Texas mom calls out textbook publisher for interpreting slavery as immigration

[struggle4progress]

... Dean-Burren pointed viewers to a section called "Patterns of Immigration." Reading from the book, she notes the inclusion of slaves as immigrants.

"'Immigrants,' yeah, that word matters," Dean-Burren said, &quot Reading from the text) 'The Atlantic slave trade between the 1500s and the 1800s brought millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations. So (slavery) is now considered 'immigration'."

She adds, in an adjacent section on European immigrants, that many came as "indentured servants to work for little or no pay."

Dean-Burren continues, "So they say that about English and European people, but there is no mention of Africans working as slaves or being slaves. It just says we were workers" ...

http://abc13.com/education/mom-calls-out-textbook-publisher-for-interpreting-slavery-as-immigration/1014971/

[Recursion]

1. Were they not immigrants?

I'd take that framing as an interesting way to get people to rethink their image of "immigration".

Though maybe I'm reading it wrong: if they specifically called out European indentured servants as working for no pay and didn't mention that for slavery, that's not good. (Though it's kind of implied in the term "slavery", though actually it's not, since there were slaves who worked for money.)

[marym625]

4. Seriously?

That's like saying a woman who is raped, had sex.

Wow

[Recursion]

6. Well, since rape is nonconsensual sex

I'd say that was sex, otherwise it couldn't have been rape

[marym625]

9. are you being intentionally obtuse?

Or would you actually describe a woman who was raped as, "they had sex"?

I've been raped, more than once. I was also molested when I was a child. I didn't have sex. Different men forced themselves on me and violated me. Never in a million years, or in any bizarre fantasyland, would I say that I had sex with any of them.

[marym625]

12. sigh

That's how you would describe a rape, "she had sex."

There's a huge difference between being forced to do something and voluntarily doing something. To mislead by using "immigrants" for people taken by force, against their will, or to say a woman had sex when raped, is beyond despicable.

While rape is a "sexual act" that is not the full definition. A sexual act does not mean rape and you full well know that.

Yeah, we're done

[Recursion]

14. Yeah, I'm definitely done if you insist rape isn't sexual assault

But "just" non-sexual assault.

Welcome to the ignore list.

[merrily]

21. A rape victim had sex? Do yourself a favor: self delete.

Rape is a violence. A rape victim is a victim of violence. Whatever rape may be to the perp, no victim shows up at hospital saying, "I need help. I just had sex."

[Recursion]

28. No. As a survivor I'm sick of being gaslighted on this

I wasn't beaten: that's assault. I was forced to have unwanted sexual acts, which is why it was so much more traumatizing than non-sexual violence tends to be.

[marym625]

38. get a clue, please

You said, more than once, you would describe "rape" as "sex." The words are NOT interchangeable. To say a woman had sex when she was raped is wrong because it does not tell the truth.

As merrily stated, a woman doesn't go to the hospital or to the police and say, "I had sex."

I can't even believe this has to be explained. More so, I can't believe you are arguing they're the same damn thing.

[treestar]

40. I see the point he is making

the term "had sex" is getting different applications here.

It's a "sexual assault" because sexual organs were the subject of the assault. The penis went into the vagina and that is the same event, it's the interpretation of it that is different. Otherwise, you are doing the same thing you accuse him of doing merely by calling it a "sexual" assault.

[marym625]

46. no, sorry

As I have repeatedly, to explain rape as "sex" is a lie. The definition of rape, while it contains a "sexual act," is not JUST a sexual act. Saying, and just saying, that someone that was raped, had sex, diminishes what happened to that person.

Nowhere did Recursion state that s/he would add "rape" into the description. S/he stated more than once that "had sex" was an appropriate description of rape.

There is a reason for the word "rape." And it is not interchangeable with sex. As someone wrote to me, "did an infant who was raped, have 'sex?'" Would you actually describe that as sex? Take the baby to the hospital and say, "please help this infant who just had sex"?

[treestar]

52. Then how come it is OK to call it a "sexual" assault?

"had sex" means consensual to most people, so that's not the way to put it, yet at the same time there is reason to try to pussy foot around or not mention that sexual organs were involved? No, that's why we call it "sexual" assault.

