My opinion on the 1776 History Curriculum debate

 

Dear followers,

If you are involved in American politics or activism you will be aware that this weekend the spirits are high in social media over the reunion of the closed 1776 Commission .

Fox News conducted an interview to the 1776 Commission Vice Chair Dr Carol Swain to obtain information as to how the commission members planned to meet and work despite its earlier closure this year.

Dr Carol Swain advised the public, especially parents, to purchase the book '1776 Commission report', but I would like to ask parents to prior to purchasing reading it for free online here 

Not only you will be saving yourself money but you are in your legal right to read for free public documents covering the US National History Curriculum.

Regarding race I must say that public debates often reflect the problems Afro Americans are presently having and this does not come from white racists but from other minorities and Black Africans in America involved in debates that should concern only Afro Americans, by this I mean historically Afro Americans - Americans taken to the US during the transatlantic slave.

A perfect example is this recent debate regarding the White superman vs the future possibility or coming project as is not fully materialized yet, of a Black superman.

To see so many Black Americans from Nigeria claiming that the White superman should not be black and that the woke culture is destroying race relations truly shocked me as to my understanding Nigerians were the mostly engaged people in selling Africans during the transatlantic slave trade and in importing exploitation of black on black in US soil. Their counterparts mixed with French in New Orleans bread a population of mixed race women and black women who enforced slavery, arranged high society balls to hook black women with white men so as to settle black women in the position of mistresses with their own black slaves and created a narrative of European beauty standards which does not reflect African nationalist movements and beauty standards of the continent in our days.

The fact that Nigerians, especially Yorubas have racist terms for Afro Americans such as AKATA - COTTON PICKER'  should also be a reminder that the race theory debate in the US should not be based in race itself but in AFRO-AMERICAN HISTORICAL HERITAGE

It should also be a reminder that contrary to many, like me who thought 'Wow an Afro American Superman, congratulations peeps!'', not everyone will be happy and therefore, not surprisingly, will be all over the social media speaking as black experts in race when their race does not add to the present 1776  Commission debate.

What adds and should be the only relevant factor is that the parties involved are historically involved in the 1776 Curriculum Debate by matter of racial-cultural heritage.

By that I mean, people who are Native Americans, Afro Americans since 1776 and Anglo Americans since the Colonial incipient times where bank holidays were established to commemorate their arrival but to others is a reminder of massacres, namely to Native Americans.

This 1776 Commission was formally closed but has not ended socially because groups in America with a strong family heritage related to the colonial period still want to see their family history reflected in the History curriculum their children learn at school.

So how can we say that this is all about race or all about promoting racial harmony or on the other side of the debate promoting racial justice because as an historian I feel history in the curriculums should be about having everyone included, and schools should have local history curriculums integrated to their national curriculums so children know how their country came to be , who lived there , what trades existed and how their present social geography reflect their environment.

I give you an example, I live in Penge, Bromley, Kent, and a few years back some local historians were arguing that we paid too much in train and buses fares and this was keeping families from venturing out of their areas to get a job and hence why so many unemployed youth ( because the youth would be unable to survive while working so far away , paying 350 per train passes with buses and taxes on top) .

This is something that got me thinking why London has so many zone borders and just because of one trains station up or down , the next one has to pay more £100 per month on trains, subway and bus passes. Certain local historians argue this zones  were created to sublimely  keep certain social classes from leaving and stop doing the cheap work, so is a historical social class oppression.

Now imagine if we take this local British debate of the costs of trains, buses, and subways which are just really insane prices, to the US and apply to the present groups which are there since the beginning of the colonial times and 1776.

I would also say now imagine, we introduce other social disciplines like Geography to map post World war migration from Europe to the US and how the local authorities namely Chicago used their migration quotas to give work to Nazis ( many , many Nazis ) and exclude the first and second generation of free Afro Americans from work and housing.

