Allow me to flout convention and begin with the
end. In summary, the perpetrator’s
effort to address the subject is a start, but falls short, far short in fact, of
what’s necessary to make right an immeasurable injustice.
How did we arrive at this point?
In recent years there has been a not so subtle
effort to reimage American History, or at least a key part of it. A certain element of the country has
increasingly flexed its growing political and cultural muscle by successfully
lobbying to change the way textbooks express the emergence, growth and
development of the United States as a World Power.
Legislatures in several
States have voted to participate in this unsavory practice. Even the Republican National Committee has gotten
in on the act. Conservatives scrutinized the 2014
edition of the College Board’s release of its new Advanced Placement U.S. History teaching guidelines for not being patriotic enough. The
Republican National Committee issued a resolution describing the framework as a "biased and inaccurate view
of many important events in American history" and calling on Congress to
withhold federal funding from the College Board.
It can be argued that, at best, this deception dilutes
the truth quotient associated with the course of American human events. At worst, it totally whitewashes, no pun
intended, the atrocities visited upon millions of erstwhile Africans. These men and women were violently separated
from their homeland, and transported across an Ocean under the most brutal of
circumstances. The conditions the human
cargo was subjected to; shackled in cramped quarters, and barely fed,
effectively killed countless men and women during the transcontinental
voyages. Those who survived had their
lives leveraged for free labor, while they essentially built significant
portions of the infrastructure of this country.
As previously referenced, a number of States
engage in this unpalatable behavior.
However, none is bigger and/or more influential than Texas, if for no
other reason, than because of the sheer number to textbooks the State purchases. Moreover, due to the large number of books
prepared for Texas, that version of the texts is likely to be marketed to other
smaller states that cannot command, based on volume, a different, truer-to-fact,
version of the texts.
Publisher McGraw-Hill is contracted to prepare
and provide World Geography textbooks for the State of Texas. In the version of events approved by the
Texas Legislature, African slaves are referred to as “workers” and
“immigrants.” In one passage, the book
notes:
“The
Atlantic slave trade brought millions of workers…”
OK, hold on, wait a minute! This low-grade historical rewrite has been
kicked around in newspapers and Internet news sites for some time. Finally a student and his mother, Coby Burren
and Roni Dean-Burren, respectively, collaborated to kick-off a Facebook post
that went viral. The ensuing smoke
apparently made its way all the way up the communications chimney to
McGraw-Hill executives.
The Dean-Burrens recoiled at the manipulatively
nuanced characterizations that referred to individuals whom we know were slaves,
as workers and immigrants. In response,
Mrs. Dean-Burren asked:
“Workers
implies wages … yes?
In one more testament to the viability and
velocity of the inherent in general, and of Facebook in particular, her post
had drawn 1.4 million page views on Facebook through Sunday before last. The higher-ups at McGraw-Hill not only heard
(or saw/read, as it were), they responded.
Once confronted by the outcry emanating from
the Dean-Burren family, McGraw-Hill reviewed the section. After a quick refresher, they concluded that
the phraseology comprised in that particular section does not live up to their
standards. As the Company put it, in a
post on its own Facebook Page last Friday:
"We
believe we can do better to communicate these facts more clearly, we will
update this caption to describe the arrival of African slaves in the U.S. as a
forced migration and emphasize that their work was done as slave labor."
The
company noted the edits will appear in the online version of the book
immediately and will be included in the book's next printing.
In
response to the news, Mrs. Dean-Burren said on her Facebook Page:
"This
is change people!!! This is why your voices matter!!!" And they do.
In
citing a couple of specific examples of the reinvention of history in the text,
Mrs. Dean-Burren elevated a passage from the section called “Patterns of
Immigration.” In that section the text
provides snapshots of how various ethnic groups arrived…in America. It notes:
"The
Atlantic slave trade between the 1500s and the 1800s brought millions of
workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural
plantations.”
Immigration? Really?
Mr. Trump and his immigration foes must not have received the memo. There is an immigrant pool that not only
works but also does so for free.
A
separate passage describes the arrival of Europeans who came to work as
indentured servants "for little or no pay." Here, they note that English and other Europeans
received little or no pay, yet, no mention that Africans were slaves…just
workers.
Mrs.
Dean-Burren accurately calls this characterization of slavery in the text an
“erasure.”
"Erasure
is real y'all!!! Teach your children the truth!!! #blacklivesmatter"
Coby,
a ninth-grade student at Pearland High School south of Houston, brought the
textbook and its loose-with-the-facts language to his mother’s attention. Texas has been a battleground in the fight
over changes to textbooks that some say concede too much ground to conservative
viewpoints on subjects such as climate change, religious liberty and especially
slavery.
Read: Texas OKs school
guidelines after ideological debate
While
Mrs. Dean Burren took solace in having been a catalyst for a degree of change
in McGraw-Hill’s posture on the subject of describing slavery in appropriate
terms, some believe the changes aren't enough and are asking the publisher to
recall existing versions of the book and replace copies for schools that can't
afford to buy new books. I support this
view. One comment on McGraw-Hill’s
Facebook Page read:
"Thanks
for the gesture, but that doesn't help the school districts that can't afford
to purchase new textbooks! Kids will
continue to read the same incorrect & inconsiderate information for
probably the next 5-10 years! There must be a better way!"
Others
say the publisher's revised language still plays down the horrors of slavery.
"Forced
migration? I believe the words you're looking for are kidnapped and
stolen," wrote a commenter.
With those
observations, I will end this post as it began, as I said I would. In
summary, McGraw-Hill’s effort to address the subject is a start, but falls
short, far short in fact, of what’s necessary to make right an immeasurable
injustice. Therefore, when you reflect
on this sordid episode, all you really need to know is, this was “A Tale Of The Great African Migration:Emphasis On Tale!”
I’m done; holla
back!
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Consult the links below for more
detailed information on a variety of aspects relating to this post:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/connectedcar/mcgraw-hill-to-rewrite-textbook-passage-identifying-slaves-as-‘workers/vp-AAf8yM
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