# Trolls R Us redux \[Now the argument clinic\] **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 27, 2020, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349 "2020-06-27T06:30:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 245
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349/4903 "2021-09-15T14:44:31Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Yes, the right doesn’t want details of slavery and racism taught in schools. The left does. Do you agree with the right on this, or the left? I don’t agree with your premise. The details of slavery and racism have been taught in schools for decades. I think they should continue doing that. The new stuff like California’s Ethnic Studies curriculum, I think is problematic. I can understand why the right (and even the not-so-right) object to the new ideas being introduced, and it doesn’t mean they want to ban teaching slavery and racism altogether - though I daresay some might. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349/4904 "2021-09-15T14:50:34Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > The details of slavery and racism have been taught in schools for decades. Sure, just not accurately, and not really the effects of racism on US culture, etc. That stuff was added more recently (say, the last 10-15 years), and that’s what white supremacists want to block. I mean, you didn’t even go to school here and are just talking out of your ass. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349/4905 "2021-09-15T14:52:29Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > I don’t agree with your premise. The details of slavery and racism have been taught in schools for decades. I think they should continue doing that. The new stuff like California’s Ethnic Studies curriculum, I think is problematic. I can understand why the right (and even the not-so-right) object to the new ideas being introduced, and it doesn’t mean they want to ban teaching slavery and racism altogether - though I daresay some might. _A heavily whitewashed version of the history of slavery and racism_ has been taught in schools for decades. The left is trying to teach a more accurate and detailed version of history. And the right object to it because it contradicts their preferred - but inaccurate - version of history. > **[The fight to whitewash US history: ‘A drop of poison is all you need’](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/25/critical-race-theory-us-history-1619-project)** > > At least 15 states are trying to ban schools from teaching critical race theory and the 1619 Project. The reactionary movement stretches back to the 1920s and the KKK ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349/4906 "2021-09-15T15:08:05Z")
Look people DemonTree has seen _Fast Times at Ridgemont High_, _Lean on Me_, hell she’s even seen _Stand By Me_, there’s nothing we can teach her about the American education system! ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349/4907 "2021-09-15T15:13:21Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > _A heavily whitewashed version of the history of slavery and racism_ has been taught in schools for decades. I wasn’t educated in the US. The bulk of my education was in Canada. I read the article (perhaps too quickly) but like many such articles it talks about how the American education system has failed to teach American history specifically around slavery. But it doesn’t explain how it has failed. What do you feel are the most striking shortcomings of the way the history of slavery is taught in American schools. Anecdotally, I feel like the Canadian education system was not lacking on the subject. I feel like I have a very clear understanding of the subject but my education didn’t stop with the last exam I took in history class. My kids, who were raised in the US also have a robust understanding of this part of American history. So what’s been missing or whitewashed exactly in K-12 education in America? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349/4908 "2021-09-15T15:37:49Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Pretty much the whole left is in denial about genetics. Nonsense. Just because disagreements on several still-unresolved issues about some specific contributions of genes and environment to particular outcomes tend to split along ideological lines does NOT mean that “pretty much the whole left is in denial about genetics”. This is a classic example of a tendency of yours to indulge in argument rhetoric relying on what I call the “Hitchens Trick” (both Christopher and Peter): Namely, you make a ridiculously broad overgeneralization, and when challenged on it, retreat to defending a much more restricted component on it, so that it superficially looks like you’re rebutting your challengers. > [@DemonTree](#): > > What policy changes are the right demanding in education? Just to name [a few](https://www.npr.org/2020/11/19/936225974/the-legacy-of-education-secretary-betsy-devos): - Refusal to acknowledge or accommodate student transgender identity. - Mandatory obliviousness towards racial discrimination in student discipline. - Defunding public education with “school choice” proposals to siphon off school funding to less accountable schools, and attacking teachers’ unions. And some other education policy demands from the right: - [Restricting sex education in schools](https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/conservatives-propose-revised-sex-ed-rules-lgbtq-pushback-n1264266) (they’ve been complaining about sex ed for decades) - [Teaching so-called “creation science” and/or the “controversy” about evolution in preference to science-based information about evolution](https://www.natlawreview.com/article/alternative-facts-classroom-creationist-educational-policy-and-trump-administration) (that’s another right-wing “education” goal of long standing) - [More courses about the Bible in public schools](https://www.au.org/church-state/april-2019-church-state-magazine/featured/teaching-or-preaching-religious-right-groups) - [Slanting textbooks to give more positive views of the Confederacy and/or slavery-era America and/or capitalism](https://time.com/5889051/history-curriculum-politics/) (this long pre-dates the current fuss over the 1619 Project) - [Removing books from school libraries and curricula that discuss LGBTQ issues, or Islam, or differing cultural perspectives in general, or the history of racism and oppression of indigenous peoples in America](http://files.pfaw.org/pfaw_files/BookWars_The_Rights_Fight.pdf) A lot of these right-wing demands haven’t made much progress at the national level simply because they’re so flagrantly unconstitutional and/or counterfactual, and because of often truly heroic principled resistance on the part of teachers and librarians. But don’t kid yourself that the right isn’t continuing to make these demands for educational changes in accordance with their ideology. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349/4909 "2021-09-15T15:49:47Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > What do you feel are the most striking shortcomings of the way the history of slavery is taught in American schools. Just speaking personally, in addition to the sixth-grade teacher I mentioned above, I had a high school history teacher who described slavery as the best thing that ever happened to black people, as it raised them out of savagery and taught them about Jesus. My AP American History teacher, a deeply decent person, was highly ambivalent over whether the South seceded over slavery, and we never spent any time learning about the astonishing brutality of slavery, instead focusing on it as an economic and political institution. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349/4910 "2021-09-15T15:58:12Z")
There are lots of articles on the subject - some of them are paywalled (NYT, WaPO), but here’s one that’s not. > **[What Kids Are Really Learning About Slavery](https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/02/what-kids-are-really-learning-about-slavery/552098/)** > > A new report finds that the topic is mistaught and often sentimentalized—and students are alarmingly misinformed as a result. It flags a lot of the basic issues, from the broad to the specific. For example: > [@](#): > > Taken together, the study exposes a number of unsettling facts about slavery education in U.S. classrooms: Slavery is taught without context, prioritizing “feel good” stories over harsh realities; slavery is taught as an exclusively southern institution, masking the complicity of northern institutions and citizens in America’s slave-based economy; slavery is rarely connected to white supremacy—the ideology that justified its perpetuation; and slavery is seldom connected to the present, drawing the arc from enslavement to Jim Crow, the civil-rights movement, and the persistence of structural racism. I’m not sure why they felt the need to include a point about the term “slaves” vs “enslaved persons”, which seems trivial next to everything else in the article, but nonetheless that’s a basic overview - and that’s for the _better_ current schools and texts on the subject. Consider as a less nice example a textbook simply referring to slaves as “workers” > **[Textbook passage referring to slaves as 'workers' prompts outcry](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/oct/05/mcgraw-hill-textbook-slaves-workers-texas)** > > McGraw-Hill Education apologises and promises to fix a passage that implies African slaves came to the US as economic migrants Or “immigrants” > **[The rightwing US textbooks that teach slavery as ‘black immigration’](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/aug/12/right-wing-textbooks-teach-slavery-black-immigration)** > > Guardian analysis finds that private schools, especially Christian schools, use textbooks that tell of a version of history that is racially biased and inaccurate Or claiming that slaves were treated kindly > **[Learning Center Pulls Packets Saying Slaves Were 'Generally Treated Kindly'](https://www.newsweek.com/learning-center-pulls-history-packets-that-said-most-slaves-were-generally-treated-kindly-1621279)** > > A learning center pulled educational packets that claimed, "most slaves were generally treated kindly" after receiving backlash from parents. Or even that slavery was “the earliest form of social security in the United States”. > **[Southern schools' history textbooks: A long history of deception, and what...](https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/education/2020/12/03/southern-history-textbooks-long-history-deception/6327359002/)** > > For decades, Southern textbooks taught histories that distorted or ignored Black experiences. There’s lots of material about the _why_ as well, some of which is covered in the above but mostly because the South won the war of the textbooks and how history was taught in many regards (the issue with Texas and textbooks is a long-known one I won’t rehash here). I note that others have raised similar points while I was typing, so hopefully that addresses the question sufficiently. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349/4911 "2021-09-15T16:03:22Z")
_Slavery was the earliest form of social security in the United States._ Nice! Both a lie about slavery and planting the seeds of distrust for Social Security! Say what you will about these people, but they do try to be efficient. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349/4912 "2021-09-15T16:07:25Z")
To note that the SS thing was from a 1960s textbook. From Alabama, unsurprisingly. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349/4913 "2021-09-15T16:17:57Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > I don’t agree with your premise. The details of slavery and racism have been taught in schools for decades. I think they should continue doing that. The new stuff like California’s Ethnic Studies curriculum, I think is problematic. I can understand why the right (and even the not-so-right) object to the new ideas being introduced, and it doesn’t mean they want to ban teaching slavery and racism altogether - though I daresay some might. Note to @QuickSilver, based on what others showed about what the right did and continues to do with education, this is what the right wing narrative and how they frame the discussion leads to, it give us centrists like this poster that don’t notice how manipulated they are by the right’s seemingly “balanced” points. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349/4914 "2021-09-15T16:28:21Z")