[marym625]

56. please note your addition of "assault" to your definition.

[polly7]

47. He has no point.

His words minimize a horrific act of violence. Neither person was 'having sex'. One was suffering the physical brutality against her/his person by a horrific, ugly, demoralizing, often life-time devastating attack ........... the other was using 'body parts', hatred, the need to control, and the soul of a devil to do it. The rapist could 'have sex' with a blow-up doll - injuring physically and mentally another human being has nothing to do with getting laid.

[randome]

48. He minimizes his own experience? Pfah!

No one, not even another rape victim, has the right to tell someone else how to interpret his or her trauma.

At least that's how I see it.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Precision and concision. That's the game.[/center][/font][hr]

[polly7]

49. He sure as fuck minimizes it for everyone else reading it!

Pfah!!

[boston bean]

54. +1000

[marym625]

51. Thank you

You said that much better than I have been trying to say.

I can't believe this is even being discussed like this.

I have to leave. Couldn't be happier I can't look at this any longer. Because I just can't look at this any longer

[polly7]

53. You know, reading garbage like this gets me so angry and anxious that sometimes I

just shake, and I'll probably feel the same way until the day I die.

I'm sorry, marym625.

[marym625]

57. I'm sorry

I'm fine. In disbelief. Disgusted. But I'm fine.



Power to women!

[Comrade Grumpy]

78. Sorry, you are guilty of semantic crime. You said the wrong words.

[marym625]

81. Yes, a wrong word.

"Rape" is not "sex." Try as you might, they are not synonyms of each other. They do not have the same meaning. It has nothing to do with emotion. It has nothing to do with anything but using the wrong word to describe something.

[merrily]

87. No one said anything about being beaten. Rape is a unique kind of violence.

[sudenlyseymour]

15. Wow, how totally un-feeling.

From reading your posts on this thread I must conclude that either you are being sarcasitic or are not a very nice person.

[polly7]

44. I'm so glad you had a post hidden.

I know a response from you would make me even angrier, so that worked out well. I'm also a survivor of multiple incidents, would you say the broken bones, ptsd and all of its ugly partners - recurring nightmares, depression, etc. is the result of having 'unwanted sex'? That's so hideous my stomach churned, reading down through the thread I could feel my anxiety rise. Because .... those are almost the 'exact words' I was told in his defense, (by him) if I'd just co-operated and hadn't been such a * about it and not fought it, I'd have been fine. 'Nobody gets hurt having sex'. I would delete your posts if I were you. If you are a survivor yourself, you need to think a hell of a lot more highly of yourself and not substitute rapists' words for what is a horrible act of violence, physical injury or no injury, because the mental and emotional results will always remain.

[Tanuki]

5. No, they were not immigrants. Let me help you

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/slave
: someone who is legally owned by another person and is forced to work for that person without pay
: a person held in servitude as the chattel of another

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/immigrant
: a person who comes to a country to live there
: a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence

[Recursion]

7. And slaves came to the US and lived here

Immigration is entering a country. Trafficked slaves did that, yeah?

[Tanuki]

8. Using the term "immigrant" implies voluntary entrance.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/15/us/immigrant-refugee-definition/index.html

[Recursion]

10. Certainly not to me (nt)

[sudenlyseymour]

16. Are you being solicitus or do you believe what you are posting?

As a new person on this site I have great difficulty understand wheter a person who posts is being serious or is being satirical.

[Recursion]

17. I think an immigrant is someone who enters a country

I'd call a trafficked person today an immigrant.

[Downwinder]

19. Guess the prisoners at Gitmo are immigrants.

Last edited Sun Oct 4, 2015, 06:21 AM - Edit history (1)

Are they legal or illegal?

[Recursion]

27. They're not in the US

They're arguably immigrants to Cuba, though I'm not sure what the status of Gitmo actually is.

[Downwinder]

50. If Coco Solo Naval Air Station was US territory,

so is Gitmo.

[sudenlyseymour]

20. So all of our European ancestors were immigrants?

I'm just asking about your definition again.

