I have very little recall of what I actually read in history books about the Civil War. North vs. South. Gettysburg Address. Emancipation Proclamation. Draft riots. Sherman's March to the Sea. Lee at Appomattox Courthouse. John Wilkes Booth.
And, oh, yeah, the War was fought over slavery. And the good guys won.
I certainly didn't come away from high school history with any romantic notions about the noble Lost Cause. Then again, I went to school in the North.
I will admit that the first time I saw Gone with the Wind, I loved it. Rhett Butler was just so very dashing. But by the second time, well, fiddle-dee-dee, I thought it was rather ludicrous. And by the third time, well, as God is my witness, there was no third time.
I've also seen Birth of a Nation. Once. During a film course in college. I probably wouldn't have used the term racist back then, but I knew it was dreadful. And I knew it was hogwash. Afterwards, there was one line in it that my friends used to mock when something or someone got a bit overdramatic. "Loves hymn still echoes over the land's miserere." Not sure what it was supposed to mean, but we used it a lot.
Anyway, history teaching could sure do with some quality mercy these days.
Mostly there's the brouhaha over Critical Race Theory, a legal argument that the right has taking over to use as a proxy for teaching anything about racism. Because, hey, wherever you can latch on to a divisive issue to stir things up, grab on with gusto.
And, of course, there's the NY Times 1619 Project, which centers American history around slavery and racism. Admittedly, I haven't read much of this work, but my gut reaction is that, while our history may not be totally centered around slavery and racism, we sure need to focus more attention on how slavery and racism have impacted our history. And we won't be able to get off the dime we're stuck on until we're ready, willing, and able to do so.
Anyway, in a number of states - and I really don't need to name names - the brouhaha-ers call for schools to double down on a romanticized version of our history, choosing to focus on the noble and the glorious - and, as the granddaughter and great-granddaughter of immigrants, I can attest to plenty of that - to the exclusion, and even denial, of anything that detracts from the noble and glorious accounting.
So I wasn't surprised to read that one of the state-approved history texts for eighth graders in Louisiana tells a rather one-sided (wrong-sided) version of the Civil War.
The textbook in question focuses one chapter on the diary of Kate Stone, a wealthy young woman living a life of privilege on a plantation. That is, until the Civil War came and took it all away from her. Kate Stone's diary is important, as it does give us an insider's view on what it was like to live on the advantaged side of the plantation. Stone also wrote about the Scarlett O'Hara level excitement about handsome boys heading off to war, and about the deaths of two of her brothers. (Neither died on the battlefield, but did die during the War.) This is valuable and important material. But Kate Stone's perspective is provided uncritically.
"With more than 1,000 acres and 150 slaves, the family's future seemed secure." Until that nasty old Civil War took all that away. As Kate wrote, "'Our cause is just and must prevail.'" With not so much as a mention that "our cause" might not have been all that "just." Instead, we're told she was a patriot, that "the war's hardships were difficult to take," and that, once the Yankee soldiers showed up on their doorstep, the family had a "justified fear that their slaves would abandon the plantation for the freedom they believed the Union Army would provide."
So in 1863, the Stone family sent 120 of their slaves to Texas and "were forced to follow the slaves to Texas in the same year. In the family's absence, the few remaining slaves took over the plantation and moved into the family's home, dividing the rooms and the Stones' personal property among themselves."
No mention, of course, of how the resilient slaves, looking to survive, moved out of their dirt floor hovels and into a home where they had an actual non-leaking roof over their heads. And an actual bed that wasn't a sack stuffed with corn-cobs on the floor.
Instead, we learn that Kate Stone and her mother - her father was dead, her five brothers off to war - were refugees. And that after the war, they got their plantation back, but "lost all their property in slaves. The family had to face the new reality of planting and harvesting their fields with freed people who, Kate regretted, now demanded 'high wages.'"
I.e., wages. (Pretty preposterous to imagine they were high.)
Talk about uncritical race theory!
I've seen a few other sections in this text book - enough to know it's complete and utter pap - pap that feeds into the Lost Cause narrative big time.
If this is what they're teaching in Louisiana public schools, all I can say is cry, the beloved country...
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