Here's another piece on Anglo supremacy in Texas that appeared recently in the New York Times. It's informative in terms of the intersecting pieces of legislation and policy directions involved.
It makes note of Texas' demographics that make it obvious how the whitewashing of the social studies curriculum is so incredibly dismissive of not only the historical record, but also toward Texas' children who are overwhelmingly Latina/o.
These republican legislators are gaslighting us, y'all. They're telling us not to see what we actually are seeing.
Thankfully, blogs like this one and other information sites exist so that our children, parents, and communities are aware of this right-wing agenda to silence the truth of history under the rhetorical smokescreen of "patriotism." Plus, they are only a few clicks away from acquiring this knowledge themselves.
-Angela Valenzuela
#EndWhiteSupremacy
Texas is awash in bills aimed at fending off critical examinations of the state’s past.
Eric Gay/Associated Press
May 20, 2021
Every morning, schoolchildren in Texas recite an oath to their state that includes
the words, “I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God.”
Now, a flurry of proposed measures that could soon become law would promote
even greater loyalty to Texas in the state’s classrooms and public spaces, as
Republican lawmakers try to reframe Texas history lessons and play down
references to slavery and anti-Mexican discrimination that are part of the state’s
founding.
The proposals in Texas, a state that influences school curriculums around the
country through its huge textbook market, amount to some of the most aggressive
efforts to control the teaching of American history. And they come as nearly
a dozen other Republican-led states seek to ban or limit how the role of
slavery and pervasive effects of racism can be taught.
Idaho was the first state to sign into law a measure that would withhold
funding from schools that teach such lessons. And lawmakers in Louisiana,
New Hampshire and Tennessee have introduced bills that would ban teaching
about the enduring legacies of slavery and segregationist laws, or that any
state or the country is inherently racist or sexist.
“The idea that history is a project that’s decided in the political arena is a
recipe for disaster,” said Raul Ramos, a historian at the University of Houston
who specializes in the American West.
Some of the positioning is politics as usual in Texas, where activists have
long organized to imbue textbooks with conservative leanings. An especially
active Republican-controlled legislative session has advanced hard-line
measures from a host of new voting restrictions to a ban on abortions
after six weeks of pregnancy.
But the Texas history measures have alarmed educators, historians and
activists who said they largely ignore the role of slavery and campaigns
of anti-Mexican violence and would fail to educate a generation of students
growing up in a state undergoing huge demographic shifts.
One measure that recently passed the Texas House, largely along party lines,
would limit teacher-led discussions of current events; prohibit course credit
for political activism or lobbying, which could include students who volunteer
for civil rights groups; and ban teaching of The 1619 Project, an initiative by
The New York Times that says it aims to reframe U.S. history by placing the
consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the
center of the national narrative.
The bill would also limit how teachers in Texas classrooms can discuss the
ways in which racism influenced the legal system in the state, long a
segregationist bastion, and the rest of the country. Another bill that sailed
through the Texas House would create a committee to “promote patriotic
education” about the state’s secession from Mexico in 1836, largely by
men who were fighting to expand slavery. And a third bill would block
exhibits at San Antonio’s Alamo complex from explaining that major
figures in the Texas Revolution were slave owners.
Mr. Ramos questioned how the Texas Revolution, a six-month rebellion
that concluded in the spring of 1836, could be associated with patriotism
and freedom when the state’s new Constitution explicitly legalized slavery
seven years after Mexico had abolished it.
“How do you have freedom when you have slavery?” Mr. Ramos asked.
“Eighteen thirty-six values would have enslaved African-Americans in perpetuity.”
The quarreling over the proposed legislation is testing the limits of Texas exceptionalism, with some questioning whether a broad sense of pride among residents should mean glossing over some of the state’s most painful chapters.
The proposed laws have also stirred ideological battles over everything from
the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, with Texas Republicans voting down a
proposal that would have required schools to teach about the insurrection, to the immigration status of the white American enslavers who settled illegally in
what was then northern Mexico before figuring among the state’s founders.
