Bobby Jindal’s Voucher Schools: American Indians On the Trail of Tears Were Just Coming to Jesus

[kpete]

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s voucher program to privatize public education has come under fire recently for spending state tax dollars to teach Bible-based curriculum. An August 7 post on MotherJones.com, a news outlet covering the 2012 elections, took a look at the program and 14 “wacky facts” kids will learn under the state’s new program.

One of those “facts” is that “God used the Trail of Tears to bring many Indians to Christ.” The tidbit comes from a 1994 A Beka Book, which offers Christian education materials, titled America: Land I Love.

Another “fact” the schools will teach is that the Ku Klux Klan “in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross. Klan targets were bootleggers, wife-beaters, and immoral movies. In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians.” That information comes from United States History for Christian Schools (Bob Jones University Press, 2001).

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/08/17/bible-based-curriculum-says-the-trail-of-tears-was-a-path-to-christ-129744

[elleng]

1. And Palestinians left Palestine voluntarily.

[dembotoz]

2. wish this was in the onion and not real

[Major Nikon]

3. This type of racist shit has been around for at least 40 years

It's probably been around much longer than that, but that's just as far back as I can remember. I can remember being taught in school (public school mind you) that the KKK were just good ol' boys that were trying to keep people in line. So now the conservative agenda has come full circle and is using tax dollars once again to teach the most vile sort of racism is just really poorly understood. Going back before my time they used to teach that slavery was actually a very good thing because it brought Jesus to Africans. I suspect that will be next on their teaching agenda.

[Trajan]

4. I am in my mid 50's ... NEVER was I told the KKK were some kind of 'force for good'

Not sure where you grew up, but the KKK was not admired or praised ... EVER .....

[Major Nikon]

6. Rural west Texas

While I have no doubt that most places didn't teach this shit, I'm also quite sure that my experience wasn't just an aberration. It's going to happen anytime bullshit religious ideology trumps facts and reason just as it's still happening today on this subject and several others. And your assertion that the KKK was not ever admired or praised just doesn't line up with historical facts. The silent film Birth of a Nation, which heroically depicted the KKK is what gave rise to the strongest period of the organization.

[AverageJoe90]

8. Where did you grow up, though? nt

[ananda]

16. Agree.

I do not know of one good thing to say about the KKK.

I mean, if they were so good, why did they meet in secret
and wear hoods?

[Honeycombe8]

7. I'm from Louisiana. I'm in my 50's.

I went to public schools. I don't recall the KKK ever being officially discussed or even referenced in our history books.

BUT...I do recall one of my teachers talking about slavery. She said that slavery wasn't that bad. After all, it provided room and board, something that the slaves didn't have after they were freed. I'm sure she thought that blank look on my face meant she was imprinting her views on my brain. But what she was actually seeing was shock, 13 year old style.

Even then, as a kid, it was so obvious (to me, anyway) that what she said was stupid and racist and rationalizing. Because obviously SHE wouldn't have traded her freedom for room and board. Duh. Even a kid knows that.

I grew up in a racist era in a racist state, but I don't recall much overt racism. Everyone had sort of learned to get along. I don't recall whites hating blacks, and I was certainly privy to white conversations. Maybe because it wasn't a big city, and a lot of people knew each other. There was certainly a belief that blacks were second class citizens, not as smart. People who hated or were mean to other people, though, as I recall, were regarded as trash. I don't recall the KKK ever being discussed. I guess I learned about it on TV. It's also possible that some of the bad stuff was kept away from kids.

As a kid, I had definitely learned to have a certain fear of black people. But at the same time, I felt sorry for them. I was aware that things weren't right for them. (I was just a kid. My thinking wasn't very sophisticated. But then, I'm sure that most kids had never even given it a thought at all.)

[Major Nikon]

10. Racism is rarely overt

And arguably the worst sort of racism is that which is justified by religious bullshit or some other fucked up ideology because it leads people to believe that their racism is socially acceptable. These ideas don't just go away because the majority doesn't believe them anymore. In your great state of Louisiana, the rev Benjamin Palmer (still well revered in LA to this very day) taught that slavery did the black man a favor and he almost single handedly convinced your state to join the Confederacy. As you can see, the vestiges of his teachings were still around when you went to school.

"It's easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled"
-- Mark Twain

[Honeycombe8]

12. Well, I grew up in Louisiana. So I think I should know a thing or two about it.

Huey Long? Crooked, but revered. Palmer? Never heard of him. Never heard the name mentioned. Never heard a discussion about him, much less revering him.

