History Isn't Just One Way!
As defined by Webster's New American Dictionary, history is "A chronological record of significant events often with an explanation of their causes."
That sounds pretty straight and to the point, right? Just make a record of things and events that happened when they happened, and list the person or persons, that caused the things or events to happen.
Simple! Or is it?
There's a funny thing about history. It almost ALWAYS is written by the conquerer or the dominant segment of a society.
The purpose being, to put the conquerer or the dominant segment, in a positive light and all others in a negative one.
Case in point — who wrote the history in this country?
White people did. They stole Native American lands, raped and murdered them; but history refers to THEM as "savages".
That's how white people have written history concerning native people.
For the issue of slavery in America, white people wrote the history regarding the justification of enslaving the African by saying the African was not human; therefore, nothing more than property.
In both cases, white people got to tell the story the way they wanted because THEY were in power, so it becomes history and literally, HIS-TORY! (The white man's).
A few years ago, in Texas, there was a movement by conservative Republicans to re - write that state's school history books. They wanted to change all references to anything that made white people look bad.
For example, instead of calling enslaved Africans slaves, they would be called "workers". The term "workers" implies one is getting paid; slaves received no pay!
What was the middle - passage, a Carnival cruise? The scary thing about this aside from the obvious, is that most of the country gets its text books from Texas so this non - sense of lies could be sent throughout the country, further mis - educating our young people.
Unfortunately, right here in our State of Michigan, a movement similar to that in Texas, is trying to take hold. On June 12, 2018, Bridge Magazine reported the following proposed changes to Michigan School History Books by state Republicans.
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