July, 2018 archive
The Path to Pariah 0
The Booman documents another step down the road.
Propagating Propaganda To Perpetuate Privilege 0
The Roanoke Times explores how the Commonwealth of Virginia slanted textbooks to whitewash–you will pardon the expression–slavery. A snippet:
Springston’s story says: “Lawmakers thought that requiring schoolteachers to promote the Byrd organization’s view of history would set students straight and keep teachers from spreading socialist or communist ideas.” Ironically, that’s no different than what the Bolsheviks did when they instituted communism in the Soviet Union — they taught students a different version of history.
(snip)
On the website Politichicks, Eichelman writes: “One former commission member admitted to me that the goal of the seventh grade book was to ‘make every seventh-grader aspire to the colonnaded mansion; and if he can’t get there, make him happy in the cabin.’
These were the textbooks I had when I was in school. I realized by the time I graduated high school that they were–er–slanted (perhaps that’s why I chose to get my degree in history with a focus on U. S. Southern–as a rebellion against the attempt to indoctrinate me in bigotry).
Borderline Disorder, Chronic Dept. 0
At The Bangor Daily News, David Farmer reflects on this self-styled “nation of immigrants” and its historic hostility to immigrants. He fears history’s repeating itself in the land of the Trumpled. In the course of his essay, he tells a story:
She arrived in New York City, where the Irish were treated as outsiders and outcasts, where signs read “No Irish Need Apply.”
Irish housekeepers and nannies were so common, that the well-to-do referred to the young women as generic “Bridgettes,” the name stripped of its humanity and used instead as a description of a domestic servant.
On the Beach 0
My local rag looks back to a time in the recent past, when black folks weren’t allowed on a beach. Here’s a bit; follow the for the rest, and, all the while, remember that there are those amongst us who would happily return to recreate those times.
(snip)
A year later, most of Bright’s beach buildings were consumed in a mysterious fire. The Guide reported that it was likely set by disgruntled whites. The story also said the arsonists were probably among those who appeared at a zoning meeting and shut down African Americans’ requests to rebuild.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Paradise regained, the NRA way.
Thus passeth another day in the NRA’s Garden of Earthly Delights.
Trial Runs 0
Listen. This is where we are today.
Princes of the Monarchs 0
Monarch butterfly caterpillars on a milkweed plant.
