Whitewashing History 0
Georgia is among the states that have outlawed teaching truthful American history. At the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Maureen Downey writes of the dilemma that teachers face now that said law has gone into effect in Georgia. A snippet:
Never mind that there are many chapters of U.S. history that should cause anguish — the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre where Colorado cavalrymen slaughtered Native American women and children, the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court Plessy v. Ferguson decision that legalized “separate but equal,” the 1906 Atlanta race riot where 5,000 rampaging white men and boys murdered at least 25 Black Atlantans going about their daily lives and destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses, and the forced relocation and incarceration of 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry during World War II.
Under the new divisive concepts law, a Georgia parent could complain that a teacher’s comments during a discussion of the Atlanta race riot crossed into what the bill defines as “‘race scapegoating, assigning fault or blame to a race.” Such a complaint could land the school system in front of the state Board of Education facing sanctions.
Follow the link for a discussion of possible strategies that teachers can use to avoid falling prey to the proponents of prevarication about the past.
