Pro-Slavery Social Studies Textbook Approved in Louisiana

Bradskii

Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
Aug 19, 2018
15,689
10,592
71
Bondi
✟248,703.00
Country
Australia
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Married
No, nearly everyone who lived in areas affected by the war suffered. To take note of that without making too emotional a presentation about it is simply good history.

Anyway, the title of this thread--and the proposition it makes--is still false. There is nothing "pro-slavery" about the text, even if a reader thinks that the account is unnecessarily concerned with the lives of people in the slave states who were not themselves slaves.

You're right. We must sympathise with the slave owners who lost their property* as well as sympathising with the slaves themselves.

*By property, I meant the slaves themselves.
 
Upvote 0

Oompa Loompa

Against both police brutality and cop killing.
Jun 4, 2020
5,460
2,418
40
Louisiana
✟143,012.00
Country
United States
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
Upvote 0

SummerMadness

Senior Veteran
Mar 8, 2006
18,201
11,829
✟331,677.00
Faith
Catholic
What does Biden (or the Southern strategy, since relocated) have to do with bad 8th grade textbooks? Let's stay on track here...
It's all a part of the deflection game. If there is any discussion about current GOP efforts to promote lesson plans that promote the Confederacy and/or minimize racism, slavery, segregation, etc., then bring up Democrats and demand you defend them for their racism or perceived racism. If you're talking about Democrats, then it removes focus from the current topic, which is Louisiana reviewed and approved a history book for schoolchildren that promotes sympathy for "Southern planters" without acknowledging the horrors of slavery.
 
Upvote 0

Bradskii

Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
Aug 19, 2018
15,689
10,592
71
Bondi
✟248,703.00
Country
Australia
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Married
It's all a part of the deflection game. If there is any discussion about current GOP efforts to promote lesson plans that promote the Confederacy and/or minimize racism, slavery, segregation, etc., then bring up Democrats and demand you defend them for their racism or perceived racism. If you're talking about Democrats, then it removes focus from the current topic, which is Louisiana reviewed and approved a history book for schoolchildren that promotes sympathy for "Southern planters" without acknowledging the horrors of slavery.

It's The Pigeon Gambit.

'I note that you think that the text is unsympathetic to the plight of the slaves and...ooh, look. A pigeon!'

Everyone's attention is diverted and our hero quickly digs up 19th century Democratic policies regarding race.

'And...excuse me? Yes, as I was saying. If you look at these comments from Democrats at the time...'
 
Upvote 0

SoldierOfTheKing

Christian Spenglerian
Jan 6, 2006
9,223
3,039
Kenmore, WA
✟276,939.00
Country
United States
Faith
Presbyterian
Marital Status
Married
Telling of the hardships that slave owners 'endured' and the struggles that they 'suffered' IS history written as political propaganda. That's the whole point of the arguments being presented.

It's telling factual stories - not "arguments" - about past generations of their state. It's teaching students to think, rather than what to think, which is the opposite of propaganda. It's not forcing the story to fit the premise of "blacks and Indians good, whites bad" no matter how fast and loose you have to play with the historical record to do so. Apparently these are stories that you're not personally interested in. No matter. There are those willing to tell them.

You're right. We must sympathise with the slave owners who lost their property* as well as sympathising with the slaves themselves.

Who do you even mean by "we"? You can sympathize with you please - that's your affair. Louisianans recounting their own history may not see it the way you do, and it's not reasonable to expect that they should. It's their family history, after all.
 
Upvote 0

Occams Barber

Newbie
Supporter
Aug 8, 2012
6,286
7,421
75
Northern NSW
✟981,266.00
Country
Australia
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Divorced
It's telling factual stories - not "arguments" - about past generations of their state. It's teaching students to think, rather than what to think, which is the opposite of propaganda. It's not forcing the story to fit the premise of "blacks and Indians good, whites bad" no matter how fast and loose you have to play with the historical record to do so. Apparently these are stories that you're not personally interested in. No matter. There are those willing to tell them.

It's a story which has been (deliberately?) biased to show a slaveowner in a flattering light. Facts can be delivered in a prejudicial way. Its easy - don't tell all the facts, emphasise some facts and minimise others, trivialise some parts of the story- the list goes on.

By spinning the facts it most certainly gives students a one sided view.


Who do you even mean by "we"? You can sympathize with you please - that's your affair. Louisianans recounting their own history may not see it the way you do, and it's not reasonable to expect that they should. It's their family history, after all.

Louisianans are a part of this history - that doesn't mean they have an exclusive right to tell the story. As part of a larger American history there is an obligation on all Americans to ensure the story includes relevant facts and canvasses the significant issues.

OB
 
Upvote 0

Bradskii

Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
Aug 19, 2018
15,689
10,592
71
Bondi
✟248,703.00
Country
Australia
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Married
It's telling factual stories - not "arguments" - about past generations of their state. It's teaching students to think, rather than what to think, which is the opposite of propaganda. It's not forcing the story to fit the premise of "blacks and Indians good, whites bad" no matter how fast and loose you have to play with the historical record to do so. Apparently these are stories that you're not personally interested in. No matter. There are those willing to tell them.



