LogFAQs > #954228924

If somebody argues for a good goal for bad reasons, that doesn't change it being a good goal.

I don't disagree with this, I just think that of the two possibilities based on the TX legislature, one that aims for a bit more nuance that exposes flaws is probably the superior material.

US history is largely a story of progress away from racism.

Well, this is true, to an extent, but conservatives get extremely defensive in the modern day on the exact details of how. If we're talking about somebody like Columbus, we probably shouldn't venerate him, because he only "discovered America" through the lens of a particular part of Europe. That was important and critical, but it was accidental, and there's pretty lengthy debate over Columbus and his ethics & actions that go far beyond "he was racist" and more into "He might have committed horrendous, awful actions, even for his time."

I don't really doubt that the same legislature determined to erase history that portrays America in an unappealing light would enshrine Columbus and say that native american history is, at best, a side story in America's history even though it's very important.

I bring stuff like that up because it is not uncommon for elements of the far-right, some of them having had communication with congress, to use people's ignorance of both Native & African history to argue that those groups are innately inferior. One advantage to a slavery-focused framing is that it can be a way of expanding people's knowledge of those groups so they can understand world history not from a solely European-driven standpoint.

And honestly I understand people afraid that is what is going to be taught, many of people pushing this "america is fundamentally racist, we are defined by racism" seem very invested in dunking on america and not particularly invested in historical truth.

I think the intent is to understand many of the issues that continue to grip America today, to find out where they originated, and most importantly utilize that as a method of repair. This is the thing that frustrates me about the "You hate America" narrative conservative have weaponized. If I hated it, I wouldn't live here. I care about it, so why can't we address the problems?

Well, the TX legislature is causing a lot of those problems, and want to put a veil around everybody's face, and say "The problems don't exist, racism was solved in the 60s" while they minimize education on that topic and literally gut legislation from the 60s that made society more equitable. They certainly don't want people to understand what the Southern Bloc was, they certainly want to reframe the Confederacy to not sound as bad as it was, they really don't want people to know about Texas history that includes the chemical washing of immigrants in El Paso "because they are unclean" during the early 20th century (a thing the Nazis cited as an inspiration for how they would conduct the Holocaust), etc. etc.

Like, would any Republican legislator ever want that detail taught? It's such an awful thing. Nobody living today is guilty for it, but it's an important thing for people to know, so they empathize and remember immigrants are people and not worthy of such malevolent scorn. If a legislator supported teaching that, people like Trump wouldn't stand a chance to get elected, because people would've been educated against fear, and what horrible places it can lead people.

A history class is about talking about the details of what really happened, not telling people specifically how to judge those things.

I don't really believe the point is to judge America as unsalvageable or evil. By explaining the issue and how it still affects people to day, we can fix problems. But a lot of legislatures don't want to fix those problems because, at its core, they are a party of big business and a lot of big businesses rely heavily on exploitation.

Would you agree that there are elements of the 1619 project that aren't concerned primarily with historical accuracy but with contextualizing American history as meaning a certain thing? Like elements of the movement that would rather a person think of America as largely racist and thus largely bad than necessarily get historical details right?

To an extent, yes, though the relevance of this can be very situational. My thoughts on framing Lincoln as a racist, for example, were kind of explained in a post above - we shouldn't deify leaders - but I do think that is an aside to the times, and less important than his accomplishments. Conversely. he made the mistake of choosing Johnson as his vice president, a mistake that would gravely damage black americans for a century afterwards, making further progress real, but far slower than it should've been.

This is immensely complicated, a lot of subjects get bounced around here and I'm referencing a lot, so I do think that a version of history solely defined by its negativity is not a wholly positive force for America.

But I can't detach it from the true motivation the state legislature has for locking it away, and I think looking at the consequences of bad things is a great way to improve & stop from falling into another cycle of a slow, protracted civil rights fight against a force that has to be clawed into a modern era because they won't take criticism of America and refuse to acknowledge its problems or benefit from those problems or simply feel a misplaced guilt and don't want to think about those problems.

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