“Do you want our Texas kids to be taught that the system of government in the
United States and Texas is nothing but a cover-up for white supremacy?”
Steve Toth, a Republican legislator from the Houston suburbs, asked when
he introduced the bill banning the teaching that the United States is defined
by racism.
Texas mandates that students take courses on state history in the fourth and
seventh grades, and some teachers have urged lawmakers to take a more nuanced
look at the state’s complex history. Juan Carmona, the head of the social s
tudies department at Donna High School in the Rio Grande Valley, said he
was concerned about the chilling effect the proposed legislation could have
on classroom discussions.
“It’s like you’re not wanting us to teach critical thinking because you want,
‘OK, these are the causes, the effects, that’s it,’” said Mr. Carmona, who was
part of a 2018 effort that resulted in the long-sought implementation of a
Mexican-American studies curriculum by the Texas State Board of Education.
Others have questioned the intent of a chauvinistic approach to civics and
history in a state undergoing sweeping demographic shifts. Latinos are on
the cusp of eclipsing Anglos as Texas’ largest ethnic group, and almost half
of the state’s children are Hispanic.
“This kind of mythologizing can be really exclusionary for students not
seeing themselves reflected in the curriculum,” said Maggie Stern, an organizer
with the Texas office of the Children’s Defense Fund.
Over the past year, as several police killings thrust race into the national consciousness, some aspects of Texas history have come under strain.
Authorities removed a statue of a Texas Ranger from Dallas Love Field airport
last year amid criticism of the Rangers’ involvement in lynchings of people of
Mexican descent. The University of Texas recently changed the names of campus
buildings in Austin and Arlington that honored avowed segregationists.
While the debates over some of the history bills have erupted into typical partisan arguments, including a “Texas Heroes Act” that is now before the Senate and
initially sought to downplay how slavery was a driving force in the Texas
Revolution, the proposed legislation to create an 1836 Project has received
support from both Republicans and Democrats.
The bill drew inspiration from Donald J. Trump’s 1776 Commission, which
similarly called for “patriotic education” about United States history. It was
derided by scholars and canceled by President Biden on his first day in office.
The bill for The Texas 1836 Project, which is now before the State Senate, would
empower the governor, lieutenant governor and house speaker — all Republicans
— to appoint a nine-member committee to “increase awareness of the Texas v
alues that continue to stimulate boundless prosperity across this state.”
The committee would ensure that “patriotic education” is provided to the public
at state parks, monuments and museums. It would also create a pamphlet
distributed to anyone getting a Texas driver’s license extolling facets of state
history that “promote liberty and freedom for businesses and families.”
Republicans attached amendments to the bill requiring the project to also raise
awareness of the state’s Christian heritage and its traditions of owning guns,
while also acknowledging the Texas origins of the annual Juneteenth holiday that commemorates the emancipation of slaves.
Democrats were also allowed to amend the bill, and they added requirements to
include the contributions to the state by people of Hispanic ancestry and the roles
that Texans have played in bolstering voting rights since the 1960s. House
lawmakers passed the bill by a margin of 124 to 19.
State Representative Chris Turner, a Democrat who submitted the amendments
about voting rights, said he supported the legislation despite concerns that The
Texas 1836 Project might “over-romanticize Texas history.”
Donald Frazier, a historian who is the director of the Texas Center at Schreiner
University in Kerrville, said he supported the bill and saw it as “a reaction to the
absolute lack of historical literacy of any kind.”
“There’s a lot to admire in Texas history and there’s a lot to cringe about,” said
Mr. Frazier, who added that any honest telling of the state’s history would need
to address issues like slavery. Key to The Texas 1836 Project would be the
selection of the committee’s members.
“If they choose historians that are worth their salt, that are honest to their profession,”
he said, “nobody’s going to have anything to worry about.”
Simon Romero is a national correspondent based in Albuquerque, covering
immigration and other issues. He was previously the bureau chief in Brazil and
in Caracas, Venezuela, and reported on the global energy industry from Houston.
@viaSimonRomero
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