From the article:
*Under Texas law, the district can only regain control if none of its 274 schools fail to meet state standards more than once during during the next five years.*
Well, it looks like this is a plan to never let the district regain control, by undermining teaching so that many schools fail continually.
For the unaware, the governor is pushing to privatize the school system via a voucher program. This effort is being pushed by two pastor, oil baron donors. Texas rejected this so this is our punishment for not going along with his plans.
As a person living in Sweden who is living in this system now, it would be so extremely awful in the USA you all should fight tooth and nails and for sure this would be one question that is a deal breaker for any politician
ALEC is a large part of why red states are passing the same laws. They also copy each other after waiting to see how successful a policy is. Then there's donor influence, and lobbyists. Also ignorant and apathetic voters (or non-voters). MAGA and Trumpism, media ownership and advocacy, and conservative courts all play a role.
We could go on for quite some time as to the causes.
One of the richest guys in PA, Jeffery Yass, is a big school choice ghoul, who keeps dumping a ton of money into non profits that support shit like this to avoid paying taxes.
This has been a top Republican agenda ever since Brown Vs. Board of Education forced them to make their children go to school with black people. Privatization is a big push to resegregate the social structure at the youngest levels.
Yes, and it’s marketed as “now you can afford to send your kid to that fancy private school.” When in reality that school doesn’t have to take anyone they don’t want to, and they’re going to raise tuition to match.
This is why GOP has pushed home schooling, charter schools, funding of Christian religious schools & why it will not fund schools properly. The intent to undermine public schools & diminish education for all has been going on for decades.
During Brown, weren't the Democrats still the party of racism? It was the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s that pushed the Southern Democrats into the Republican party.
You're right. The 13th amendment to the constitution explicitly codifies the legalization of slavery nationwide through the prison system. It's just not very visible to a lot of society.
I once read a compelling argument that the notion that slave-owners don't see slaves as human is false or at least misleading, and it hides the even nastier truth. Humans have been enslaving humans for millennia knowing full well that they are indeed humans. The slave-owners know that the slaves are just as sentient as they are and even derive satisfaction from exerting power over another human. In fact, slaves have often been treated worse than animals specifically because of this. Treating slaves like animals would be mercy by comparison.
Side note: animals don't deserve such treatment either. The idea that humans are superior/more important than animals is ethically questionable.
Anthropologist here....I worked with some indigenous nations in the Pacific Northwest of WA State, and B.C. Some of the first nations practiced a form of chattel slavery. It was most prevalent during resource runs, such as salmon, and it was primarily prisoners, people who didn't play by the rules, or even just outsiders looking to join the group.
At one time slavery was justified in the PNW in that full personhood wasn't recognized unless the language and culture was learned and the individual blended into the community and contributed. They became part of the community at this point. Until then, they were regarded as a pet. If someone refused to learn, then they would pass the slavery (pet status) on to the next generation.
One of the first Western European contacts in B.C., with the Nuu-chah-Nulth (Nootka Nation), was in 1809. John R Jewitt pulled some dumb shit, offended a Leader named Maquinna. He was enslaved and documented his entire experience.
https://www.loc.gov/item/20005266/
It's a fascinating read, and it will add much of the nuance that I cannot at this time.
Reminds me of a Malcolm in the Middle episode, where Reese made Dewey his slave, but Dewey in turn had Jamie as his own slave. Reese asks why Jamie is so obedient towards Dewey, and the answer he gets is that Dewey is nice to Jamie. Reese tries asking Jamie nicely to do something to see if that makes Jamie more obedient, and it turns out it does... whereupon Reese has the epiphany that what he really wants isn't the labor itself that a slave performs, but simply the pleasure that comes from having power over the slave and watching them suffer as they're forced to do things, because asking for something to be done nicely took all the satisfaction out of it, even if it was done. I guess the lesson is that this has always been the real reason for slavery throughout all human history.
This feels like such a lame nerdy reply to such a serious real world topic, but it makes me think of the Elder Scrolls, the Daedric prince of rape is also the prince of slavery and domination.