By your post and definition to which I'm responding every european person on the North American, Central American, South American and islands that are adjunct to the contient are all immigrants.

Yes or No?

Don't fill your answer with many words.

Either the Europeans who did not exist in North America, Cental America, Laiin America, South America, and wished to colonize were immigrants or not.

So as ancestors of immigrants we should be open to other immigrants. Right? Otherwise we'd be total assholes to our ancestry.

[Recursion]

25. Yes, we say that all the time

Every European who came to America was an immigrant. At least that's how I've always used the term.

[trumad]

22. You really need to get some sleep.

[awoke_in_2003]

85. If one thinks slaves are immigrants

and rape victims had sex, I'm not sure sleep will fix that level of obtuseness

[Igel]

71. Look. They can't get past connotations.

The entire "denotation" versus "connotation" distinction is meaningless for them. Words only have the meanings and emotional content they believe them to have, they're utterly devoted to their words having only those meanings (which change as necessary--people are fickle). The words' meanings are utterly and absolutely inherent with precisely that content. Classic essentialists when it suits them because it gives them power to control and both censor and censure that they feel is intrinsically theirs over those they consider inferior by virtue of something or other. It's not just this thread. It's a commonplace, an evergreen.

Since many probably also are Whorfians, for those, at least, it's fairly viewed as an Orwellian attempt to control thinking and rule out thoughts too harmful to be allowed to exist in a "truly" free, diverse society, or at least those thoughts they find offensive and have a human right never to know exist.


For me, I find that most people when citing works that offended and outraged them cite precisely what's necessary to justify their hypothesis and make them feel good about their outrage, and often play fast and loose with ellipses or find no problem with quoting something out of context to mean other than what it meant in context. What else may be said, what they overlook in their constrained and blindered view, just gets deleted by an all-encompassing confirmation bias. The entire idea implicit in science that hypotheses are to be falsifiable and the goal is to disconfirm your hypothesis is alien to much of modern thought. The idea that you have to deal honestly with others' arguments is also reprehensible. It's common in humanities and social sciences, of course, a standard way of arguing in many subdisciplines. And in politics it's a mainstay--if one had to cite one's opponents honestly, we'd have to disqualify even those running for dog catcher on grounds of moral turpitude and intellectual torpor.

Note, for example, that the Africans brought over were not called "slaves" in that passage; one has to wonder what to make of the "Atlantic slave trade" and what those so traded would be called. One also has to wonder why, exactly, there were quotes around "immigrant."

[marym625]

13. obviously,

This person just doesn't care about truth.

[boston bean]

24. This sub thread made me barf.

Sorry, someone who has been here for quite sometime, basically re-victimized you.

You just had sex with the men who raped you?? WTF. I'm thoroughly disgusted.

And slaves were just immigrants in his mind.. WTH???

[Recursion]

26. As a survivor I absolutely will not let you gaslight me on this.

I was a victim of sexual assault, meaning an act of sex was forced on me. I'm so @(*#ing sick of people trying to tell me that what I know happened didn't happen. I had forced unwanted sex and I feel nauseated every time somebody tells me that that didn't happen. It was not "just power": beating is about power but is not sexual.

[marym625]

32. yeah. pretty despicable

As well as telling. No wonder so many young men don't understand that rape is not sex. That the words are not interchangeable.

Thank you. I'm fine. He can't make me a victim. But I truly appreciate your kind words

[boston bean]

33. I know he can't, just was disgusted by his responses to you.

They were grotesque.

Take care!

[marym625]

34. Thank you again.

Great word for it, grotesque. Perfect

You too, BB

[randome]

39. Not a single one of you addressed the fact that he was raped himself.

Clearly he doesn't deserve to see things in an unapproved way.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Precision and concision. That's the game.[/center][/font][hr]

[boston bean]

43. I'm sorry, but he was schooling a rape victim himself

by equating being raped to "having (had) sex".

He doesn't get to change the definitions of rape and call it "having sex", no matter what.

It was extremely and highly offensive. I'm sorry, but it was.

[Thor_MN]

41. Where is the word "voluntary" in the definitions you provided above?

You sought to define the terms, looked them up, copied and pasted, but now want to add your own, additional flair.

