White-Washing American History | Eastern North Carolina Now

    The Civitas Institute recently published an article discussing some changes made to the AP American History curriculum that will go into effect the beginning of the fall 2014-2015 semesters. As a moderate Independent' I find their writers varyingly conflicting views to mine thought provoking. It allows me to see issues in the perspective of other's ideas. For this reason, I'll share my ideas on the issue. AP (Advanced Placement) Classes are for upper level students to receive college credit while in High School; the courses are much more challenging and taught at a greater depth. It seemed Bob Luebke's main problem with this change is its portrayal of "wrong doings" in the history of America. He said the following in his article:

• "Units on Colonial America emphasize the development of a "rigid racial hierarchy" and a "strong belief in British racial and cultural superiority." This strong emphasis on the pre-colonial period and Native Americans, West Africans and Spaniards is unfortunately coupled with the downplaying of the growth of freedom in the New World."

    In history, every society must be viewed in its entirety, history isn't taught to make patriots (although certain it does), but to teach the youth what problems humanity has faced and how it can be prevented. The process of not mentioning certain parts of history that may bring a bad impression on your nation/culture was referred to by my World History teacher as "white-washing history." Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it. The Holocaust was a horrendous tragedy, one that every human should know of. They need to know what caused it and why; if the people do not know their history, when it returns it will come back stronger. I am not trying to compare America's actions to that of the Holocaust; the Holocaust is an occurrence more radical than what has occurred in the United States. I'm just using this as an example for why history should be taught regardless of how it may affect citizens. Every time a genocide occurs, it seems to get more and more extreme; each time society progressively pays less attention to the issue (don't mention Kony 2012 everyone forgot about it in a week, this is probably the first time you've heard it this year, which proves my point even further.)

    Look at the Rwandan Genocide, the UN knew what was going on, pretty much every politician did; however taking action to halt this ongoing tragedy might hurt the interest of President Clinton's reelection campaign. Another example of politics over taking morality, granted you can make the argument of when America should step in with foreign conflicts (similar to Iraq today.) My point is we need to analyze the causes to all boom and bust humanity faces so we can continue with caution for the signs of danger.

    The changes in curriculum are intended for rising juniors, I'm a sophomore so it will most likely affect me next year in AP. You mentioned "strong British racial and cultural superiority" and this emphasize will take away from the growth of freedom. AP classes are for highly advanced students, around the top 10%-15% of their class may get into one of these courses each year, and many people fail the final exam. Most of them probably understand that freedom was something that existed, but not common at the time; they understand that the American Revolution caused a chain reaction of citizens demanding the rights our government grants/granted us. The British racial and cultural superiority section, that was taught in the 9th grade World History honors class, however that was after an extensive curriculum change. It's not Anti-American, really it's taught as one of the causes for the revolution (at least it was for my class.)

    I do have to agree with you when you seemed to hint that slavery is over taught in school. Every February in elementary schools is about slavery and the Civil Rights Movement. Yes, both are important however once you emphasize something so much, it loses its meaning. I looked through the objectives about slavery from the pre-revolution era, it's mostly just about the establishment of trade relations forming the Triangle Trade. This was a crucial factor to the development of the American Economy, probably what allowed us to win a war against the most powerful nation of the time.

    History isn't pretty, and it's not something to be glamorized; things did go wrong in our pasts, I don't see anything that's false or exaggerated in the course description (at least.) However calling the course outline, as the applied title reads "AP Courses Rewrite American History", I find to be an excessively exaggerated sensationalized title. In order for this title to be accurate, the course would intel something like "Karl Marx established America because he wanted a country where everything was free. The country became the most powerful nation on Earth, when he passed was the heir to the throne, then our now Great Supreme Leader Barack Obama." Just as an odd fictitious example.

    Obviously that's not what happened, Barack Obama isn't a socialist (many of you will disagree, but that's something to discuss in another article), Stalin changed Socialism into Communism and Totalitarianism. Everything in that excerpt is not true other than Obama having political power (except he wasn't a communist/socialist/whatever FOX News calls him now.) Rewriting history would mean adding or removing information without 'evidence' of existence; this curriculum change doesn't do this. It is basically, "Here's what we know, this is how we did it, analyze what happened to see how it affected us. That's exactly what history is. History is not America is Awesome Class, yes America is awesome, and in History class students do hear the awesome stuff America does; however you can, and should, hear of the mistakes made in the past (students citizens should also be aware of current events however that isn't exactly the focus of History.)

    Thinking about this issue is interesting, and insightful, primary sources and various opinions will always be inequalities, it's a matter of perspective. For most issues the entire truth may not be visible during our lifetimes. I completely understand your fear in the depreciation in patriotism in today's youth; however I don't see how hiding knowledge could help with it. I think the best solution at the moment is establish a JROTC program in all public high schools, and require each student to take Level 1 and 2 to graduate. That's the one thing in high school that I may (and it does) make patriots; It's mostly teamwork and building citizenship in cadets, physical training is a small part of the program itself.

    White-washing the history of us is like making someone walk through a forest blind folded.