The emphasis on black slavery, and its effect on mental images Options

[sadolakced acid]

from elementary school (in america), children are often introduced to the enslavement of africans, and the resulting civil war. It comes up quite a bit in the south. the expectation is, most likely, that children will learn that slavery was wrong and history will not repeat itself.

however; observation of america right now reveals that most americans do not learn from history.

however, once into higher education, it seems these fewer americans do learn from history. good thing too, because they'll (hopefully) be running the country.

but then, what's the problem with teaching kiddies about slavery, you ask.

the problem is an incomplete explination.

what introducing children to the enslavement of africans does is, yes, teach children about slavery and how it is wrong.

however, it also creates the idea in children's minds as slaves as black, always in history.

therefore; when these children hear about spartacus, they will envision a black man leading a slave revolt of other blacks against thier white enslavers.

when they hear that aesop was a slave, they will envision a black man writing down stories of tortosise and hares.

what this does is create the idea in children that a slave is black.

sure, people who choose to go on and learn more will learn differently. However, this is simply because they have overcome thier old (accidental) indotrination.

however, those who choose not to learn more, will forever have the image of a slave as a black person.

this increases the likelyhood that these people will believe blacks as inferior in some way.

which, opposite to the original purpose, would make future enslavement of blacks easier, not harder, to do.

[*tweeak*]

But if it was taught that many peoples had been enslaved overtime, then white people could start to assume that in some point in time they had an ansestor who was enslaved somewhere. Afterall, it's probably just as likely as it is that a black man has ansestors who were slaves here. People start assuming that just because they're black, they had ansestors who were slaves and that that's somehow an injustice to them and so of course we should make amends by ridiculous things like affirmative action. While we certainly can't ignore the fact that slavery was wrong and that these things happened, the ways it's taught is actually leading to more ignorance, because those who don't put forth the effort to take their education seriously may assume that they're worse off because they're black, and that they deserve special treatment because they had enslaved ansestors (which may or may not even be true). I can't ask people to to pity me because everyone hated thee Irish when they first came to America. Descrimination has pretty much happened to everyone at one point in time or another. They're promoting racism, really. If black people really want equality, they need to stop assuming that they are accounted a certain way because they're black. it's racist to have a whole nother PSAT scholarship qualifying thing just for blacks. All kinds of things are racist under the facade of trying to promote equality. It's a joke, seriously. If you don't want to be stereotyped, don't be the stereotype. I obviously don't mean everyone here, so don't get personally offended or whatnot. I'm not racist. And more importantly, I'm actually not racist, not "not racist" like my family, who claims not to be and then sits there and mocks Koreans or says that if people can't learn English they need to go back to Mexico. I profusely disagree. I am not them. I am ALL FOR equality. But real equality. Not fake equality. The way things are now, that's not what's happening. Stop trying to make amends and move on, dammit.