History According to White People
One of the most baffling ironies of conversing with conservatives is their insistence that the ills of the current political situation is due, quite directly, to a failure of schools today to teach history. This is humerous on the surface just because I've seen old report cards from my parents and even a few of my grandparents and I didn't see any classes on history. There was reading, writing and arithmetic. But the reason I say that the statement baffles me is because I would although I disagree with those one the right on almost every level, I do agree that teaching children history would help ease the current political hostility.
So how is it possible for people on opposite ends of the political divide to agree that teaching history would resolve that divide? Well, the true answer is in what version of “history” you intend to teach.
Whenever I find myself in agreement with a conservative I want to delve deeper into this rare territory. I am genuinely intrigued that there is a glimmer of hope for mutual understanding between our tribes.
But as the details emerge about what “teaching history” means to them, that hope, like a cool misting fog on a late Autumn morning, quickly evaporates. Soon we are left standing in the glaring heat of midday sun, brightly illuminating the divide of what we each perceive as “history” and how teaching it will be the cure for our social ills.
This rift is created by the historical revision which has been conducted over the years by conservatives in their attempt to validate some of their more unpalatable views. Like somehow by saying “this is how it always was before and if we go back to that, if we return to those simpler times, the so called ‘good old days’ all of these problems we see today wouldn't exist.”
Their nostalgic view of “the good old days”, based on their own biased version of history, makes this theory easy to dismiss by liberals. The fact is, the good old days weren't all that good. But it WAS better for some than for others. And that is where we see the breakdown.
For those who associate themselves with the people who did well during the country’s infancy, conservatives see a return to those old systems as a good thing. To those who identify with those who did not fair well under the old system, mainly minorities and women, they want to move forward.
In context though much of what the founding fathers attempted to do was liberal. The sought to resist government control in favor of individual liberties. They were forward thinking individuals who, in many instances, saw beyond their own time and recognized the inalienable rights of all human beings.
Many liberals also miss an important historical context. They will often point to the founding fathers and state that they were mostly well to do and all white and all men. But the frame of reference of these men was one of resisting the overreaching power and tyranny of government AND they did see themselves as people who were oppressed.
The founding fathers did not experience the form of racial oppression or gender oppression that liberals today hold as icons that define their ideals, but they did feel oppressed and bullied by a power bigger than themselves. They did feel the stifling weight of monarchial censorship and religious bigotry.
They were willing to fight, and die, to create a society where people were free to do the most fundamental things like hold their own beliefs and speak without repression. They sought to prevent abuses of power and control through a balance of powers. They feared an executive branch and wanted it only in an extremely limited capacity. They sought a division of powers, not a consolidation of powers and clearly wanted nothing resembling a king.
So fast forward to today. The narrative of history being pushed by those conservatives who identify with the privileged (white) class (even if they are, by large percentage, middle and low income whites) is just not based in fact. But truth isn't what sells it. It is the idea that by returning to this imagined era where people had wholesome values, society had structure and order, society will be better off.
Some will blatantly and brazenly state that we need a return to white, “Christian” America where men were providers, women were homemakers and everybody knew their role and their place. A time when the government wouldn't tolerate the disobedience and “lawlessness” we see today.
(I will pause here to clarify that I am pretty moderate in my political ideology and when I refer to conservatives this is not meant as a blanket to cover them all. Like all groups, conservatives can not, and should not be painted with a broad brush. Of course there is a broad spectrum.
For the purpose of this piece I refer to the Trump praising, Maga hat wearing, dixie flag lovin conservatives with whom I find our “agreement” on history education to be the most shocking. Although a vein of this thinking runs through the perspectives of other moderate conservatives who couch their views in more socially appropriate ways. Often the uglier side only revealed when they are confronted with the possibility that they could be, well, wrong.)
It is now understood by many in America that for a large percentage of these Trump loving conservatives, their ability to openly advocate for their unpopular ideas is like taking off a suffocating girdle at the end of the day. Sheer relief that they can relax and finally just say they want America to go “back to its foundations”. They call this rebellion against “political correctness” while the rest of us see it as a call to white male patriarchy.
So this is where I have come to realize how we can both see “teaching history” as the answer. Because they know only a propagandized, folk art version of America’s past as history. They rile at any suggestion of white aggression against native peoples or discussions about the brutal realities and the dehumanizing torture that was slavery.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/znfo2Jo4K7mznqia6
A picturesque version has evolved on the right, a Norman Rockwell style of what they truly believe is American history is that has been shaped and altered by those who have rewritten the story to make whites into great Christian benefactors. They imagine Paul Revere’’s brave ride and Betsy Ross in a rocking chair sewing the American Flag.
Now, I have no degree in history as many of them will point out, but even under the most timid scrutiny the thin shell protecting their indoctrination cracks wide open.
Three main areas I will focus on are, racial inequities, balance of power and immigration.
The biggest glaring inconsistency right now surprisingly doesn't even involve race. It has to do with the Constitution. The Supreme Law of the land. The brilliantly designed document that has sustained our country for the entirely of its existence. This document enshrined, if nothing more, the need for a balance of powers between the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government.