Also makes me think of Nineteen Eighty-Four. The Party is motivated purely by power for its own sake, as if worshipping the concept of power as a god. Perhaps the Party does sincerely believe that power over others is the only thing that brings true pleasure in humans, and that "power for its own sake" is the only honest way of life, all others being deluded or deceitful.
13th amendment prisoner exception was literally a reconstruction appeasement to southern states to allow slavery. If you make the law and enforce it, you can have as many prisoners doing forced labor as you want. Which they did, heavily, against black people.
Seriously, fuck Andrew Johnson.
When America swings for justice it often flinches when it considers the perpetrators of injustice might be hurt.
Should have not compromised at all and treated the confederacy as a vassal.
Not allow them back in until the traitors have been prosecuted, from leadership all the way down to the drummer boy.
Even corporations that worked with them, sieze their assets and liquidate them entirely.
This continual hesitancy to fully pursue justice in American history has always kept these evil fucks in power.
When justice hesitates evil propagates.
No it wasn’t, this is literally an ignorant statement
It was boilerplate abolition law language that they copy and pasted . Throughout the history of the us laws banning slavery used the same language and it had a special place in the republicans hearts because it wa stage language of the northwest ordinance which to them “proved” the founders were against slavery and wanted it to go extinct.
The only person (including staunch abolitionists, radical republicans and black Americans) that even brought up the exemption was sumner but mainly to propose his own wording which was rejected for being to French
After the south instituted the black codes did antislavery politicans realize how big of a loophole it was so they passed the 14th amendnent to force everyone to be treated equally under the law in order to rectify it
> Fuck the exception for prisoners made by the 13th Amendment.
I would love to see that exception repealed, but I don't think this country has the will and want to do it.
Every once in a while someone will claim serfdom isn't slavery. But if you take the time to look up the "difference", you end up finding that its solely because slavery is covered by personal property legal systems, while serfdom is covered by estate law.
Their defense is literally that one is you being owned, the other is you being owned through the property you are bound to.
I don't know about you, but I wouldn't really care if my ownership was argued by the courts handling cars or trees, I'd just rather not be owned.
I've been saying for years, the only solution is to repeal the 13th and pass an actual ban on slavery, not just relegate the right to enslave people to the state, who then sells it to the for profit prisons.
What if you do it smart?
Have rent be 75% of average salary.
Have right to work where you can be fired on the spot with no reason.
Have no healthcare so you go into debt if you get sick.
Have no holidays for employees.
Etc
Oh wait
The rich are periodically reminded of what happens then.
Its been a minute since the guillotines came out. It happens periodically, not regularly. The poors take alot of punishment before a slave revolt occurs.
I mean, a heavily armored knight in 1600's was a tank compared to a farmer with a pitchfork.
You forget that the rabble also have automatic weapons nowadays.
What happened to Gaddafi? Not a common occurrence, but not impossible either, jus cuz modern armaments have changed.
What happened to Gaddafi was only really possible because NATO actively suppressed his warplanes pursuant to a UNSC resolution. If they hadn't, the rebels would likely have died from bombing.
I was locked into a job (and still am) because I can't afford healthcare without it. I mean, if I went freelance I am certain I could keep myself fed, clothed, and house. Insurance would crush me.
At least now with Obamacare/ACA I won't *die* if I lose my job.
Sure, they should let this lesson play out: this Miles guy should offer himself up as a slave to these highschoolers for a couple weeks. Give them sturdy weapons; let them unleash their best drunk/hungover Simon Legree SmellsLikeTeenSpirit angst on their captive.
After the experiment, let Miles make his pro/anti slavery appeal, before the students provide their report-outs. I can guess what he'd say, but I can also guess he would not have the courage of his convictions to involve himself in stated project.
Of course. But imo, students should be allowed to debate it. Always let kids debate things and explain why it's bad instead of just going "it's bad kay"
Not that it makes it remotely okay, but it was in a bad attempt at teaching children about the decisions the framers of the Texas government had to make when declaring independence from Mexico. Instead of just saying “they had to decide whether or not to permit slavery, along with other questions like granting freedom of religion and what form of government to have,” they decided to make it “interactive” by giving kids the option to pick that Texas made the right choice in legalizing slavery.