People are getting way too hung up on general vs. descriptive terms.

It's like you are arguing for and against "All thumbs are fingers, but not all fingers are thumbs."

Those arguing against appear to feel that using the general term so is offensive that they want the general term to not apply to the descriptive term. As if calling a thumb a finger is incorrect. It certainly is an inadequate description, but it is not factually incorrect.

If using the general term is with the intent to conceal the nature of the descriptive term, it is clearly dishonest. But denying that the descriptive term is not also the general term (when all parties understand the terms) is just ridiculous.

[marym625]

62. no, this is like calling the middle finger a thumb.

[Thor_MN]

66. Total fail.

Thumb and middle finger are descriptive terms. Finger is a general term. if you can't see that both middle fingers and thumbs are fingers, but not all fingers are middle fingers (or thumbs), apparently facts don't matter to you.

Like I said, if a general term is used for a descriptive term to deceive the nature of the descriptive term, that is dishonest. But it is in no manner incorrect. If I simply tell you that a car was destroyed at the event I went to last night and left, that would be a fact. But if the car was your metallic green, 1977 AMC Pacer that I borrowed, I would be being dishonest. It in no way, changes the fact that a car was destroyed.

Your analogy would be like saying that a 2015 Ionic Silver Metallic BMW i8 was your metallic green, 1977 AMC Pacer. It makes no sense at all.
.

[marym625]

70. no. sorry

I understand your analogy. However, it's not correct. The act of rape cannot be described without including force. Without that, it is not rape. So using fingers and thumb doesn't work. Rape is not sex. Rape is an act of violence which includes a sexual act. To go with your example, you would have to say that "thumb" describes every finger.

You can have fingers without having a thumb, but you cannot have a thumb without having fingers. To say that someone that has only a thumb, has no fingers is wrong. It would be a lie. Just like saying just, and only just, "she had sex" to describe that a woman was raped is a lie. It denies the act of violence that happened to her. Just like saying "the infant had sex" when the infant was raped, is a lie. Both would statements say that the woman and baby sought out sex and accomplished that goal. While the truth is the woman and baby were attacked and part of that attack included sexual organs.

There is a very good reason that feminists fought hard to change the definition of rape. The movement that pushed the truth about rape, "rape is not about sex. Rape is about power and control." This was done to try and end the ridiculous notion that a woman enjoys rape. That a man,is excused because men need sex.

It's dangerous to even go there, never mind to excuse, using the word "sex" as if it is interchangeable with "rape." They are not interchangeable. You cannot use "sex" and only "sex" to describe rape. I don't care what you use as an example.

[Thor_MN]

82. Violence is a general term. Like Sex is a general term.

There are many types of violence and many types of sex. Rape is a more descriptive term and must involve both general terms. If you are familiar with Venn diagrams, Rape is the intersection of Sex and Violence. It can not exist without both. You even agree with that: "Rape is an act of violence which includes a sexual act (i.e. an act of sex)".

But then you are trying to claim that the descriptive term is not included in the general term, in conflict with what you also said:

"To say that someone that has only a thumb, has no fingers is wrong. It would be a lie."

Take your own use of analogy across to rape:

To say that someone was raped, and there was no violence is wrong. It would be a lie.
To say that someone was raped, and there was no sex is wrong. It would be a lie.

I already explained (twice) that using a general term to deceive about a descriptive term is dishonest. You are apparently not reading what I have written.

I never implied that a general term is interchangeable with a descriptive term. The general term is usually not interchangeable with the descriptive term, especially when one is trying to understand the implications of the specific term.

[marym625]

84. This entire discussion is about using the word "sex" and ONLY the word "sex" to describe rape.

I'm not contradicting myself. I asked outright if s/he would you say a woman "had sex" to describe someone that was raped. The answer was yes.

As I have repeatedly stated, to say "sex" and just "sex" to describe rape, is wrong. It is wrong. Even by your own reply.

I'm now late for an appointment and I'm done with this post. The fact anyone is defending the use of the word "sex" to describe a rape, disgusts me. Not just because of the danger and whitewashing it does to a violent act, also because, it is incorrect grammatically.

