History Depends on the Present

Written in response to Lone Star Liberal's post 'How dentists and real estate agents know more than you':

"I agree with you on multiple fronts. When deciding on material to be covered in textbooks, experts on the subject should be at minimal consulted if not making the decisions themselves. I also believe that the changes you have described are not conducive to a wholesome education. For example, capitalism is definitely a broken system and portraying it in a positive light with euphemisms like “free enterprise system” is unsettling and certainly reflects some sort of conservative agenda.

However, it’s important to remember that interpretations of history reflect the atmosphere of the time, and you’re likely to find different interpretations as time goes on. Though, that certainly doesn’t excuse wrong or dubious interpretations. You mentioned that the members deciding the curriculum were trying to portray the philosophies of the Black Panther as violent while downplaying African American victimization. That’s definitely evident of some ideological bias. The Black Panthers weren’t violent as much as they were brilliant. (They found a loophole in California law that allowed them to carry guns in plain sight, and therefore did so to intimidate police officers and stop victimization of minorities. Absolutely brilliant!) So, I would definitely agree that the conservatives are offering a faulty re-envisioning of history. However, liberals aren’t so guilt-free either. On the same topic of the Civil Rights Movement, more liberal interpretations of history in textbooks have portrayed Rosa Parks as a courageous victim of southern discrimination, when in fact her arrest was both premeditated and a collaborative efforts between her and the numerous social justice and civil rights organizations she was a part of. But we didn’t learn that in 11th grade U.S. history, did we?

Like I said, interpretations of history very much have to do the atmosphere of the present time, and textbooks will reflect that. Obviously that does not justify or excuse biased interpretations. But instead of blaming poor quality textbook material on the Texan conservative agenda, the better course of action would be finding a system of portraying history as accurately as possible while recognizing that even the most extinguished historians are going to have their own interpretation bias.

I like the curriculum changes as much as you do—not a whole lot. But I’m not so quick to jump down conservatives’ throats. The biggest problem, as you pointed out, is the qualifications that these people lack that would allow them to mandate what is taught and what isn’t, and has much less to do with political ideology."