Louisiana is a little different from Alabama and Mississippi. And La. is divided into sections. The N.O. section is decidedly different from the others. I'm from the cajun area (the southwest).

A number of blacks in La. did not come from Africa. They came from Haiti or Jamaica, and many were of mixed race. They cooked a version of the cajun food (creole food...different from cajun). Cajuns were very poor, sometimes living next door to blacks. Some intermarried (creoles).

Everything is not like you read about in a book. Louisiana's history is a little different from the other states, too. Owned and settled by the French and then the Spanish, it did not have the anglo background of other states. It has parishes, not counties. And French law, not anglo law.

As you pointed out, it did not (at least in its entirety) join the Civil War, many in the state siding with the Yanks. Lots of slaves, and lots of freed blacks.

So it's a mixture, really. Which was sort of my experience growing up there. Racist attitudes, blacks had separate entrances, segregation laws, etc. But not outright hatred (yes, it's overt, as I've seen here in Texas and not that long ago). And not violence (as has happened in recent years in SE Texas). There were no riots there. No protests against integration. As I said, people had learned to get along.

[Major Nikon]

13. You've never heard of Palmer Ave?

It runs north and south between St Charles and Claiborne. I'm sure many other things are named after him as well. I'm not saying you revere him, but his name is still very well respected in certain circles to this very day. This is not very different than lots of other streets, buildings, and what have you which are still named for prominent racists througout the South.

I wasn't being sarcastic when I called Lousinana a great state. I love Louisinana and travel there quite frequently, but it does have a history of racism which may or may not be the same as in other areas, but it's still there and as the OP verifies is still alive and well.

[Honeycombe8]

14. Nope. There is no St Charles or Claiborne where I'm from. I'm from the cajun area of La.

I guess you're talking of New Orleans, which is different from the rest of the state. Their accents are different, the population ethnicity is different.

Most of Louisiana is not New Orleans. That is just one city in the state. A famous city.

That's what I was trying to explain. There are different areas. I come from a decidedly cajun area. I am cajun. All except one of my ancestors is French. That is not the case in New Orleans. It was/is a port city...lots of people from other states and countries ended up living there. I imagine the slave trade was active there. In my area, the people have often been there for generations. My relatives settled there in the 1700s and stayed. I am the only one in my family to leave (which they find weird). Few people move into the area.

La. is has about 5 distinct regions. New Orleans area is one unto itself. I've been there a couple of times, but I basically remember the begniet place in the French Quarter and Canal St. That's about it.

Oh, La. is racist. I'm not saying it isn't. But it's not as bad as AL & MS, and there really were no riots there, no protests against integration, no beating up or killing of black people because of race (that I ever heard of). I DID hear of gay bashing nights that young white men would occasionally go on. I think it may come from the fact that in smaller cities and towns, where people know each other, that is less likely to go on. You can hate a generic black more easily than you can hate Walter, who has worked for your grandpa for 20 years.

[Major Nikon]

18. I know exactly what you're talking about

NO is my favorite destination, but I've traveled all over LA and spoke to different people with different backgrounds. The sense I got was the people outside of NO don't care much for those inside which isn't all that unique to LA.

[longship]

5. Curriculum from Bob Jones University,

that bastion of science edumacation.

The Loch Ness Monster is real, a real plesiosaur living today. How do we know? Because the Bible mentions leviathans. Plus, somebody carved phony human footprints in the Paluxy river bed alongside Dino prints.

Hey! I should know. I'm a scientician!

No sarcasm needed. That's is exactly what LA students will be taught.

[Tom Ripley]

9. What bullshit! Oklahoma certainly isn't heaven.

[Honeycombe8]

19. You'd have to pay me a LOT of money to move to OK. I've been there once.

It was very unattractive. I don't want to go back.

I've also met a few people from there. Very intolerant, hard-nosed people, lots of tea partiers in OK. But I live in TX, which isn't that very different, I guess.

[surrealAmerican]

11. "Bring to Christ"?

... so, is that a euphemism like "going to meet their maker", because that's the only way this even comes close to making sense?

... but how do they figure that the Trail of Tears perpetrated by a deity, and not actual people?


I wonder what the state constitution of Louisiana has to say about education.

[HiPointDem]

15. the fallout of education deform. what do people expect?

[Le Taz Hot]

17. Kind of a brutal way of comin' to Jaysus

since something like a quarter of the Cherokee population died during the trek -- on foot, little provisions and in the dead of winter. And that was AFTER a S.C. decision ruled they had the right to stay on their ancestral lands. Jackson moved 'em anyway.