What will this mean in historical terms and why are these terms  not included in this 1776 Report.? Now note, I am not saying I am for or against the incendiary  1776 Curriculum stances in this debate , I am just trying to see the picture in reasonable terms.

In historical terms, we have a process of instituting  nativism in Afro Americans by means of exclusion of job market lined with their qualifications, of education allowing them to further their academic studies , struggle to get welfare security to cover their basics and most importantly Local Authorities over zealous permissions to alcohol and gambling shops.

I must say that this of the local authorities passing speedy licenses to alcohol and gambling shops is also an issue of white local historians where I live in Penge and I heard and watched them debate this issue in local residents groups and I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to be present in local residents groups, namely Penge Forum to learn how history matters - every where , for every one.

So, going back to two paragraphs above, this institutionalizing of nativism in Afro Americans , is no different from what occurred to Native Americans and most importantly occurred and occurs very visibly in Australia with the Aborigines.

What I would say here is that sociology has done no favors to historians and often mixes capitalism and exclusion with  the historical heritage of Afro Americans.

People have survived and still survive in society happily at the margins , because often the mainstream media does not cover nor includes their identity and lifestyle in their daily reporting, but this is a sociological approach that has nothing to do with history nor with "the want" ,"the need" to be included in history books as an agent and not as a victim of history, and likewise to have their slave owner acts against them listed in history books.

When Afro American historians state 'Well you have Harriet Truman in history books', the Afro American historians that advocate teaching only about the 1776 curriculum say , but you do not have my great great grandfather death or how his community were sold out , their family's units disregarded, how these rich families of today got rich in my local county. You have Ford, you have the history of industries and proletarian trade unions but you do not have how the same proletarian unions excluded Afro Americans and embraced illegal Nazis in America after the Second World War.

What was it that allowed so many Afro Americans who fought in the Second World War returning to Chicago etc. and having swamps of illegal Nazi Europeans from Italy and Eastern Europe, working legally and today we have their children still legal citizens in the US?

Was it the skin color or was the historical heritage?

The fact that Africans still make their way today illegally to the US at all means possible and imaginable leads me to believe that is a historical heritage problem and not a racial problem and eventually this historical heritage problem will be resolved in history curriculums if each State in the United States dedicates one term to the local history .

You will say to me 'Well  Ariane, Afro Americans are not Natives, so local history?'.  My answer is that the institutionalization of discrimination against Afro Americans was done towards excluding something (not someone(s) ), that was (were ) shipped to the US to make profit, so the dehumanization is already there. 

While Native American women are happily at home doing their crafts, textile crafts, Afro Americans will not feel happy as is not part of their heritage and might feel further vulnerable because as a crafter myself , I know it takes time and you don't have energy for the gym, maybe walking, but it consumes you and reflects your culture, your identity; Afro American women on the other hand , have the awareness- that is almost robotic -that they need public social services, they have to be engaged in some sort of life celebration, body worship, partying or socializing , living their lives because their history and social media tells them - correctly tells them - that their lives are too short, too vulnerable and can end at any minute without any fault of their own because there are people , especially people in institutions, who can get away with their murder, Breonna Taylor, being the perfect example of that, a young Afro American woman bulleted to death in her sleep yet framed for ever in her mothers framed picture as a young woman wearing a uniform.

In my opinion, there are no answers to the question of Historical dispossession  of Afro Americans - especially their lives as illustrated with Breonna Taylor death during her sleep - without revising the US History  curriculum to include more agency of Afro Americans but also agency of the horrible perpetrators of evil deeds against them. 

Without this, the stress element in Afro American women lives today cannot be sedated. Again remember local history should be intertwined with this Curriculum for the reasons mentioned in this post, especially as many American colonizers in the US never benefited from slavery and were exploited themselves during Laboral relations, hence why the family names of slave owners should be publicly listed in local history school curriculums.

Thank you for reading,

Best wishes,

Ariane Brito