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You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / Post-racial America / Ain’t We Grand!

Ain’t We Grand!

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Here’s what the nutters would like to be taught in history books regarding our nation’s history of slavery:

I’ve spoken with some history professors with very impressive credentials who told me this new framework doesn’t surprise them and is aligned with the content of college level history courses that downplay our noble history and accentuate the negative view. As an example, I note our slavery history. Yes, we practiced slavery. But we also ended it voluntarily, at great sacrifice, while the practice continues in many countries still today! Shouldn’t our students be provided that viewpoint? This is part of the argument that America is exceptional. Does our APUSH Framework support or denigrate that position?

We’ll just airbrush out the Civil War and the last 150 years of structural racism.

Reader Interactions

109Comments

  1. 1.

    aimai

    Its sort of astounding this seemingly bottomless pit of need that these people have–need to have their ethnic/nationalist egos stroked. I’m happy to be an American but for fuck’s sake its not something I feel the need to brag about, or feel good about. Its a shared political history with some horrific things and a few good things and we are fighting all the time:

    My country right or wrong–if it be wrong to be put right…etc..etc…etc…

  3. 3.

    kwAwk

    The United Kingdom voluntarily ended slavery 20 years before we did and didn’t have to fight a civil war to do it. We don’t look so exceptional when you think of it that way do we?

  4. 4.

    Omnes Omnibus

    We’ll just airbrush out the Civil War and the last 150 years of structural racism.

    The man said “at great sacrifice.”

  5. 5.

    Mike J

    But we also ended it voluntarily,

    150 years from now they’ll be saying that all we had to do to get them to accept Obamacare was burn down Atlanta.

    I’ve got a zippo around here somewhere.

  8. 8.

    HR Progressive

    You can only airbrush all that shit away if you can whitewash the structural racism that exists, right this very second, right now.

    And boy, do they wish they could do that.

  9. 9.

    Suzanne

    I just do not understand those losers, ahem, FELLOW CITIZENS, who cannot take even a suggestion that not everything was perfect all the time. I know that plenty of awful shit went down in our history, but I can learn from it and have a deeper sense of patriotism not in spite of, but because of what that history teaches me.

    I have a friend who opposes gay marriage, and her argument against legalizing civil marriage for gay people was that it offended her to have to acknowledge or explain to her kids that gay people could get married. Like WTF. You don’t even want to acknowledge facts if they make you uncomfortable? Fuck these people and their fragile, shallow sensibilities.

  11. 11.

    Ruckus

    We’ll just airbrush out the Civil War and the last 150 years of structural racism.

    Give em a break. Assholes don’t know how to be anything else. Massive racist assholes are going to be massive racist assholes.

    Yes, we practiced slavery. But we also ended it voluntarily, at great sacrifice

    I guess massive racist assholes get to redefine words as well. Voluntarily? YOU LOST A FUCKING WAR, which you started with the express purpose of continuing slavery.

  14. 14.

    jl

    Maybe US history books should include celebration of England for voluntarily letting the US have its independence, which was also a noble sacrifice?

  15. 15.

    RSA

    @kwAwk:

    The United Kingdom voluntarily ended slavery 20 years before we did and didn’t have to fight a civil war to do it.

    Have there been any other wars that were mainly about slavery, with one side fighting to preserve it?

  16. 16.

    TaMara (BHF)

    I am so proud of these students at Jefferson County Schools. They have been articulate, thoughtful and strong. The only thing these asshats (board members) have been able to respond with is insults and insinuations about the protesters’ motives.

    The best part is that this has received a national spotlight and the glare is revealing.

  17. 17.

    Gex

    I’m sorry, but being forced to end slavery by means of war doesn’t even remotely count as “voluntary.” These people torture the meaning of words.

  18. 18.

    Roger Moore

    We’ll just airbrush out the Civil War

    They think the Civil War is what giving it up voluntarily looks like. As long as it didn’t require an invasion by a foreign power, we gave up slavery voluntarily.

  20. 20.

    jl

    And by her definition of ‘voluntary’, maybe we could say that the slaves served their master voluntarily, and all this fuss over slavery is just a lefty anti-American blahs and lefties. Or something.

    Lynch law could be turned into a case study of African-Americans deciding that they did not want to bother their little blah heads over voting.

  21. 21.

    rk

    The idiot’s History of US

    1) Slavery was ended voluntarily
    2) Blacks were better off under slavery
    3)Republicans were responsible for the civil rights movement,
    4) The founding fathers were actually religious nut jobs
    5) Regan was the second coming of Jesus.
    6)Everything good that ever happened in the county occurred when republicans were in office. Everything bad when democrats are in power
    7) All problems in the country are because of the poor and non whites and
    8) Jesus actually said blessed be the rich for they shall enter the kingdom of heaven and the poor can go fuck themselves.
    Now all we need is for the college board to accept these “facts”.

