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Thumper
Veteran Poster
Username: Thumper
Post Number: 780
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, February 05, 2009 - 09:28 am: | 
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Hello All,
Coming off of that thread about that silly ass Confedrate Memorial Day, I believe that we should have a Mary Turner Memorial Day too. I found out about Mary Turner during my reading the Marcus Garvey biography. In case you have not heard of Mary Turner, I have a link that will tell you about her and why she and others should be remembered, http://www.maryturner.org . Sometimes we talk of and allow others to talk of our past in generic terms, Mary Turner's story brings it home in an unforgettable way that blows up the ho-hum nature that our past suffering is often treated with. So, where's Mary Turner's memorial day? |
A_womon
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: A_womon
Post Number: 2557
Registered: 05-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, February 05, 2009 - 02:03 pm: |
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I cried as I read this. And so many more black men, women, children and BABIES died in even worse ways. Yet NOTHING is ever mentioned in the history books that are still taught in our schools about these atrocities. Why is it ok for us to learn about the Jewish holocaust, but the Black holocaust is to be swept under a rug?
And my heart aches when black people suggest we should just forget and move forward. Forget what's never been spoken of? Forget what has never been acknowledged? Forget what some say "wasn't that bad"? It's a sin and a shame that black people buy into the big lie. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 13499
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, February 05, 2009 - 04:16 pm: |
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The holocaust is not covered any more extensively in the history books of public schools than the rigors of slavery are. Jews are the ones who keep the holocaust alive with ongoing PR about it, also teaching their children about it in their synagogues. And it's no secret that there are those who claim the holocuast wasn't as dire as Jews portray it. With all of the hype, how much do you know about the holocaust other than it refers to the alleged oppression of Jews by Nazis, a_womon? That's about as much as the average black person and white Non-Jew knows about it.
And who dares deny that slavery was a terrible ordeal black people were put through????? It's a given that slavery was terrible. Anybody who says differently is shouted down.
In the southern states rebels fly the stars and bars and want to commemorate civil war heroes. Blacks cannot exorcise these demons because they are deep-rooted. Blacks can simply match this adulation with their own fervor about civil rights heroes.
As for racism and white supremacy, I repeat: I've yet to meet a black person who thinks that Obama's election totally eliminated these scourages. Nobody is that naive. But forward-thinking members of America's black minority are getting past the mire of martyrdom, preferring to move ahead. |
A_womon
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: A_womon
Post Number: 2558
Registered: 05-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, February 05, 2009 - 07:57 pm: |
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I was taught about the holocaust in history class. Who could get a lesson aout Hitler without getting one about the holocaust as well? Hiltler is the reason there was a holocaust. And we learned a lot more about the holocaust than the so called oppression of Jews by Nazis, we learned that Jewish families were murdered, torn apart, the children gassed and sometimes burned alive in furnaces, teenaged girls were tortured and experimented on by so called doctors. Women were raped and starved and if they weren't shot to death with their husbands were made to cook and serve food they would never taste and on and on and on it goes.
ALL history should be taught in public schools, not just the part that has been rewritten to make those of European descent look as if they were righteous warriors in everything they did, who invented everything, who discovered everything and had a righteous reason that gave them justification for every act they committed that could be considered murderous,scandalous,horrific, or atrocious. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 13505
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, February 05, 2009 - 10:31 pm: |
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So are you implying that in your history class you didn't learn about the horrors of slavery as much as you did about the holocaust? (What you said about the holocaust really amounts to a paragraph in a grade school history book.)
You ask a black school child about slavery and he will tell you it was bad. Ask one about the holocaust and you might very well get a blank look.
History always depends on whose telling it. The white Germans make themselves appear more sympathetic in their versions of the holocaust. Even black Africans have been accused of revisonist history.
My point is, is that from what I see and hear, black folks, in particular, and white folks, in general, are not mislead in regard to how shameful slavery was. |
A_womon
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: A_womon
Post Number: 2559
Registered: 05-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 06, 2009 - 01:38 am: |
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We did not learn anything about the horrors of slavery. Not one thing other than we were sold on auction blocks for labor on plantations. That was it. And the holocaust and hitler took considerably longer to discuss than a paragraph.
But we have had a similar conversation before. I already know where you stand on issues like this. We will never see eye to eye where these issues are concerned. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 13507
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 06, 2009 - 03:04 am: |
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Where I stand is influenced by how in the year 2009, my grandchildren have learned just as much about slavery as they did about the holocaust in their schools. So obviously things differ from place to place.
The whole month of February is designated as black history month. This is a unique celebration. |
Yvettep
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 3415
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 06, 2009 - 10:19 am: |
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History is one of those subjects that we here in the US could do a lot better job at teaching, IMO. It is very difficult to make it "come alive" for kids and connect it to their current lives. Children developmentally have a hard time with getting a sense of years much past their immediate frame of reference: their lifespan, maybe "when Mommy/Daddy was may age"--maybe for some "when Grandma/Grandpa was my age." Much past that, it's all pretty much gibber-jabber.
Just this morning my children were asking me who was the first US president I remembered. I replied Nixon. They exclaimed loudly and looked at me as if I said I recalled personally when brontosauri walked the earth.