Yup. The standard American “we fixed slavery in the Civil War and racism in the Civil Rights era, nothing to see here anymore folks, nope nope” narrative tends to suppress our realization of [how in-denial some folks still are about the subject of slavery and racism.](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49842601) > [@](#): > > “Slavery was not that bad - it’s probably the number one thing we hear,” says plantation tour guide Olivia Williams. > > “To my face, people have said: Well, they had a place to sleep. They had meals, they had vegetables.” […] > > “I don’t know why [McLeod] wanted to more portray [slavery],” a woman from North Carolina tells me, looking down the tree-lined path where three slave dwellings still stand. “I know they worked here, but the owners worked, had to manage this place too. I mean, it took a lot of work to manage one of these plantations, even though it was done with slave labour.” […] > > Williams […] has been screamed at, called a racist, a liar, unfit to do her job. A tourist once wrote to her boss, asking for her to be fired. […] > > Growing up in the South, students may never hear the stories of slaves - even when their own city was built on slave labour, says College of Charleston historian Shannon Eaves. […] > > “That helps to explain perhaps why we’re in 2019 and I can still have students tell me, I’ve never heard this history before,” says Eaves. “And my response is, well that wasn’t by accident.” […] > > An ignorance of the complete story is behind the persistence of nostalgia for the antebellum south - and for some, a rejection of anything that questions it. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349/4915 "2021-09-15T17:19:51Z")
Thanks: @Left_Hand_of_Dorkness, @Gyrate, @GIGObuster, @Kimstu - for the insight. It doesn’t speak well for the American education system to have such a dramatic difference in the teaching of American history about slavery and racism. I know from personal experience with my own kids that they are not confused about the facts. As I said, both were educated in Virginia and both went to the same school, 3 years apart. My youngest has always been a keen fan of history and is probably better informed than my oldest, but both know the facts and not some alternative version of them as in the examples you’ve provided. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349/4916 "2021-09-15T19:22:24Z")
> [@BippityBoppityBoo](#): > > BTW, is there an anti-science wing of the Democratic Party? Who are they so I can avoid them? > **offtopic (click to show/hide)** > > > [@mikecurtis](#): > > > > Only 67% of Democrats believe in evolution. And about a quarter of those believe that evolution was guided by god. > > I dunno if this constitutes a “wing” either, but this is backed up by [Gallop’s 2019 poll](https://news.gallup.com/file/poll/261719/190726Evolution.pdf) on Americans and evolution shows as many as **34% of Democrats (n=96/278) believe in strict creationism**, compared to 55% of Republicans (n=147/268 I think). Strict creationism being this: > > > God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so ~Max ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349/4917 "2021-09-15T19:30:07Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I keep going back and forth on whether you’re a mascot for the UK Dunning-Krugers, or a liar. ¿ _Porque no los dos_ ? ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349/4918 "2021-09-15T19:32:52Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > Look people DemonTree has seen _Fast Times at Ridgemont High_ , _Lean on Me_ , hell she’s even seen _Stand By Me_ , there’s nothing we can teach her about the American education system! Why not recommend _21 Jump Street_ (the movie)? ~Max ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349/4919 "2021-09-15T19:58:41Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Sure, just not accurately, and not really the effects of racism on US culture, etc. That stuff was added more recently (say, the last 10-15 years), and that’s what white supremacists want to block. Not one of the examples of school ‘CRT’ curriculums I have seen was about slavery. They were about systemic racism, intersecting identities that make people ‘oppressed’ or ‘privileged’, and stuff like microaggressions. And nearly all the Americans I have seen talk about the subject say they and/or their kids _were_ taught about slavery and racism (unless they went to school in like the 50s). Maybe you don’t think the teaching was adequate, but there is a big old excluded middle in @iiandyiiii’s question. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349/4920 "2021-09-15T20:25:23Z")
Yay. She’s making the same bullshit arguments about intelligence and education in two threads now. 😑 > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > You found what? Not a single word about Pinker’s scientific conclusions. Fuck you, liar. Stop making shit up. She’s a gaslighting, JAQing, lying troll. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349/4921 "2021-09-15T20:26:57Z")
That’s because your news sources are shitty. I went to school in the 70s and 80s and missed out on all the stuff mentioned in the posts above. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349/4922 "2021-09-15T20:27:49Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Not one of the examples of school ‘CRT’ curriculums I have seen was about slavery. They were about systemic racism, intersecting identities that make people ‘oppressed’ or ‘privileged’, and stuff like microaggressions. And where exactly did you see these examples? > [@DemonTree](#): > > And nearly all the Americans I have seen talk about the subject say they and/or their kids _were_ taught about slavery and racism (unless they went to school in like the 50s). Maybe you don’t think the teaching was adequate, but there is a big old excluded middle in @iiandyiiii’s question. Or maybe the teaching about slavery and racism was deliberately sanitised and misleading, as the examples in this thread already substantially demonstrated. This is like us complaining about schools teaching that the Earth is flat and you saying “Look, maybe the teaching wasn’t adequate but kids _were_ taught about geography”. If the kids are coming away not only ignorant but actively misinformed, that’s a _bad_ thing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349.md?page=244) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trolls-r-us-redux-now-the-argument-clinic/913349.md?page=246)