  22. 22.

    TaMara (BHF)

    @indycat32: She does not come across well on camera, so I’m doubtful. Local reporters have been unable to hide their disdain as the weeks have gone on. She just repeats the same nonsense over and over. Including calling the students pawns of the “unions”.

  29. 29.

    HR Progressive

    @Suzanne: The big problem with this, I think boils down to that if they have to explain to their precious little snowflakes their views on gay people, when the kids ask “Why?” 500 times as kids are wont to do, they will eventually get around to admitting that gay people just make them feel icky and nasty and yeah.

    And most kids, even at a young age, can see through that kind of bullshit, and they’ll turn out to be pro-marriage equality. And that goes against Mom and Dad’s “Onward Christian Soldier” fantasies, and yeah.

  30. 30.

    dmsilev

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    If slavery was ended voluntarily, what was the Civil War about?

    Tariffs.

    (there are a non-trivial number of people who actually believe this. Despite evidence such as the declarations of succession very clearly stating that preservation of slavery was kind of the point of forming the Confederacy…)

  32. 32.

    Linnaeus

    @RSA:

    Have there been any other wars that were mainly about slavery, with one side fighting to preserve it?

    Haiti’s war for independence was a slave revolt against the French. That’s about the only one that comes to mind right now.

  34. 34.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    Wait, now they’re teaching these people that slavery is currently a widespread official practice by other countries?

    Sigh.

    Is this before the chapter about how Noah included dinosaurs on the Ark, or after?

    It’s like they’re all on a ride called the HMS Mad Hatter’s Ship of Complete Drooling Idiots, drifting farther from reality every day.

  36. 36.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Omnes Omnibus: Reasonable assumption (kidding, mostly). Present company clearly excepted. The mint tea should help, to the extent that anything will. Feel better.

  37. 37.

    Tommy

    My father likes to joke I am the most photographed child next to a civil war cannon. Dads PhD is in the civil war. You went to Disney World on vacation. I went to Civil War battlefields. Pretty sure we fought a war over this and we won. I am pretty sure this happened.

  40. 40.

    Original Lee

    Yes, we practiced slavery. But we also ended it voluntarily.

    Voluntarily = at gunpoint. Now the whole Ferguson thing is all so clear. We can voluntarily do whatever the person with the gun tells us to do, and that is what makes this country exceptional. /headdesk

  41. 41.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Tommy: I’ve never been to Disney World. Disneyland, yes. Paris Disney, yes. Tokyo Disney, yes. Never Disney World.

  42. 42.

    Hildebrand

    Two comments from my Facebook feed when I posted this story:

    Would you say this hinges on the meaning of “voluntarily”, or its implications?

    Well, it’s better to have abolished the horrid institution than not to have. I think of Germany, which has done all sorts of public penance for its WWII atrocities, contrasted with Japan, which denies there was a Rape of Nanking, or camps of Comfort Women, or systematically brutal treatment of every POW. I sort of prefer repentance over denial.

    Both of the comments are from actual adults (both over the age of 50). Sigh.

  43. 43.

    mclaren

    Racism?

    What racism?

    This is post-racial America, Cole!

    (Ignore those corpses on the streets of Ferguson MO…)

  46. 46.

    Baud

    But we also ended it voluntarily, at great sacrifice, while the practice continues in many countries still today!

    Yay! We’re not Mauritania! Exceptionalism!

  47. 47.

    max

    We’ll just airbrush out the Civil War and the last 150 years of structural racism.

    AHEM. Jim Crow is not slavery!

    Besides, it didn’t happen! She’s never heard of it! {rimshot}

    max
    [‘Hilariously, all of South and Central America, including Mexico, got rid of slavery before we did. I guess they’re exceptionally brown or something.’]

  48. 48.

    RSA

    @Hildebrand:

    I think of Germany, which has done all sorts of public penance for its WWII atrocities

    By Pam Mazanec’s formulation, Germany and the rest of Europe voluntarily gave up Naziism, at great sacrifice. (Okay, @jl got this one first.)

  50. 50.

    JPL

    @TaMara (BHF): I should have said teachers unions but that doesn’t even make sense. It’s about advanced placement classes. I just don’t know how they connected those dots.

    also, too.. I realize there is no logic.

  51. 51.

    JerryN

    I can’t let the utter stupidity of the beginning of the opening sentence pass without comment.

    “I’ve spoken with some history professors with very impressive credentials who told me this new framework doesn’t surprise them and is aligned with the content of college level history courses”

    Isn’t the point of an AP course to be the equivalent of a college level course? Case closed.

  53. 53.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @JPL: One could just suggest replacing AP classes with the IB program and watch wingnuts’ heads explode. “International what?!” ::Boom!::

  54. 54.