That is the first difficult thing about teaching about western slavery as opposed to the Jewish Holocaust: the latter can more easily be tied to a time period that some children at least might comprehend.
But I think it is also very difficult for most teachers to broach the subject, and they are hesitant about doing so. Most kids of any race in the US will have White female teachers in their younger years. These teachers, as far as I know from when I was in a teaching ed program, are not professionally trained in how to teach about slavery, and all that means about the relationships between Whites and Blacks.
Like A_woman, when I was a child we had many lessons related to the Holocaust, mostly centering around lessons about Hitler, WW2, and the book "Diary of Ann Frank." Slavery was addressed very little if at all. If school children these days are exposed more to slavery, then that is a good thing. But I doubt that your grandchildren's experience, Cynique, is very widespread. My guess is that most children still are not taught much formally about slavery--especially as part of Black History Month, as that usually focuses on the happy, "great names/historic firsts" stories.
I know that teachers are much more comfortable if they can use a ready-made lesson plan about such difficult topics. I know of a couple of prepackaged syllabi. One was based on a PBS special from a few years ago. I think this is the way to go. Also, museums devoted to slavery or containing slavery exhibits will be helpful.
SOrry for the long post--This is a huge interest of mine. I have only as an adult embarked on the project of educating myself about slavery. It is difficult, though. Unlike other reading "kicks" I get on, with this topic I cannot read a dozen books over a few months. Instead I have to read in very small doses, and take frequent breaks where I read something "lighter" in between. It is emotionally exhausting. |
Yvettep
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 3416
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 06, 2009 - 10:20 am: |
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Oh, and thanks for the link, Thumper. |
Yvettep
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 3417
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 06, 2009 - 10:23 am: |
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One more thing--a personal story. When I was in school, I had a teacher say to the class (me=only Black kid) that, yes, slavery was bad, but that we should all look on the bright side of it. "If it weren't for slavery, Yvette for example, wouldn't be in class with us today."
As unbelievable as that may sound, I heard recently from a Black parent that her child's teacher said something very similar. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 13508
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 06, 2009 - 12:32 pm: |
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I would still question as to whether currently children in public schools, particularly those in the inner cities, are taught more about the holocaust than slavery, and I know that they don't try to ameliorate slavery in schools anymore because Blacks did protest loudly at any attempt to do this.
Also around this area there are probably just as many if not more black teachers than white ones. This is certainly the case in my school district.
And I still say that what there is to learn about the holocaust and Hitler's reign can be taught in one lesson, unless the course being taken is World History.
Most schools around my area now have black studies either as an elective or as a part of the regular curriculum and the subject about 400 years of bondage is naturally something black kids can relate to more than 4 years of Jews being eliminated by Germans.
I do remember an incident a few years back when Jewish people were up in arms in a certain town because when they invited black high school kids to a showing of the movie "Schindler's List", the black kids laughed during some of the scenes because things that Jewish people held sacred, these kids found funny. So, as I said, things apparently differ from place to place.
"Slavery" is a word that is self-explanatory and, as such, cannot be sugar-coated. "Holocaust" is an unusual word that has to be explained. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 13509
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 06, 2009 - 12:51 pm: |
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Yes, Yvette, in addition to the "n" word, there are other no-nos that exist when it comes to black folks. You cannot refer to them as "you people" or call a black man a "boy" or say that that being enslaved on an America planation was better than being free in the jungles of Africa
However, there are philosophical black people who think slavery was a form of providence and that before it is all over black folks, in "overcoming", will emerge the final victors.
(I can just see Chrishayden now, curled up in a fetal position, momentarily interrupting his crying about Obama being president, to shed tears about Cynique being blasphemous. Up yours, crissy.  ) |
Yvettep
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 3419
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 06, 2009 - 01:14 pm: |
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there are philosophical black people who think slavery was a form of providence
Cynique, whether there are Black folks who think this is besides the point, IMO. The point is whether this is an appropriate thing for a teacher to say to her or his charges--especially in a way that singles out the only Black student in the class. And that this type of thing still goes on furthers the problem. If my teacher of days gone by had other pedagogical wizardry up her sleeve, and this was her only error in an otherwise informative lesson on slavery, then that may not have been so bad. But she clearly was uncomfortable with the whole topic, had issues of her own, and felt free to resolve this in a way that was insensitive as well as educationally weak.
Again, I am very glad that things are coming around some places. Certainly Chicago would be one place I would think could be more progressive about the teaching of slavery. However, I would bet that many Blacks have as many unresolved issues around slavery than Whites. There still is some degree of pain and shame surrounding this history--"Roots" notwithstanding.
And I wouldn't worry about Chris. I am sure he'll be on here at some point, finding a way to use both of us as examples of why we Black folks are doomed.  |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 13511
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 06, 2009 - 01:52 pm: |
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I'm not excusing your teacher for her lack of sensitivity. So many of the traumatic things that happen to children occur during their formative years in a class room setting. And kids seem to remember personal incidents more than negligence when it comes to learning the fundamentals of the 3 Rs.
Everything associated with slavery is deplorable including it being trivialized, all of which keep it in the focus of black folks. This is why I say that Black people are not more horrified by the holocaust than slavery, whether they've been taught more about the holocaust or not. And the only "white" folks preoccupied with the holocaust are Jews. |
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