This is funny. Again, the right wing meme that it was for the good of all the white people that blacks owe their freedom. As a result, they wish to eradicate mention of slavery in educational materials in Tennessee.
The material calls for lawmakers to amend state laws governing school curriculums, and for textbook selection criteria to say that “No portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership.
Political affiliation notwithstanding, this is just really stupid. I had a chat with a conservative friend related to slavery, and he went off on how the white folks should be given more credit. If not for the brave white abolitionists, then there’d still be slavery. If not for all the white boys who fought and died during the civil war, then blacks would still be enslaved. Therefore, they claim that we should diminish the racism and slavery perpetrated by the Founding members because it was merely the acceptable social context of the time. What were they to do, poor fellows? Well, if you’re wrapping up a Revolution and writing an entirely new Constitution, perhaps you could reinvent the wheel a little bit. Is that not the perfect example of reinventing the wheel? If you’re uncomfortable with slavery, or whatever else, and you’re writing a new government, maybe you could, you know, take that as a mandate to, you know, abolish the slave trade. Huh.
