Black History’s Missing Chapters
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/arts/television/the-african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross-on-pbs.html?_r=0...made me just that much more of a WISHer. I vaguely remember Roots, I would have been five-years old when it aired. This was a series that rivets me in sadness today. In this clip, you can get an idea of how powerful in emotion the series was: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7NABoP49gI
Roots had a superb cast, and direction that current TV fails to deliver. Sorry, but too many of us have gotten too out of touch with reality TV the mainstay for "entertainment." I'm excited that someone is finally doing something now, years later, that will showcase African American History in a series on PBS. I only wish it were on TV channels like 6/8 or 13. Showcasing our history in a light that actually tells some truth, but the American past, isn't everyone's past. Yes, we are all humans with a past that's interconnected. I feel like if I say American past then it's like I'm diminishing something . We are only taught American History already, but in reality it's a very skewed White Male American History. Wiki gives a paragraph to "slavery" and "Indian removal." There needs to be a more rounded education with African and Indian etc. depicted and highlighted equally. I mean I may very well have had slave owner(s) in my family history just as much as I may have had family member(s) who assisted with the underground railroad or neither, I will probably never know. In today's world and the climate of multiculturalism in our communities, a series or multiples of series, showcasing many cultures would be helpful and would be the right thing to do. Maybe it's time for a revised Roots, updated and even more intensely telling. I would love to see Roots the play produced. Drawing from the first paragraph in this article I see "Even a tiny slice of recent history — the civil rights movement — is not required teaching in most states." WHAT?! I mean, I have no words. I'm pissed, that my only offerings were from a very biased white place, maybe if more kids were taught about the bigotry and violence that has been forced upon these communities, there would be a little less tendency toward discrimination maybe even a lot less. A little less is way better than none in my book. When Kunta Kinte has been replaced by Amber and Catelynn (Teen Mom) this vision seems far fetched.
Wikipedia on American History:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States#Slavery
NY Times Article from above:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/arts/television/the-african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross-on-pbs.html?_r=0
Roots clip from above:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7NABoP49gI
Underground Railroad:
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/bhistory/underground_railroad/myths.htm
I agree with you Karre. It is mind boggling how things are censored and not.
ReplyDelete"Even a tiny slice of recent history — the civil rights movement — is not required teaching in most states." This seems so surreal. How could you not teach some of the most important movements that have happened in our country especially so recently. I definitely agree that it is infuriating to think that we don't require more accurate representations of history and culture.
One of the most powerful, challenging, well-documented, lucid and compelling books I've read recently is A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present by professor of ethnic studies, Ward Churchill, from the University of Colorado from 1990 to 2007. If you think you know American History, and haven't read this book, you're only looking at the tip of the atrocity iceberg. Anyone in my age group growing up in the 1950s and 1960s was systematically indoctrinated into the feel good self-righteous cultural bias, ethnocentrism and overt racism from the perspective of Christian white men. In the many Western movies and television shows I saw as a child, the pious Manifest Destiny was touted as honorable. Civilizing the “savages” and “heathen” by ramming Christian dogma down their throats and fuzzy self-righteous drivel were spoon fed in our history classes. It’s particularly disturbing the manner in which Native American Indians, their culture and religion, were depicted as something less than civilized, less rational and less than human. Indigenous peoples were considered mere vermin, inconvenient obstacles to be simply obliterated by the onslaught of greedy white land grabbing Christians in search of gold and other natural resources that were on land inhabited by these indigenous peoples for thousands of years. Anyone who still accepts the standard folklore of cultural and racial bias and bigotry should read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee as a starting point on the path toward enlightenment and the historical truth. Then move on to the books written more recently by David Stannard (American Holocaust) and Ward Churchill (A Little Matter of Genocide). Add to that Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen and A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn for a more comprehensive far-reaching treatment of the distortions, omissions and blatant lies promoted by popular American History textbooks, many of which are still currently being used in our schools to obfuscate and indoctrinate.
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