    Sly

    @kwAwk:

    The United Kingdom voluntarily ended slavery 20 years before we did and didn’t have to fight a civil war to do it. We don’t look so exceptional when you think of it that way do we?

    Not just the United Kingdom. There are only two nations that needed to endure wars to end the legal protection of slavery: the United States of America and the Republic of Haiti. So we aren’t even exceptional in that regard.

    @aimai: It is quite difficult to argue that the past is superior to the present – the basic intellectual project of conservatism – without significantly re-imagining the past first. The truth is that the past is a nightmare, especially when it comes to politics. Anyone who seriously believes that the apex of human political ingenuity occurred in 1789 is either in the grip of a grave misapprehension of history, is an asshole, or, in the case of Ron Paul, both.

  55. 55.

    TaMara (BHF)

    @JPL: I’m not sure there were dots to connect. I think it was the standard Rethug ‘look over here, nothing to see over there” response. They were not prepared to have this shit brought out into daylight. Up until this point, most meetings have been closed door and secretive.

    Another school district, in Loveland, had the same type of board elected and they’ve done everything but put armed guards at the doors to keep parents and media out of meetings. Citing fire code restrictions, etc to justify their secret meetings.

  58. 58.

    Ruckus

    @JPL:
    In a mad, mad world you don’t need to connect the dots. The fact that the dots exist is enough. If they exist they must be connected, otherwise the world wouldn’t be mad, mad, mad.
    Besides if you stare hard enough, and reject all sense of reality then there are lines that connect all the dots. Obviously you never did way too much acid when you were younger.

  59. 59.

    Bubblegum Tate

    @rk:

    Now all we need is for the college board to accept these “facts”.

    I’m sure Texas is working on it.

  60. 60.

    ? Martin

    Well, to be honest, the Confederates States did voluntarily rejoin the Union after we burned much of it to the ground.

  62. 62.

    JerryN

    @dmsilev: I know that. But then, the real argument should be that the school shouldn’t offer AP anything, since doing that just encourages the little bastards to go off to college.

  64. 64.

    Dexter's New Approach

    The US didn’t just practice slavery, like it is practiced illegally in pockets of the world. it was a legally sanctioned, integral part of the economy and culture in half the country – until the war of northern aggression.

  65. 65.

    Baud

    @max:

    Hilariously, all of South and Central America, including Mexico, got rid of slavery before we did.

    Brazil was after.

  68. 68.

    Princess

    I’ve spoken with some history professors with very impressive credentials who told me this new framework doesn’t surprise them and is aligned with the content of college level history courses that downplay our noble history and accentuate the negative view.

    The lurking history professors support her in email.

  69. 69.

    The Dangerman

    I do have to wonder, however, how this woman’s history will treat things like the New Deal.

  72. 72.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @efgoldman:

    challenged the kids and assumptions, taught them to question, analyze, and think.

    The teachers who did the IB program at my high school did the same. I was in the second year of diploma candidates at my high school, and the teachers were thrilled by the curriculum and prestige of being asked to teach in an “elite” program. They busted their asses for us.

  74. 74.

    My Truth Hurts

    Isn’t it amazing how this attitude and the action behind it emerges in society and cultures again and again and again? We will never rid humanity of this need to sanitize history and alter facts to fit some small minded world view.

  78. 78.

    Scamp Dog

    @aimai: Its sort of astounding this seemingly bottomless pit of need that these people have–need to have their ethnic/nationalist egos stroked. I’m happy to be an American but for fuck’s sake its not something I feel the need to brag about, or feel good about.

    I’ve been thinking about this, and I’m starting to think that if you’re on top of the socioeconomic structure (or imagine that you are & identify with the people who are), the rah-rah, America is totally wonderful stuff means that as a leader of this amazing polity, people should shut up and do as you tell them. If word gets out that things weren’t totally wonderful in the past, your social inferiors might start wondering if things aren’t totally wonderful now, and demand some changes. Very annoying and disruptive.

  80. 80.

    exurbanmom

    everyone should read Ta-Nehisi Coates piece on reparations in the Atlantic Monthly. it’s by far the best thing I’ve ever read about structural racism.

  83. 83.

    John M. Burt

    @The Dangerman: The New What? Never heard of it.
    Okay, yeah, there was this Depression, and it was getting better all by itself until the Democrat party managed to steal the election from Hoover and drag the Depression out with stupid failing Socialistic schemes that involved spending billions of tax dollars. It was World War Two that ended the Depression, see, not any stupid spending program. Well, yes, we did spend several times as much money fighting the war as we ever spent trying to get out of the Depression, but what’s your point, Sheldon? Sit down now, while we watch John Wayne in The Sands of Iwo Jima.

  88. 88.