[polly7]

45. Wow. nt.

[KeepItReal]

60. My forefathers did not "come to the US". They were captured or kidnapped and sold into slavery.

Literally stolen from Africa, packed like sardines aboard slave ships, sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, sold at a slave market somewhere, and forced to work on plantations in Louisiana (in my case) under penalty of death, dismemberment, and/or physical abuse.

[malaise]

23. No

and it is fucking offensive

[randome]

35. I get his point, though. It's a fine point but as a victim of rape, he has the right to make it.

Not agreeing with it is your right, of course. It could easily be postulated that Recursion felt the need to vent about his experience but others are too busy castigating him and not reading the entire sub-thread.

It's funny how we are often eager to tell rape victims what they must feel after the trauma.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Precision and concision. That's the game.[/center][/font][hr]

[marym625]

65. S/He can feel anything they want

I'm sorry Recursion suffered an attack. But this is about semantics.

The word "sex" does not describe rape. Period. You, he, nor anyone else, with the exception of Webster, can change either definition.

Recursion did not acknowledge my experience either and did not state their experience until three or four replies into the conversation. Nice how you deny my and others experience while justifying the use of an incorrect, and dangerous, definition of rape.

If recursion doesn't want to describe his or her personal experience as rape, that's Recursion's decision and right. It is not, however, their right to change the definition of rape, to decide how others are allowed to describe their experience, or to minimize what that horrific act is.

We're discussing how a text book described slavery. While, obviously, the people put into a ship after being captured, beaten, dehumanized, etc, ended up in a different country, to call them "immigrants" is more than dishonest. It minimizes the acts of violence, the forceable move, the reason they are here and no much more. And it obviously was done to rewrite history, just like the scrubbing of the Mỹ Lai Massacre has been from so many text books.

The African people were not immigrants. They didn't immigrate to the U.S. and other countries when they were captured and forceable moved. They were immigrated.

I did not have sex with the men that abused me. I was raped. I didn't "have" anything but a horrific act forced upon me. When I was 5 years old and the 12 year old across the street molested me, I wasn't having sex. I was molested. And no matter how anyone wants to describe those acts, to just and only use the word "sex" is wrong, a lie, harmful, dangerous and despicable

[polly7]

69. ..........

And very well said.

[polly7]

64. Isn't slavery the whole cause of racism from then until now?

The powerful at the time, (and many of their descendants or sympathizers who still believe they are), used what they considered the 'weakness' and all of the horrible traits they attributed to those who were stolen, chained, beaten, murdered - with no possibility to change anything ... to defend their complete right to own and brutalize. Because they could - they had the ability, the weapons and the support. Only by truly de-humanizing people in all ways could they be guaranteed of support. And they still try their hardest to attribute some of those false 'attributes' to people they want to be seen as 'lesser than' in order to justify the mass incarceration, the police brutality and racial profiling, employment discrimination, and on and on.

Imo, racism is a direct result of slavery. Just as is the mentality of certain men (and women)now, that because they are still more physically powerful and that because crimes against women, other men and children were allowed in the past - it's still no big deal.

Erasing the history with flowery words does nothing to help either. It makes it worse, as the injustices and horror are scrubbed away and people reading and learning are never forced to examine themselves, and how they feel about it personally. Empathy, compassion, rage - all those things that enable change, are intentionally eliminated from education, more and more. As is completely ignoring the horrors of the 'wars' in the ME and NA and not showing the human toll. So ...... it will continue. It's terrible, imo.

[Igel]

74. Certainly to a large extent.

But slavery existed without the same kind of -ism for millennia.

It wasn't until we had the idea that all men were created equal and then had to find a reason to justify making a whole class of men inherently unequal that we needed racism.

Considering another group cursed or uncivilized and therefore lesser was fine--it gave a reason even among those holding a nascent "all men are brothers" ideal for differential treatment. But once you have that all men are born with certain rights that cannot be taken away, problems start coming up. Darwin through his interpreter Galton provided the way to make that reason all "scientific" and dispose of the "mark of Cain" and "curse of Ham" rhetoric. (At least the "mark" and "curse" rhetoric is consonant with much of the rest of the old-fashioned world. The eugenics-based rhetoric was more Greek and Chinese, rooted in civilizational concerns.)