Many conservatives will claim to desire a strict adherence to the original “intent” of the Constitution and proclaim that they are Constitutional “purists” if you will. But these same people will also make statements directly in contradiction of things in the Constitution which require no interpretation at all.
One remarkable example is their support for Trump’s recent proclamation that private entities such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube need to be regulated because they are biased, left leaning and that by ranking their search results they are limiting, even repressing the free speech of conservatives.
Now, here is where I would interject that history education would help our country because this idea is antithetical to what the Constitution actually says.
The founding fathers wanted to enshrine the freedom of speech and the press in the Constitution. This was because they had come from a land where the Monarchy controlled the press and severely punished those who dared to criticize the crown.
Benjamin Franklin was a printer and published newspapers and was a strong advocate of protecting speech, even unpopular political speech. For Trump and his supporters to argue for regulation of private venues for speech is on its surface unconstitutional. The 1st Amendment is not ambiguous. It clearly states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
There is no manner to interpret this other than the government should not control speech or the press. and in fact, they looked at the press as the ultimate check on all government.
So let’s say even if Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were completely left leaning, even if unapologetically so, the government should not try to repress it or otherwise influence that and certainly should not pass laws to do so. Even if Google deleted anything conservative and promoted every far left idea, the only thing one could argue is that Google is a liberal media. But Google is NOT the government. And the failure of a private entity to endorse conservative ideas does not, in any way, represent the type of government oppression that the 1st Amendment is there to protect. I mean let's be realistic here, there is Fox News which is obviously very conservative, right wing to the point of near parody at time, but they are a private business and can operate however they want.
Another common point of historical division and revision, centers around the civil war and slavery. As we have seen, many MAGA hat wearers will also be sporting a Confederate flag. Quite simply, the Confederate flag is a flag of men who chose to rise up against the United States of America out of their own selfish interest in
But here again, the revisionists were quick to step in and try to reframe the argument in a way that makes their continued defense of the Confederacy possible while at the same time denying that they are racists.
To refute this historical revision all one has to do is look at the words written by the southern states themselves which clearly outline their reason for succession and a war with the United States was specifically to preserve the institution of slavery.
Here is a great summary outlined in a reddit article by freedmenspatrol:
The most damning testimony to this fact is right there in the Declarations of the Causes of Secession passed by four of the seceding states. This is from South Carolina's:
But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.
Notice that an act by a state that nullified federal law was seen as just grievance for Carolina to quit the Union. Had they possessed a genuine enthusiasm for states rights qua states rights, they'd have been applauding that kind of thing.
Here's Mississippi:
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth.
Georgia:
For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.
And Texas:
She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?
The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister slaveholding States.
And here's the Provisional Vice-President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens of Georgia:
Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition. [Applause.] This, our new Government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.
(https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/352b2e/was_the_civil_war_about_states_rights_or_slavery/)
And if that weren’t enough to prove that the Civil War was absolutely about slavery not state’s rights, we can do a quick review of the Compromise of 1850. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/compromise1850.html&ved=2ahUKEwiz8eeqgc3dAhWCrFkKHclHD5AQFjAfegQICBAB&usg=AOvVaw3G7zLFE1XPVcbinyNp6naV
Here’s the short version. California wanted admittance to the United States, to become part of the Union. The balance of states was pretty evenly divided between free and slave states. The southern states argued that they would not support California being admitted into the Union as a free state unless all of the other remaining territories when admitted would be slave states. This proposal couldn’t have been designed any more precisely to show that the southern states did not support states rights to self determination.
And then of course, we could spend a few weeks on the aftermath of the Civil War where the south, though defeated in their endeavor to maintain the institution of slavery STILL continued to make every effort to subjugate and abuse the now free blacks. They codified their racism through Jim Crow laws, terrorized african americans through hate crimes and at every turn looked for ways to raise themselves up and subjugate their now freed slaves.
The level and depth of their seething hatred towards African Americans and the way that this trait seems so woven into the core of their beliefs and culture makes me wonder what makes it such and enduring concept.
And still we see it with those waving the Confederate flag, insisting that they are merely protecting their “proud” history. Is this the same history they claim to want to teach to our children to somehow cure the problems in the country? Yes. Because they long to return to the days when whites were in control and had power. If you think I'm being harsh, ask the next Trumper who advocates for history to be taught in schools again what parts of history they think we should focus on and why. The next southerner who claims the Civil War was about states rights to explain to you the Compromise of 1850. This is where a large percentage of the Make America Great Again crowd is exposed as the Make America White Again.
It saddened me to see that possible bridge between our tribes come down as quickly and completely as a controlled demolition, but it left me asking, “Now what?”
I have given this some careful consideration. Most people will form an opinion and seek out those who support that opinion and will avoid those who criticize. The louder and more hostile the criticism the more they retreat to their own corner. So I think we need to ask the people who espouse teaching history to first tell us why they believe what they do. Be respectful and open a real dialogue. As them where their ideas originated from. What books do they read and would they use to teach our children? And as you develop an understanding ask them if they think that we should teach about the Constitution and the Civil War. By this time you should have a feeling of where they are coming from and should be able to steer the conversation more toward a review of the facts.
Of course it's slow. Of course it's arduous. But that's the only true way to get people so protective of their ideas to see any other reality.
As always I invite critique and other views. I am always learning too.