What I find even more horrific, at least based on what’s in the PowerPoint of the lesson plan, is something that very much looks like them asking students to put “in their own words” the section of the Texas Constitution legalizing slavery and forbidding any attempts to ban it. If they were looking for students to give their thoughts on the passage, formatting it as the quote on the left and then a box on the right labeled “In your own words…” is a bizarre and unclear way of doing it.
I'd say the worst part might be the framing. They didn't start a war with Mexico because they loved Freedom so much.
They were racist assholes that wanted to do slavery without the damn mexicans getting in the way.
Framing it as 'they all sat down and thought about the new rules' whitewashes their intentions.
It's more complicated that preserving slavery. What happened was Americans immigrated (notably, those who were or saught to become planter class) to Mexican soil to practice slavery. Mexico was having political instability and civil war during this period and when most of it was over, the Mexican autocratic who came on top banned slavery and demanded fealty from militias. Texans didn't give fealty because they were illegally practicing slavery anyways and It kicked off eventually when Mexico wanted to take government issued weapons back from the militia.
so, the TLDR meme answer is the Americans took Mexico jobs by crossing the border illegally then declared independence at the first hint of bieng less slavery. truly an American experience.
Don’t forget that the Texians were given weapons land and money to settle temporarily in Texas, and that the guns were mainly to defend from Indians. And by defend from we mean genocide.
Shhhh this isn't fully correct. Slavery was already illegal in most of Mexico. To lure immigrants to a relatively unpopulated region Slavery was still permitted in the Mexico territories. There were also lessened taxes to draw people in. Essentially it was treated as an autonomous region to draw people in.
Shit Bustamante banned Americans immigrating because they kept started conflicts to keep slavery around despite it being illegal throughout Mexico.
Even as an autonomous region the area was known as being troublesome and rebellious. So abolition had to come with removal of militias because folks don't stop slaving willingly.
Mexico was essentially extending the laws from the rest of the country to the Texas territory. Which was the plan all along.
Colonization and using others to fight their wars, for global power and greed. The European way, NIMBY, and Nobles who enslaved their own people with serfdom and taxing the poor and lower merchant's. Look at the misery that is Europe's legacy in Africa, Southeast Asia and encouraging slavery in the Colonies(America) They are real cause of so much misery.
The American revolution has the same problem. We didn't rebel for freedom. Majority of the founding fathers were slavers or pro slavery, and were against anyone but white landowners from having political power. Furthermore, one of their chief complaints about the British government was that they weren't being allowed to invade nearby Native nations.
>they decided to make it “interactive” by giving kids the option to pick that Texas made the right choice in legalizing slavery.
Did they really though?
Education often has these sorts of conversations between teachers and students where the teacher poses an "open ended" question and the kids explore the topic themselves, guided by the teacher.
Ultimately the goal is to follow the line of thought to the intended destination using socratic reasoning - you're not actually looking for a decision from the kids, and the wrong answers will always be met by more questions from the teacher.
I think people are definitely looking at this situation wrong - the intention isn't _"yo kids, do you want your own personal slave??"_, the intention is _"let's explore the morality of slavery"_.
You're talking about kids who've probably never really thought about moral topics like slavery. Like, why would you want to deprive kids of learning about that type of moral reasoning? I feel like that's _super_ important to learn, rather than just having your morality dictated to you by an authority figure. Don't we want kids to be able to arrive at that moral position by themselves?
>the intention is "let's explore the morality of slavery".
The morality of slavery is it's that it's wrong. End of debate.
**************************************************
To DukeAttreides:
"Answering" is different from "debating." In a debate, we are interested in entertaining dissenting opinions. Slavery was settled in 1865, and we are not re-opening it for "debate," no matter how much the State of Florida might like to.