Same in traditional Islam: It's not by accident that the offspring of former black slaves throughout the ME are typically considered inferior. Otherwise in Islam all are equal--but there are classes of inferiors, Xians near the top of list of inferiors, Jews just below them, and those without a valid revelation (even if warped and inferior) forming a separate heap. It justified conquest and enslavement, mass castration of African slaves, horrible treatment in the Balkans and ME, in India and N. Africa. It was their version of the "mark" and "curse" rhetoric that flourished much later in the European civilization that learned so much about enslaving Africans from the Muslims. At least the Europeans didn't castrate their male slaves as a matter of course.

[polly7]

83. I'm referring to racism in NA.

Against indigenous people slaughtered and imprisoned on reservations, people of colour stolen and brutalized as slaves. Others who were brought here for indentured servitude and discriminated against, but many, white - were able to eventually for the most part escape it.

The hatred, demoralization and de-humanization needed for the indigenous and slaves of colour back then still ensues to this day by those who require it to continue the injustices. imho.

[Heidi]

2. Kick, kick, kick!

[marym625]

3. K&R!

Wow!

[davidpdx]

18. That's a tough one

On the one hand, I don't think you can't call indentured servants immigrants either as they are also slaves. However indentured servants (if they were paying for their trip) had a choice, where people from Africa did not. It would make sense to use the same term for both except their is a difference.

I do agree that calling slaves immigrants is quite ridiculous.

[Bad Thoughts]

29. FORCED Immigration is a recurring theme in scholarship

The problem I see with the textbook is that it attempts to create equivalency on the basis of groups of people who are immigrants in order to obscure the compulsory nature of forced immigration and the labor conditions that would be imposed upon them.

[treestar]

42. True, it is still immigration, but forced immigration

a bad thing, whereas voluntary immigration is another thing.

The desire to be outraged and superior over this is stunning - people love to find a chance to jump on other people as Horribly Wrong.

In some sense insisting that the AA people here don't count as immigrants makes it somehow like they have less right to be considered an American. The desire to be superior to others and the desire to be outraged trumps realizing that they are doing that.

[csziggy]

67. Convicts were involuntary immigrants just as slaves were

And social, religious and political pressures affected many who became immigrants to the US, Australia, and other colonies across the world.

England shipped people convicted of crimes to certain colonies, notably Australia and Georgia in America. While I have not studied those colonies my impression is that once their terms were served they became free people who could keep their own earnings and claim land.

Religious groups such as the French Huguenots and the German Palatines were forced out of their traditional lands because of their religious beliefs. They came to the US for the promise of the possibility of being able to own land and follow their religious beliefs - and many earned their way over by agreeing to be indentured servants for specific lengths of time

Whether involuntary or voluntary the major difference is how they were treated once they arrived at their destinations. Convicts and indentured servants had a defined period of servitude and could become free after that period. Africans who had been kidnapped and sent to the New World under appalling conditions almost never had the chance to become free people even after the US became an independent country that claimed to espouse freedom.

Maybe we need a new word for involuntary immigration - or one for the horrific human trafficking that took place over centuries? The Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_migration) uses "deracination — originally a French word meaning uprooting" - and it seems appropriate.

[Bad Thoughts]

76. The vulnerability that newcomers face is pivotal

Africans imported to the Americans faced unique hardships compared to others. They faced a regime of slavery that has few parallels in human history, backed by instruments of death and a racialized legal regime. I would not minimized what they faced. However, that does not mean that comparisons between different immigrant experiences are invalid. People from Central America--perhaps trying to escape economic scarcity, drug wars,or civil war--have found themselves in the US in situations where they are effectively slaves. While the level of slavery they experience may be different from what Africans and their descendants experiences, it nonetheless rates easily within the spectrum of historical, global slavery.

