With the passage of SB 683 in 2021, our schools would teach a curriculum of history based on racism. Much of the curriculum comes from the 1619 Project which celebrates the arrival of the first slaves in North America.

Why don’t they teach a true history of racism? Why don't they begin with the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabic lands, India, isolated empirical China and Japan then follow it to its expansion into the America’s with some historical context? Historically speaking slavery would have been impossible for expansion into the Americas in 1619 without the current practices of the time that had the Dutch as primary merchants and Muslims as their primary supplier.

Why would the curriculum begin near the historical end of slavery in 1619 and not include 5500 years of activity that set the stage? Some say that the reason is political.

Revised History by omission. Slavery didn’t start in the U.S. It all but ended here. In Oregon the native tribes held rendezvous at Celilo Falls and Willamette Falls into the time of the white man’s arrival. The Modoc tribe would sell Paiute prisoners into slavery at those annual gathering. One slave could be had for a horse or three blankets. In our time, Mexican cartels sell young girls into slavery currently and that sex trade has accelerated with more border crossings facilitated under our new administration.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

In many Muslim countries today, women are second class citizens living lives tantamount to slavery. China has slave labor camps to reprogram nonconforming religious and dissident citizens. We are told those are OK because it is a cultural thing.

The industrial Revolution did more to end slavery than any other single event. When machines were invented that did more work of a reliable quality than humans could do the economic necessity for slavery was gone. Why don’t schools teach our kids that the Pilgrims banned slavery in the Mayflower Compact of 1620. Or teach that it was President Thomas Jefferson who banned the importation of slaves in 1807?

Maybe the course should examine the slavish controls on the actions of people once they are made to be economically and psychologically dependent on government. The greatest deterrent to slavery is a population that believes in the pursuit of self-sufficiency. What are we doing to teach self-sufficiency?


--Tom Hammer

Post Date: 2022-09-26 08:43:54

Last Update: 2022-09-26 20:11:49