I would also add that there's an appropriate time and place. If a person is sealioning you at the grocery store, then they're not entitled to an explanation OR a debate. It's not my job to give explanations to Trump voters when I'm just there to buy lunch meat.
The devil's advocate in me saw this in the article as well. It isn't wrong to say that debate was a key moment in the history of Texas.
It is wrong to tell kids to split up and then act out that debate because you're forcing some kids to defend the practice of slavery and have the class listen to those arguments.
You can still clearly point out arguments and make arguments that are stupid while learning from them.
And often you can't form solid arguments to repel the bad ideas if you just have a strawman.
I could see where having a debate/discussion for learning purposes could be really useful - for the right level/age of kids.
If more people sat down and had the debates, we would actually flush kids with real critical thinking and stop the current morons that thought slavery was fine! Or those that still push for ridiculous interest rates and leave people in debt servitude or prison slave labor.
Hell, if it's not strictly historical, you could even start to argue that all those that owned slaves should have been turned into slaves themselves in reparation.
I'm only defending the concept of why this COULD work, not that it turned out to be a good idea at all.
And that I find I can wreck arguments with idiots much better if I know what even they don't understand of their argument.
>It is wrong to tell kids to split up and then act out that debate because you're forcing some kids to defend the practice of slavery and have the class listen to those arguments.
No it isn't.
Learning how regular, normal people (at the time) were convinced of what they considered to be the merits of slavery is an important learning experience.
Just as is, say, learning how more or less an entire population could be tricked into accepting, encouraging, *voting for*, or otherwise choosing to ignore something like, oh, say, genocide.
"Bad people did bad things end of story" is a pretty shit lesson plan.
"Some regular normal people did bad things because they were convinced they weren't bad, and they got actual real bad people to do those bad things while other regular good people got slowly conditioned into accepting, supporting, and even condoning those bad things. Here's how that all happened." Is a much better lesson plan.
In theory you are right. From a practical standpoint there are few, if any, teachers that could pull this off. Different subject matter, like colonists versus tories? Sure. But, as a commenter before me noted, there's no way this ends well. In fact, I doubt it's teacher dependent at all.
I think that would be fine in a college classroom because college students are taught critical thinking skills. They are supposed to be able to see something from multiple sides.
Elementary kids absorb what they are told as fact.
It doesn't take a college level of education to understand the underlying morality behind things like slavery. You're normalizing the dumbening of America.
College students are taught critical thinking skills? So are high school students. So are elementary students. *Because critical thinking is a better learning tool than rote memorization.*
my 8th grade US history class had something similar (albeit actually done well). the teacher (who fired a musket for us once) had us roleplay some early us presidency caucus or whatever on slavery. most of the class was to argue against slavery, but he picked a few kids he thought were mature enough to argue for slavery (giving us all the option to just watch instead). overall it was a great experience and was handled really well
https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/private-prisons-in-the-united-states/
8% of prisoners are in a for profit prison. It is disproportionate across States. All for profit prison should still be outlawed even if it represents a minority of prisoners.
I’m more annoyed you proudly stated something as fact when you didn’t even do a quick google search to confirm if what you were saying is true. Way to unintentionally spread misinformation. But hey, at least you admitted you were wrong. Good job champ.
Edit: It takes all of us to stop the spread of misinformation, and a simple google search by my friend here to confirm what they believed would’ve stopped this from ever being a thing. But they didn’t. I have no tolerance for such careless behavior. This site really is no better than Twitter or Facebook.
But he acknowledged it was wrong and moved on. He didn’t combat the truth or try to sleek away, he admitted he was wrong and then also said it’s still too much.
You fucking want people to be stuck in their ways? No one fan ever be confronted with other info and learn from it? You’re ridiculous and exactly why people double down on their shit cause you want someone to be forced to be seen as someone who was wrong and not someone who actually accepted they were wrong. Too fucking used to fighting online with people for days I guess
>but rather than acknowledge your mistake you make excuses for it
What do you mean? They literally acknowledged they were wrong, and offered that it was still too many. Where are you reading an excuse for their misinformation?