    John Revolta

    @Omnes Omnibus: No, they weren’t doing it back in my day. But they were doing some great AP stuff and I had some really good teachers, who really enjoyed the subject. It was exciting.

  89. 89.

    A Humble Lurker

    @kwAwk:
    To be fair, I think the two situations are not exactly the same. And England still had the Irish to supply beef while they themselves were starving via lack of potatoes, so it’s not like that kind of thing was entirely gone.

  90. 90.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @John Revolta: I lucked out in that my high school was picked for the program. There were four people in the diploma program the year before me and four (including me) in my year. The full dipoma pragram was a two year thing. A lot of people treated it as an AP program and took some but not all of the courses in the program.

  91. 91.

    The Pale Scot

    @RSA: Have there been any other wars that were mainly about slavery, with one side fighting to preserve it?

    the Texas Mexican War, which was started by white settlers from the US south who refused to abide by the new Mexican Constitution, which outlawed slavery.

    I’m really surprised I was first with that.

  93. 93.

    Linnaeus

    @efgoldman:

    The American history guy, unfortunately, was dull and boring, so she finds American history dull and boring, too.

    Too bad. Because it’s really not.

  96. 96.

    pseudonymous in nc

    Our local fishwrap had a story about someone who managed to get herself elected to the county school board while not actually believing in public education, and who has instead been the source of every bit of derpitude in the relationship between the board and the schools. I understand that this kind of thing is the breeding ground for GOPbaggers, but seriously, could someone get elected to the local chamber of commerce who said that capitalism was illegitimate?

  98. 98.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Scamp Dog:
    I think that it’s less logical and more emotional. They don’t like being shamed, and in fact they’re sick and tired of being shamed for their racism. This is all gut level anger, resentment, projection, defensiveness stuff.

  100. 100.

    ? Martin

    Conservatives hate the new AP History because it involves introspection – we did this thing that looks horrible today, so why did we do it then – what was the context in which the decision was made.

    They don’t do introspection.

  101. 101.

    lgerard

    I’ve spoken with some history professors with very impressive credentials who told me this new framework doesn’t surprise them and is aligned with the content of college level history courses that downplay our noble history and accentuate the negative view

    Isn’t that EXACTLY what an AP course is supposed to be?

  102. 102.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    Wow. I was in grade nine Canadian history when I discovered that there were things (yes, things) in Canadian history that didn’t reflect so well on, you know, famous historical Canadians.

    You guys seriously infantilize your history that badly in high school? No wonder you’ve got a nutteabagger infestation.

  103. 103.

    gorram

    @dmsilev: Also the tariffs issue *was* an issue because of the divergent economic interests of areas with slavery and without it. The South wanted as few tarrifs as possible on industrial products from Europe, since they were producing the cotton (and a few other agricultural commodities) that were being used in those, so broadening the market for their slave-derived products was important. The North was industrializing on wage-labor, however, and wanted some protectionism from European production, so they could dominate domestic markets (with some going so far as trying to create a local industrial economy without slave labor as a key source, between colonial exploitation and that, almost everything coming out of Europe at the time had that as its origins).

    Just like state rights, all of the “other” reasons for the Civil War come down to slavery in the end.

  105. 105.

    TriassicSands

    Thank goodness the Germans and Japanese voluntarily ended WWII — at great sacrifice to themselves. I guess they’re the real heroes of World War II. I certainly hope our high school text books will reflect that fact.

  106. 106.

    Ecks

    Gemans: good for facing up to their ugly history.
    Japanese: Bad for hiding their ugly history
    American liberals: Bad for trying to make Americans face up to their ugly history.
    American conservatives: #1 baby! USA! USA! USA!

  107. 107.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    I love how the article is headed by a picture of the reenactment of the Battle of Gettsburg. Yes, most of the army in the war that ended slaver were volunteers…

  108. 108.

    mclaren

    @dmsilev:

    I thought the official Southern/Republican answer to “What was the civil war about?” was “State’s rights!”

    To this day, “state’s rights” remains a classic Repub dog whistle. Right up there with “violent urban youths” (ni**ers), “lazy freeloaders” (black poor people) and “traitorous Democrats” (Democrats who served in the military, as opposed to the chickenhawk Repubs who got draft deferments).

  109. 109.

    Citizen Alan

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    If slavery was ended voluntarily, what was the Civil War about?

    Tariffs, I think.

    Incidentally, the Neo-Confederate nonsense of the moment in my neck of the woods is a lawsuit by the Sons of Confederate Veterans against the University of Mississippi to enjoin the administration from renaming Confederate Drive to something less embarrassing to decent people. Apparently, there’s an old law on the books that makes it illegal to rename war memorials and Cletus et al interpret that to apply to a 100-yard-stretch of pavement that connects Fraternity Row to what is now a vacant lot.

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