-mindedness to handle this topic at all. What's clear: you want to proselytize and are frustrated when an amen chorus is lacking.
by artappraiser on Sat, 01/18/2020 - 11:29pm
For any other readers who hadn't the time to read Friederdorf's piece in full, he adds another link near the center of it that hasn't been mentioned on this thread yet
Here is some background on Ms. Painter's expertise and career for those who don't recognize the name:
by artappraiser on Sat, 01/18/2020 - 11:28pm
Painter knew what the white guys were up to.
by rmrd0000 on Sun, 01/19/2020 - 9:52am