Who do you even mean by "we"? You can sympathize with you please - that's your affair. Louisianans recounting their own history may not see it the way you do, and it's not reasonable to expect that they should. It's their family history, after all.

No, it's telling one minor side of a story where some people who owned slaves were inconvenienced by those men, women and children, bought for cash as property who were given their freedom.

If such a book were printed in Australia detailing the hardships of the people who took Aboriginal children away from their families between 1910 and 1970 there would be a national outcry. It is a shameful episode in our country's history and we do our best to own it. To accept that what was done was wrong. And we are still struggling to put that right. It's an open wound that's never far from our collective consciousness.

Slavery was also a shameful episode. To write a book, for children, when the focus is on the poor slave owners, shows exactly why that period is still causing you problems.

I might have expected such a book to be published when films like Gone With The Wind was released. But now? Good grief...some of you are still living in the sixties.
 
Upvote 0

Pommer

CoPacEtiC SkEpTic
Sep 13, 2008
16,347
10,241
Earth
✟137,487.00
Country
United States
Faith
Deist
Marital Status
In Relationship
Politics
US-Democrat
It's telling factual stories - not "arguments" - about past generations of their state. It's teaching students to think, rather than what to think, which is the opposite of propaganda. It's not forcing the story to fit the premise of "blacks and Indians good, whites bad" no matter how fast and loose you have to play with the historical record to do so. Apparently these are stories that you're not personally interested in. No matter. There are those willing to tell them.



Who do you even mean by "we"? You can sympathize with you please - that's your affair. Louisianans recounting their own history may not see it the way you do, and it's not reasonable to expect that they should. It's their family history, after all.
That’s correct. We always hear “how bad” slavery was for the Black folk, but we never hear of the manifest privations of those poor “planters”!

You’re enough of a scholar to know that reparations to slave-holders were “on the table”, but the South decided that they’d just take their part of the country and leave.

The Union wasn’t going to let that happen.
 
Upvote 0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums

Occams Barber

Newbie
Supporter
Aug 8, 2012
6,286
7,421
75
Northern NSW
✟981,266.00
Country
Australia
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Divorced
Somewhere upthread an astute poster compared this story to a discussion on the inconveniences faced by a guard at a concentration camp in WW2.

This poster was wrong. The real comparison was not with a guard but with a Commandant of a concentration camp.

These women were slaveholders with all that implies. They bought and sold people. They employed forced labour. They determined what these people could and could not do. They separated husbands and wives, parents and children from each other. They retained the right to impose corporal punishment outside of any reasonable common law. They were not guards. They were directly responsible for the inhumanity of American slavery.

They were the Commandants of the concentration camps.

OB
 
Upvote 0

Occams Barber

Newbie
Supporter
Aug 8, 2012
6,286
7,421
75
Northern NSW
✟981,266.00
Country
Australia
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Divorced
Did she lose everything because that wicked social norm was ripped from her? Yes.

Actually - no. She lost her 'movable' property - her slaves. The plantation was returned to her. In fact she was able to complain about the cost of paying free people to harvest her crops.

OB
 
Upvote 0

Estrid

Well-Known Member
Feb 10, 2021
9,547
3,180
39
Hong Kong
✟147,301.00
Country
Hong Kong
Faith
Skeptic
Marital Status
In Relationship
This is in a history textbook for middle-schoolers used in Louisiana. I'm surprised they don't call it "the war of Northern aggression".

E3ziDbpWYAEjEw8

E3ziDbqWEAAgPED

What is pro slavery in that?
 
Upvote 0

Strathos

No one important
Dec 11, 2012
12,663
6,531
God's Earth
✟263,276.00
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Single
Politics
US-Democrat
I might have expected such a book to be published when films like Gone With The Wind was released. But now? Good grief...some of you are still living in the sixties.

The 1860s, even.
 
Upvote 0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums

public hermit

social troglodyte
Supporter
Aug 20, 2019
10,966
12,052
East Coast
✟830,414.00
Country
United States
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Single
Politics
US-Others
How does one garner sympathy for the Lost Cause? Teach children the plight of a woman whose world has been turned upside down because her slaves were freed. Bless her heart.
 
Upvote 0

mark46

Well-Known Member
Supporter
Jan 29, 2010
20,042
4,720
✟830,515.00
Faith
Catholic
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Democrat
Upvote 0

Strathos

No one important
Dec 11, 2012
12,663
6,531
God's Earth
✟263,276.00
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Single
Politics
US-Democrat
Stories rather than objective facts. Sounds like what people are claiming CRT is. Would this book be outlawed?

No, see, this is perfectly okay, because 'I don't see anything racist in this book', and 'it's a historical fact that slaveowners suffered when they lost their slaves'. [/sarcasm].
 
Upvote 0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums

keith99

sola dosis facit venenum
Jan 16, 2008
22,884
6,556
71
✟318,590.00
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Single
...

I might have expected such a book to be published when films like Gone With The Wind was released. But now? Good grief...some of you are still living in the sixties.

But Gone With the Wind is far less flattering to Scarlett than this piece of propagands is toward slave owners.

A release in a time when people actually rememebred the content of Gone With the Wind would surely have led someone to replying about the plight of the poor slave owners with the most famous of GWTW quotes:

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
 
Upvote 0