Thoughts on School Curricula
“CRT” disallowed in public schools as indoctrination. Black History disallowed as subject matter lest a single student or her parent be made to feel uncomfortable. Slavery off limits as topic of American history without fair and balanced alternative information laid beside. As a not-quite-dead, old white guy, I think we should be able to see our way to inclusively embrace these viewpoints: teach White History. Some examples:
1) White entrepreneurs of colonial America early realized the most economical means of agricultural production—capture non-persons from the heart of dark Africa; pack as many as possible into the holds of sailing ships; domesticate them as any other beast of burden; spend as little as possible on food and shelter; work them until they die. Setting some aside for breeding purposes made for a profitable side-stream of revenue. As an additional benefit, the owner could deflect the ignominy from discovery of sodomizing sheep or other animals by raping the females of these beasts.
2) Among the Pantheon of Great White Men of our history: Mr. Chief Justice Taney rightly declared, “The words ‘people of the United States’ and ‘citizens’ are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body, who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the government through their representatives. They are what we familiarly call the ‘sovereign people,’ and every citizen is one this people, and a constituent member of this sovereignty.”
“The question,” he went on, “is simply this: can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country and sold as sl***s, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States. . .?” His answer was, “We think they [can]not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word ‘citizen’ in the Constitution. . . On the contrary,” he continued, “they were at the time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and[,] whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the government might choose to grant them.”
That’s part of our White History of the United States. But here is fair and balanced alternative information, also from White History. Mr. Justice Curtis (white but perhaps not among the Pantheon Greats), dissenting from that opinion, asserted, “To determine whether any free persons, descended from Africans held in sl***ry, were citizens of the United States under the Confederation, and consequently at the time of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, it is only necessary to know whether any such persons were citizens of either of the States under the Confederation at the time of the adoption of the Constitution
“Of this there can be no doubt. At the time of the ratification of the Articles of Confederation, all free native-born inhabitants of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and North Carolina [Go, Tar Heels!], though descended from African sl***es, were not only citizens of those States, but such of them as had the other necessary qualifications possessed the franchise of electors on equal terms with other citizens. . .”
3) On November 6, 1860, the most divisive President in USAmerican history was elected to that awesome office. Within six weeks his inflammatory, uncompromising, authoritarian language impelled the first of eleven States to exercise their sovereign right to Keep America Great by seceding from the compact of 1787. Less than six weeks after his inauguration, his bellicose demands had intensified to the point of forcing the new Confederation to defend itself by directing cannon-fire on Fort Sumter at the head of South Carolina’s Charleston Harbor.
Thus the white, northern, elite, urban power-mongers caused untold and needless misery, hardship, loss of life and limb, family and fortune to fall upon their southern white countrymen, who sought merely to continue their god-given, Supreme-Court endorsed freedom to “subject to their authority” “a subordinate and inferior class of beings.” A woeful blight indeed upon our glorious national history!
4) With the northern boot still pressed upon the necks of the proud upholders of the temporarily Lost Cause, several Amendments were rammed through the ratification process in record time, raising some question as to their legitimacy. But, as the saying goes, that ship had sailed. Seeing that the conquerors did not shy from changing the Constitutional rules to suit their own purposes, patriotic citizens throughout the country began to conceive and execute a plan to counter the immoral consequences of those displays of naked power.
Groups of leading men began associating with one another, quietly and unobserved, to organize a new movement, primarily in but not limited to the South. The purpose of this civic organization was to remind the “subordinate and inferior class of beings,” recently “freed,” exactly which authority they were still subject to. Personally modest, not seeking celebrity or acclaim but striving only to preserve the public’s freedoms and rights against an overbearing and vengeful Northern conqueror, these patriots constructed means to conceal their identity while insuring maximal impact from their activities.
Like many other civic associations, they indulged in striking costumes, exotic titles, secret handshakes, and impressive, almost ecclesiastical stage-craft. Although they used seemingly hierarchical titles (Grand Wizard, Grand Titan, Grand Magi, etc.), their underlying democratic values showed in the uniform anonymity of their white, hooded, costumery. Altogether, these grass-roots, civil organizers developed successful political strategies, rendered even more effective by such impressive rituals as outdoor burning crosses, to ensure Home Rule for many decades.
But more of this in our next class. Other future highlights to include the 1921 urban renewal project in Tulsa, and so much more in Little Rock, Birmingham and Montgomery, Memphis, Lansing and Detroit, and . . .and . . .
The Long Clasp 