Current Events > Texas working really hard to prevent kids from learning about racism

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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/us/texas-history-1836-project.html

Every morning, schoolchildren in Texas recite an oath to their state that includes the words, I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God.

Now, a flurry of proposed measures that could soon become law would promote even greater loyalty to Texas in the states classrooms and public spaces, as Republican lawmakers try to reframe Texas history lessons and play down references to slavery and anti-Mexican discrimination that are part of the states founding.

The proposals in Texas, a state that influences school curriculums around the country through its huge textbook market, amount to some of the most aggressive efforts to control the teaching of American history. And they come as nearly a dozen other Republican-led states seek to ban or limit how the role of slavery and pervasive effects of racism can be taught.

The idea that history is a project thats decided in the political arena is a recipe for disaster, said Raul Ramos, a historian at the University of Houston who specializes in the American West.

Some of the positioning is politics as usual in Texas, where activists have long organized to imbue textbooks with conservative leanings. An especially active Republican-controlled legislative session has advanced hard-line measures from a host of new voting restrictions to a ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

But the Texas history measures have alarmed educators, historians and activists who said they largely ignore the role of slavery and campaigns of anti-Mexican violence and would fail to educate a generation of students growing up in a state undergoing huge demographic shifts.

One measure that recently passed the Texas House, largely along party lines, would limit teacher-led discussions of current events; prohibit course credit for political activism or lobbying, which could include students who volunteer for civil rights groups; and ban teaching of The 1619 Project, an initiative by The New York Times that says it aims to reframe U.S. history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the center of the national narrative.

The bill would also limit how teachers in Texas classrooms can discuss the ways in which racism influenced the legal system in the state, long a segregationist bastion, and the rest of the country. Another bill that sailed through the Texas House would create a committee to promote patriotic education about the states secession from Mexico in 1836, largely by men who were fighting to expand slavery. And a third bill would block exhibits at San Antonios Alamo complex from explaining that major figures in the Texas Revolution were slave owners.

Texas Republicans working extremely hard to ensure Texan children grow up ignorant. How very noble of them.

Dont mess with texas

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I mean the entire south is full of racist racism deniers.

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Every morning, schoolchildren in Texas recite an oath to their state that includes the words, I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God.

Is that new? I never had to do that in school and I grew up in Texas.

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The rest of it is 'One and indivisible"

Tell that to the people that want to secede.

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Republicans continue to deny facts and create their own reality. Now they set their sights on history itself

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Its so weird how all these Republican southern states go out of their way to white wash racism and then pretend that theyre not racist and that their republican party isnt racist

Fucking Texas.

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BLAKUboy posted...

Is that new? I never had to do that in school and I grew up in Texas.

I believe so

I honestly never even knew we had a state pledge. Fuck this state. I wish I could afford to move.

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Critical race theory is evil.

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Can we say plants from Texas are dumb??

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TerraSeeker posted...

Critical race theory is evil.

honestly anything that pits analysis (flawed or not) against hearsay or common beliefs is evil. science creates a lot of division so you might as well call that evil, right?

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BabyRoxann posted...

This is some North Korea level shit

this is what happens when education has a single point of failure in the form of the state

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Texas has literally been whitewashing history in the U.S. for decades. Because Texas has the largest population of school-aged kids, it's the biggest buyer of textbooks and dictates what the whole country will use.

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TerraSeeker posted...

Critical race theory is evil.

Teaching kids slavery existed and was bad isn't evil

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Zero_Destroyer posted...

Teaching kids slavery existed and was bad isn't evil

The GOP disagrees.

You hear "Black people today should be thankful that we took the out of primative Africa and brought them to the utopia of the United States. They had much much better lives because of it!" all the time in the Southern States.

And that's from the people who don't overtly hate other races. It's just what they've been taught to believe and anything else is an attack on the South

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I felt so weird when I learned other states didn't have a pledge. It never meant anything to me and probably didn't mean much to most other kids either, just words we memorized, but learning other states didn't do it kind of awakened me to the intent.

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First I hear about a state pledge of allegiance.

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We only did the pledge from K-5, but it definitely exists (or did, not sure if kids still do it.) Our district didn't even do the American pledge after elementary, though.

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