Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

Category: Schools & Teaching
Author: James W. Loewen
4.3
This Month Reddit 2

Comments

by lemme-explain   2019-08-24

> Racism isn’t rampant. Its factually not.

You and I live in different worlds, with different facts.

> If you really believe racism is thriving, you either don’t interact with real people or you are projecting your own bigotry onto the rest of the world.

LOL. First of all, I'm not a bigot, and if I was, I can't imagine how I would "project" that onto the world and convince myself that racism was both rampant and a serious problem. Bigots do not think that way. Bigots think that the way they think is normal, that everyone agrees with them, and that they are not bigots.

And, I definitely do talk to real people, including real people of color, and I know what they have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. Look, I get where you're coming from -- I grew up in a part of the country that was heavily segregated, where the public schools taught a lot of lies about equality while papering over every bad thing that ever happened in U.S. history. Our 10th grade U.S. history teacher told us that black slaves in the antebellum South were happy to be slaves, and weren't ready for freedom. I later learned that these lies and more are rampant across the South.

And, if you know your history, it makes perfect sense! The Civil War wasn't even that long ago, and the resentment lingers. People don't want to believe that their ancestors were evil, so they tell themselves that blacks are inferior and subhuman. Hell, we get at least a post a day on this forum telling us that blacks do terrible on IQ tests and that there's a conspiracy to hide this. Racism is everywhere around us. It's woven into our culture, inextricably. I could start pointing to examples but it would never end. If you're not seeing it, that's because your eyes aren't open.

by RushIndustries   2019-08-24

You should read this book, I think you might like it...

https://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/0743296281

by GameMusic   2018-11-10

Read Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/0743296281

by Total_Denomination   2018-11-10

Everyone should read Lies My Teacher Told me .

by GKinslayer   2018-11-10