# All Americans need education in Black studies **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 27, 2023, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-americans-need-education-in-black-studies/978888 "2023-01-27T13:53:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2023, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-americans-need-education-in-black-studies/978888/221 "2023-02-03T18:05:57Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > I wonder if Ted Cruz would have ever gotten to Princeton if his teachers had adopted the suggested grading rubric. You say that as if it would be a bad thing? > [@PhillyGuy](#): > > I have no idea how this would sound to you, but to me it would, if it became common, amount to living under tyranny. You think teaching children historical facts supported by the overwhelming evidence is living under tyranny? Again, we don’t teach Intelligent Design as an alternative to evolution in school. We shouldn’t be teaching the Lost Cause as an alternative to historical reality either. I believe, however, that the pervasiveness of the Lost Cause narrative in the US education system can go a long way to explaining the far right’s push to ban the teaching of actual history in school today, under the guise of calling it “CRT” (as if CRT is such a bad thing itself). ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2023, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-americans-need-education-in-black-studies/978888/222 "2023-02-03T18:14:52Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > At one time, the idea that the Civil War was about > states/regional rights tended to track with liberalism, and conservatives were more likely the ones who thought Northern whites non-racist enough to actually care about the welfare of enslaved people. Niether of those are the case. The south’s reason was to maintain slavery, and the north’s reason was to maintain the union. If anyone believe what you claim they believed, they were wrong. > [@PhillyGuy](#): > > But the political views of who gets an F due to turning in an essay, arguing that the Civil War was about states rights, is irrelevant to me. It’s not a matter of political views, it’s a matter of objective fact. You can read for yourself the reasons that _they_ gave for seceding from the Union. To say it wasn’t about preserving slavery is simply wrong, end of story. > [@PhillyGuy](#): > > What’s relevant is the idea that those who disagree, on an old historical chestnut, must be reeducated. You consider someone who fails a class and has to repeat it to be getting “re-educated”? I mean, technically that’s the case, but if that’s how you are using it, I certainly hope that you wouldn’t do something so ridiculous as to then claim that it’s the same as re-education in the tyrannical sense. That would just be an abuse of how language works. > [@PhillyGuy](#): > > I wonder if Ted Cruz would have ever gotten to Princeton if his teachers had adopted the suggested grading rubric. And I suppose he would have had no hope of graduating with high honors in poly sci, as he did. I wonder if a medical doctor would have graduated if they believed in bloodletting and the miasma theory of disease transmission. > [@PhillyGuy](#): > > I have no idea how this would sound to you, but to me it would, if it became common, amount to living under tyranny. Ah, you _did_ link the idea of expecting people to know actual course material to pass a class to tyranny. I take it you see absolutly no difference between being required to retake a college class in order to get credit and something like [Xinjiang internment camps - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_internment_camps). I assume that you would be happy to go to a doctor who doesn’t believe in washing their hands before surgery due to their political beliefs? ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2023, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-americans-need-education-in-black-studies/978888/223 "2023-02-04T12:22:35Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > I wonder if Ted Cruz would have ever gotten to Princeton if his teachers had adopted the suggested grading rubric. > > > [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > > > You say that as if it would be a bad thing? If we flunk students for writing essays on war causation that meet traditional criteria for good writing, and that are consistent with the views of a large portion of our literate population, yes, if government schools do it, that’s illiberal AKA bad thing. Of course, it’s not totalitarianism, since the student, with the officially wrong ideas, gets to go home to their family every night. It’s rather more like what happens in a garden variety unfree society. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > I assume that you would be happy to go to a doctor who doesn’t believe in washing their hands before surgery due to their political beliefs? One can reach scientific levels of certainty concerning some historical questions. Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. Put it on a true-false exam, if you wish. Where we apparently disagree is on the causes of wars (or at least one war) being knowable the way the germ theory is known. War causation is too complicated for that. One can potentially do statistical content analysis to show that every white Southern state legislature member was writing or saying the same thing in 1861, But that analysis is just one fact among many supporting a war causation theory (assuming everyone was writing the same thing, which would be rare in modern history). I wonder if progressive views on war causation might be no more popular than Ted Cruz’s. If the next Ted Cruz is flunked because of views held by, oh, maybe, a third of the nation, which third is next in line for suppression? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2023, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-americans-need-education-in-black-studies/978888/224 "2023-02-04T12:46:09Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > I wonder if progressive views on war causation might be no more popular than Ted Cruz’s. If the next Ted Cruz is flunked because of views held by, oh, maybe, a third of the nation, which third is next in line for suppression? All apologies if I’m missing something, but since you’ve said this a couple of times: couldn’t the next Ted Cruz avoid flunking by just telling people what they want to hear, chuckling to himself right as he — as you say — graduates with high honors from an Ivy League school? That it doesn’t need to be a matter of him _flunking,_ so much as it can be one of him _going through the motions, as if taking this seriously?_ ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2023, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-americans-need-education-in-black-studies/978888/225 "2023-02-04T13:23:52Z")
So, again, I feel the intelligent design analogy continues to be apt. Well over a third of Americans, apparently, believe not simply in ID, but straight up creationism: > **[Evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design](https://news.gallup.com/poll/21814/evolution-creationism-intelligent-design.aspx)** > > Which of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin and development of human beings – \[ROTATED: human beings have evolved over millions of years from other forms of life and God guided this process, human beings have evolved... And yet (legally, at least) public schools cannot teach even God-guided evolution, let alone creationism. The idea that the popularity of a belief makes it suitable for teaching in school is at best only one step removed from a fallacious appeal to popularity. The missing step, which is easily inferred, is that something widely believed to be true is true, or at least as likely to be true as what is supported by actual evidence. But that is not how science works, it’s not how history works, and it’s not how schools should work. The evidence that the Civil War was caused by southern states seceding for the preservation and expansion of slavery is supported by the overwhelming historical evidence. The alternative view, “states rights,” is white supremacist propaganda on par with the notion that ancient aliens built the pyramids. Whatever an individual might _believe_ (they can believe whatever they want, but they need to at least be made to recognize the overwhelming evidence against the states rights proposition, and be required to commit to it on graded exams just as a creationist might be expected to recite the evidence for evolution, even if only on a biology exam without having to actually believe it) no one should be allowed to graduate high school in the US by advancing such a view. **To the extent a course in black studies would help us get there, to a broadly accepted narrative of the Civil War not built on the Lost Cause fantasy of states rights, that is but one of the reasons I am in favor of incorporating black studies into the standard curriculum.** As for Ivy League schools continuing to allow individuals spewing white supremacist propaganda to graduate while doing so… I guess we can’t stop them. They are private institutions. But the likes of Cruz, DeSantis, and Hawley have eroded what little respect I had left for those institutions anyway. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2023, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-americans-need-education-in-black-studies/978888/226 "2023-02-04T13:49:43Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > As for Ivy League schools continuing to allow individuals spewing white supremacist propaganda to graduate while doing so… I guess we can’t stop them. Cruz couldn’t have gotten consistent A’s for what I would consider propaganda. This is [long-winded but gives an idea](https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/centers/writing/writing-resources/writing-a-good-history-paper) of what we needed to do to get A’s when I went to school; and is part of how propaganda is avoided: > [@](#): > > Many of the people and institutions of the past appear unenlightened, ignorant, misguided, or bigoted by today’s values. Resist the temptation to condemn or to get self-righteous. (“Martin Luther was blind to the sexism and class prejudice of sixteenth-century German society.”) Like you, people in the past were creatures of their time; like you, they deserve to be judged by the standards of their time. Just like your theory of what caused the Civil War isn’t a scientific fact, neither is the last paragraph. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2023, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-americans-need-education-in-black-studies/978888/227 "2023-02-04T13:53:05Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > . . . couldn’t the next Ted Cruz avoid flunking by just telling people what they want to hear, chuckling to himself right as he — as you say — graduates with high honors from an Ivy League school? This would work in high school. At Princeton, it might be a little tricky during class discussion, since he needed to network with other conservatives to further his political dreams. If you are suggesting that flunking students, for writing an essay departing from the official viewpoint, would teach them to lie, absolutely. The ruling class will notice the lying, and then has a decision to make. I hope they go for liberalization. But that risks losing much of what they have worked for. So the previously unthinkable – say, sending the Uyghurs out for re-education – becomes tempting. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2023, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-americans-need-education-in-black-studies/978888/228 "2023-02-04T13:59:49Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > This would work in high school. At Princeton, it might be a little tricky during class discussion, since he needed to network with other conservatives to further his political dreams. Well, a _little_ tricky to get a diploma, sure; but I’ve already been thinking about a _lot_ tricky, to get more. I’m thinking about what, say, Ivy League grads said about Roe on their way to the Supreme Court: like I said, they went through the motions, saying whatever they figured should be said about whether it’s a precedent and even an important precedent and thus and such, and then, y’know, did as they saw fit. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2023, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-americans-need-education-in-black-studies/978888/229 "2023-02-04T14:07:37Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > Where we apparently disagree is on the causes of wars (or at least one war) being knowable the way the germ theory is known. War causation is too complicated for that. One can potentially do statistical content analysis to show that every white Southern state legislature member was writing or saying the same thing in 1861, But that analysis is just one fact among many supporting a war causation theory We don’t need statistical analysis. We have the words they used when they said exactly why they were seceding. Here, you may find this educational, as you don’t seem to be aware of the reasons stated by the leaders of the states that left the union. > **[The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States](https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states)** > > The Declaration of Causes made by Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas. The lost cause ideas that you are saying should be accepted as an _opinion_ are objectively false. They are contradicted by the very people who chose to divide our nation. They are a fiction, with no more objective support than creationism. Asimov was very right when he said, “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been . The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” > [@PhillyGuy](#): > > I wonder if progressive views on war causation might be no more popular than Ted Cruz’s. If the next Ted Cruz is flunked because of views held by, oh, maybe, a third of the nation, which third is next in line for suppression? It takes quite the martyrdom complex to associate failing a class for refusing to accept the material in the class as “suppression”. If it is my _opinion_ that 1+1=3, am I being hoisted on a cross when I fail my math class? > [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > All apologies if I’m missing something, but since you’ve said this a couple of times: couldn’t the next Ted Cruz avoid flunking by just telling people what they want to hear, chuckling to himself right as he — as you say — graduates with high honors from an Ivy League school? That it doesn’t need to be a matter of him _flunking,_ so much as it can be one of him _going through the motions, as if taking this seriously?_ And that’s fair. You are required to understand the material as presented by an academic institution. If you personally don’t believe it, but are able demonstrate an understanding of it, you can pass. If I personally believe that 1+1=3, but as long as I am in math class, treat 1+1 as equalling 2, then I can pass the tests that demonstrate I am proficient in that subject. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2023, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-americans-need-education-in-black-studies/978888/230 "2023-02-04T18:01:16Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > We have the words they used when they said exactly why they were seceding. We also have the words Edward III used to justify invading France (his claim to be the rightful king as son of Isabella of France); most historians however point to long-simmering disputes over Gascony and the English king’s status as a vassal of the French king as more significant causes of the Hundred Years War. (For that matter, we have Putin’s words when he said exactly why he was invading Ukraine; do you think he gave the real reason?) That’s not to say the southern secessionist leaders were lying or misleading, but wars rarely have just one simple cause. If the Confederate Army had been composed solely of southern slave owners, the war would not have lasted four+ years: plenty of men who never owned slaves and derived no economic benefit from slavery joined up too. (Meanwhile, some slave owners joined the Union Army.) Trying to explore the complexities and contradictions inherent in human behavior should not merit an automatic F. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2023, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-americans-need-education-in-black-studies/978888/231 "2023-02-04T18:47:08Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > We also have the words Edward III used to justify invading France (his claim to be the rightful king as son of Isabella of France); most historians however point to long-simmering disputes over Gascony and the English king’s status as a vassal of the French king as more significant causes of the Hundred Years War. (For that matter, we have Putin’s words when he said exactly why he was invading Ukraine; do you think he gave the real reason?) Right, there are times when people lie about what their actual justifications are. But why are you assuming that the _actual_ justification was about state’s rights, but that they lied and claimed it was to maintain the practice of slavery? It’d be like Putin stating that he is invading Ukraine because he wants to expand Russian territory and recover all the countries that left after the USSR fell, but then people coming behind and claiming that he’s actually doing it in order to protect the Ukrainian people from Nazis. > [@slash2k](#): > > That’s not to say the southern secessionist leaders were lying or misleading, but wars rarely have just one simple cause. This is true, but to discount the cause that is stated by those who seceded is ridiculous. > [@slash2k](#): > > If the Confederate Army had been composed solely of southern slave owners, the war would not have lasted four+ years: plenty of men who never owned slaves and derived no economic benefit from slavery joined up too. And if only the men who derived a benefit from the colonization of Vietnam had signed up, that wouldn’t have lasted 10 years. > [@slash2k](#): > > Trying to explore the complexities and contradictions inherent in human behavior should not merit an automatic F. And a strawman like that _should_. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2023, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-americans-need-education-in-black-studies/978888/232 "2023-02-04T23:11:05Z")
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**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2023, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-americans-need-education-in-black-studies/978888/233 "2023-02-04T23:13:51Z")
As per the prior Modnote, this was concerning State Rights and Slavery. > [@What\_Exit](#): > > **Modnote** : No, just no. We are not adding this debate into this thread. Drop it now. I think this thread is done. I’m leaving it closed this time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-americans-need-education-in-black-studies/978888.md?page=11)