This is why I feel it is necessary to categorize immigration rather than compartmentalize it from slavery: the newcomer, whether they came voluntarily, was forced to come here, or forced from their home with nowhere else to go, is vulnerable. Many Americans have used the legal, economic, and cultural institutions of this country to exploit their vulnerability. Déracinement explains the mechanism of exploitation that occurs, but that is still only part of the phenomena. I would also note that French scholars use déracinement in conjunction with immigration, not to the exclusion of immigration.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

30. "enhanced immigration". nt

[Octafish]

31. Go Texas Mom!

Slavery is slavery, no matter the spin or choice of euphemism.

Texas book publishers know it, but inconvenient truth they don't want future generations to know.

[etherealtruth]

36. I sat back wondering if this was stupidity or hate ....

Then I realized they often go hand in hand

[KeepItReal]

61. It's called whitewashing history to please Conservatives

Remember Texas is the place that started the whole idea of downplaying atrocities in history textbooks.

[etherealtruth]

68. Of course it is, motivated by hate and stupidity

It is absolutely sickening

[treestar]

72. it might go with the one where

they argue that the slaves preferred being slaves and were better off that way. So they came here to be happy slaves. Really, I've heard that one from some neo-confederates. Or they hint at it without actually saying it. The same people will say segregation was better for black students, and they did better in school. Not that they can back it up with statistics from anywhere.

[ananda]

37. The language we use can make us complicit enablers ...

... of slavery, rape, and violence.

Rightwing paternalists and fascist control freaks wish to
manipulate language on the side of perpetrators. This
is also a function of magical thinking and it can be very
crazymaking for survivors.

The harsh unvarnished truth is always best, no matter
how disturbing it is or how uncomfortable it makes us
feel.

[Hortensis]

55. When words lose their meaning, peoples lose their liberty.—Confucius

[polly7]

59. Very well said, ananda.

If I were a descendant of those who had had lives of horrible, unspeakable suffering and heart-break as slaves - the racism against all those later generations, this type of minimizing and as a result, changing the whole history of it for future generations to read of and learn falsely of would be nauseating and infuriating. Especially as the bigotry associated with it still goes on to this day. I just don't understand how anyone gets away with it.

[treestar]

73. they are trying to vary the meaning or

take advantage of the meaning as they know "immigration" has a generally positive vibe, at least from the immigrants' side.

im·mi·grate
ˈiməˌɡrāt/
verbNORTH AMERICAN
come to live permanently in a foreign country.
"the Mennonites immigrated to western Canada in the 1870s"
synonyms: migrate, move overseas, move abroad; More

The slaves were forcibly relocated - they did not "come to live permanently" as something they desired to do.

[ananda]

86. Exactly.

The way cruel, forced labor is euphemized as immigration
just breaks my heart.

[deathrind]

58. Well this thread got

Completely hijacked by emotion and a lack of understanding word definitions...

[muriel_volestrangler]

63. Well, it did call it the 'slave trade' in the same sentence

so it wasn't a complete attempt to paint it as something other than slavery. If 'patterns of immigration' is talking about how ethnic groups ended up in the USA, then you do need to put the numbers of imported slaves in there too; a different way of phrasing their experience after that as just 'work' would be better.

[treestar]

75. the sentence is kind of literally true, but

emotionally it seems to rub us the wrong way. We think of immigrants as people who wanted to come, not just people who came (by force). The writer may have been taking advantage of that to minimize slavery, or just be one of those people so literal that they figured it was technically correct the slaves were "immigrants" and did not get that people would object to that.

[muriel_volestrangler]

77. I'd like to know more of the context

As I said, if you're writing about how various groups came to the USA, you need to say that there was a group who were brought in as slaves.

[PatrickforO]

79. We have some arguments going on in the thread above that take away

from the true horror of this 'revision' of history for our children and grandchildren. We might say that the TP fucks who are forcing this are just ignorant bible thumpers, but I say they are worse. A certain man known for the 'big lie' quote poisoned an entire generation of children before the mid twentieth century and it cost the world maybe 60 million lives to get rid of that poison.

Of course, what am I doing bitching. This is the same kind of shit they watered our texts down with clear back in the 1970s. Nothing all that different. I learned the truth later when I read more widely.

[polly7]

80. +1,000,000. nt.