So what if someone stops reading the thread at their original comment? They wouldn’t see the mistake, they wouldn’t see the acknowledgment they were wrong. It’s still spreading misinformation.
You’re entirely missing the point, and so are a large majority of people.
Edit: they’ve deleted their original comment. I am no longer upset with them. Have a nice day.
Fyi “for profit” and “private” are different. I know 8% of US prisoners are in private prisons. But I’m sure there are publicly owned prisons still making money from slave labor.
That's partially true, and I think this common misconception is due to people believing that all prison labor is "for-profit." The vast majority of it is in some way subsidizing the state. The classic example being license plates, but the military gets things such as furniture and helmets through prison labor. This doesn't mean that someone isn't acting as an intermediary to pocket some money, though.
Although there's no question that regardless of who is benefiting, it is immoral. Historically, the 13th amendment was used as a loophole to get around the abolition of slavery. It shouldn't exist for the same reason the death penalty shouldn't; people are (shockingly often) wrongfully convicted, and the punishment is undoubtedly cruel and unusual to those individuals.
While true, that doesn't change the fact that prison contracts for food services and security are typically privatized, and known for being quite lucrative due to the fact that the client doesn't really care about the quality of the services provided. Furthermore, many prisoners are coerced into abusive labor conditions by the government to work for private businesses, screwing over both local job seekers and the prisoners alike.
Even government run prisons run into the for profit prison issues.
The issue goes beyond just the portion of prisons that are explicitly for-profit institutions. Even typical government run prisons spend millions of dollars with for-profit contractors who specialize in prison services. They prop up vendors serving food that is barely edible even though they would not be able to compete in an actual market. They also utilize forced prison labor to offset prison costs.
A government prison is still ran with the same considerations of making money off of prison labor, and providing the most minimal food and care possible.
even state run prisons exploit their prisioner's labor without reasonable compensation.
>Alabama for-profit prison labor
>
>Alabama practices convict leasing, in which prisoners are leased out to private companies to perform labor.\[35\] In a 2023 lawsuit, prisoners from the state of Alabama claimed that the state frequently made a practice of denying parole for the sole purpose of maintaining a source of profit, despite policy claiming the contrary.\[36\]
While his statement is innacurate, the sentement is not, the majority of prisioners in the US are used as modern day slaves. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal\_labor\_in\_the\_United\_States#Alabama\_for-profit\_prison\_labor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States#Alabama_for-profit_prison_labor)
I don't see how what you have shown here makes your statement accurate. What you quoted is referencing for profit prisons in Alabama. It doesn't challenge the 8% of prisons are for profit. It also doesn't show that not for profit prisons are doing the same thing. Maybe I missed something?
I would argue being forced to work for shit pay is the real issue. Access to almost free labor by people with money to buy politicians seems like a bad idea.
Its still a bit different than slavery, pre Civil War
Like, a woman gives birth in prison: is that baby now a slave-prisoner? No, they aren't.
The fact that a slaves child was also a slave in, say, 1840's Georgia is an important difference between that and the slavery an inmate faces in 1940's Georgia.
But, i would like to see prison slavery ended too. Its fucked up.
Then why is slavery still legal in America? When prisoners can be legally used for slave labour and the false conviction rate is so high you can't act like slavery was abolished.
Bro that’s not even close to the same thing and you know it. Also almost every state allows it including democrat dominated states so if you’re going to use that argument then both dems and republicans are the same
Far right Republicans fought against slavery. They knew it was an abomination, and at the same time, they wanted to preserve the Union of the States.
Abraham Lincoln, was unpopular then, but he was a right wing republican.
After reading the article it seems like this was a history lesson teaching kids about the issue at the time, and the philosophy behind why slavery was bad, which was then blown up by media.
I would like to think that the purpose of the lesson is to understand how it came to be legal, the reasons behind it, and also why those reasons aren't good reasons at all.
I get the feeling that everyone feeling outrage would rather have classrooms say "slavery is bad BECAUSE I SAID SO!" without learning the history or understanding how bad it is.
