Winston Smith's job was to rewrite the past.
Spanish, the language of the conquerors...
I am always amazed that any native americans would consider themselves "latino" which means they not only acknowledge their slave past, but embrace it.
My guess is there will be others ... shortly ... ones who blow things up.
I call BS. When I took American history, it seemed like at least the first month covered various European explorers coming to the new world and kicking the butts of whatever Indians happened to live there. Most of those early explorers and therefore the colonists which followed them were Spanish.
There's a good reason why the Spanish in Florida are not part of American history.
They were the ENEMY.
So what?
It's not a whole lot better with some white families--it can be hard to trace back beyond the ones listed as adults in 1850. Of course with whites you often can find marriage records and land records, whereas slaves' marriages were not legally recognized so were not recorded in the county courthouse, and slaves owned no land.
Florida's attorney general ended an investigation last week into a 1951 house bombing that killed two civil rights activists.
In Connecticut last month, archaeologists excavated the grave of an 18th century slave named Venture Smith
And today, in 2006, the race pushers dig up stories that are 50, 100, 150 years old and pick the scabs off to make them bleed afresh. Then ask, with mock puzzlement, why the race problem won't go away.
Actually, most people are ignorant enough about history that I'll bet if you asked them, they'd think the Pilgrims were the first English settlers in 1620. We Virginians beat 'em here by thirteen years, but I guess the Pilgrims had better PR agents. :)
}:-4
Facts that lend to advance the particular advocates agenda. Typical of the writing or rewriting of history to fit ones aims.
Slavery is an example, as taught in the American schools insinuates that the United States was responsible for all Slavery and omits many historical facts. Muslims to this day still practice Slavery. Muslims were the original slave traders, walking Africans East to the Muslim countries. The United States had little to do with transporting and selling slaves. 5% of all the slave eventually landed in what is now the United States (500,000). The balance 12,000,000 were sent to the Caribbean and the other Sugar producing regions. How is it possible for the American ancestors of Slaves to adopt Islam and adopt names such as El this and Al that?
"minorities who had faced blatant discrimination wanted to discard evidence of past horrors. "
This is true and was a good practice. Mucking around in past misdeeds gets you no where. My parents did it, and I'm glad they did.
"African American Experience Fund. "I tell my grandchildren 'Grandpa has earned that spot for you.'"
In the USA, you earn your own way. what grandpa does is irrelevant.
Congress once declared that the American Indians were 'aliens' of the U.S..
So, in the rewrite, are we finally going to tell the truth about Columbus - that he not only never set foot on North America (in 4 voyages) but had maps showing the position and existence of North and South America and that his goal was to sail UNDER North America between the two continents and thus find a new route to the back side of the Indies? (Which he thought he had, naming the inhabitants he found in what is now called The Indies, Indians>)
Are we finally going to acknowledge the many who sailed to - and settled in - the "new" lands hundreds of years before Columbus-come-lately? - The Vikings, for one, who settled in Greenland over a thousand years ago, had communities of up to 30,000, explored the eastern coast of N.Amer. - and lived in their towns for over 350 years (when the weather in this area was much warmer than it is now - must have been those darn Viking SUVs) until the approaching mini-ice age drove them out in about 350 A.D.?
Are we going to add the accounts of the voyage of Sir Henry Sinclair, Jarl (Earl) of the Orkneys in Northern Scotland, who island hopped to Nova Scotia in the late 1300's - with a considerable fleet and passengers that may have included many Knights Templar - about the foundation ruins found around Nova Scotia that date to that time and type of structures, their subsequent explorations down the New England coast = and the round stone tower in Rhode Island - that was there long before the Mayflower sailed - that is an almost exact copy of like structures built in Scotland in the same period?
Are we going to include, in the rewrites, the fact that the only reason the slave traders had blacks to buy and bring over was because the black tribes in the deep jungles of Africa brought them to the coast and sold them to the traders? ( Are we going to posture the question: "If the slave ancestors of some blacks in this country had NOT been brought here, what kind of life would the blacks here today have has they been born in the lands of their ancestry. Example: Alex Haley tracked down his ancestral cousins in Africa - the American multimillionaire's relatives in the old country were still living in the bush. This is not to say slavery wasn't a inhuman blight on civilization - for thousands of years in most civilizations - but I wonder how many slave descendants would gladly exchange their lives here for one in the old country?)
Are we going to include that the tens of thousands of free blacks who fought in the Civil War, fought for the Confederacy?
Are we ever going to write history through a prism of facts instead of personal/ethnic agendas? (Not in my lifetime...)
Other federal agencies are shifting their work to incorporate more minorities' stories. Six years ago, National Park Service historians met to reevaluate how park sites tell the story of the Civil War, said Donald W. Murphy, deputy director of the parks. Old battlefield exhibits mainly discussed who fought and how many died. Now they include personal diaries, including those kept by slaves. [Emphasis supplied.]
Note the date. This passage refers to the Clintonization of American Civil War history and does not convey the Clintons' determination to politicize it, spin it, and make it an icon of "identity politics".
The "historians" referred to in the article were led by Marxist "red-diaper" historians Eric Foner of Columbia University (a hotbed of Communists since the 1930's) and James McPherson, and their object in the rewriting of the National Park exhibits at e.g. Gettysburg was to spin them politically, inculpating the Confederate South morally in order to attack modern, conservative Southern Republicans and boosting the Clintonistas' self-identification with minoritarian aspirations and particularly with the black community.
2. Most of the Spaniards who settled in St. Augustine were from Menorca in the Balearics. They spoke Catalan, not Spanish, although their descendents speak exclusively English now (its been over 400 years!).
Both of those other groups have a unique place in American history, but Latinos are really no different than any other ethnic group that has immigrated in large numbers, such as Germans or Italians. Do these groups have museums on the Mall?
"US Out Of North America Now!" ping!
This is more about pride and power than about what's been taught in the schools. When groups get large enough, powerful enough, and organized enough, they start to flex their muscles and make demands. I doubt they really have that much to object to in current textbooks. It's the fanfares and banners that the activists want.
This is only true if there is a crappy history teacher. A good one will cover ALL of America's history, not just that written by WASPS.
Martians; had to have been Martians.