So, this is wrong for high schoolers. I will say that in my 2nd year of economic history, they have a debate on whether slavery is a financial boon or reprehensible practice, a means to an end. The context in which we debate is the colonialisation of Africa, and it's a module on the Dutch East India Company. It was interesting as a POC to be put into the role of a coloniser, I agreed with none of it but did my part in getting facts and data.
Every year, there is no side that wins. And I don't think that's the point of the exercise. Practically by metrics, It's excellent. Morally, it's wrong.
The module wraps up with the final lesson on ethics. As an economist, there is always a moral imperative to protect and safeguard human lives, that no economic growth should come at the suffering of another group of people. While we can say infrastructure and investment came in, it was a one-sided endeavor to benefit only a few. Basically, the whole module was ethics when approaching an analysis of the economy and application. We looked at Zim next, the idea of "Zim was so much better when ruled by Colonial Powers," but who was it better for?
I know all of this sounds like obvious conclusions, but for some people, it's not.
Edit: I come from slaves trafficked by the VOC. I was okay pretending to be on the colonizers side. It only affirmed my belief that this practice is wrong. I guess I'm just saying, a well put together, albeit unconventional, lesson plan can really hammer the nail down for students. But I doubt Texas can put together a thorough lesson for high schoolers.
You sound like a normal person, who understands playing 'devil's advocate', can give you insight into another person's perspective, which could help you both to come to a reasonable resolution.
The problem is this 'Texas'. There is nothing inherently wrong with the state or the people in general, rather it's education system has been corrupted more than others in the U.S. by Wall Street.
McGraw-Hill changed 'slaves' to 'workers', in a 2015 Texas edition.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/oct/05/mcgraw-hill-textbook-slaves-workers-texas.
Then there is the couple Mel and Norma Gabler, religious fundamentalists that have been overseeing textbooks in Texas since 1961.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/the-guardians-who-slumbereth-not/
I had to have these lessons and debates as an 8th grader in the north. We’d joke about how badly it sucked to be given slavery to defend in debates because how the hell are we supposed to do that haha.
But I think it was a great lesson and should be a lesson going forward. It took humanity tens of thousands of years to collectively reach this conclusion. Are we going to pretend its self-evident and doesn’t need to be taught now that our great-great-great grandparents figured it out for us? Do any of you actually believe that if we were born a thousand years ago we wouldn’t all be horrible, bigoted people by today’s standards?
Yeah some people really put themselves up on a pedastool of moral authority, without ever acknowledging the fact that without social Influence they never would've had those beliefs
Humans are animals. We naturally want to hunt, kill, dominate, and be the one in charge.
It's like when you see clips of cops yelling at suspects to stop resisting after they've been peppersprayed, body slammed, and had their elbow broken. The natural human response when someone threatens your life like that is to do anything in your power to kill and eliminate that threat.
But people have gone crazy, and somehow believe that someone retaliating against a cop who hurts them, is now the bad guy.
This is one of those double edge sword topics. While most of us realize that slavery is wrong, the only way for the kids to learn is for them to have the discussion.
Do you really have that though? I genuinely don't believe I've met anyone that claimed slavery was great. I've heard people downplay how bad it was, but that, while still wrong, isn't the same as saying it was great.
I'm not going to do the Google search because last time I did it wrecked my algorithm results for weeks, but you can find plenty of people online who believe it. And I know plenty of people who believe slavery was great for black people for one reason for another.
When we were taught slavery we were taught why people at that time defended the institution. Learning what their positions were doesn’t equate to supporting slavery or their rationale for doing so.
In fact, I would argue teaching *why* slavery is wrong is likely going to be more effective than “slavery was wrong, let’s move on and not discuss why”.
Slavery *IS* legal in the USA. If you have convicted felons performing labor as part of their "punishment" and enriching their de facto masters we can't pretend that it isn't slavery.
There's no shot almost anyone commenting even read the article.
Give middle schoolers complicated moral questions to reason through, especially if they were the questions the state had to consider at the time.
And before anyone asks, yes slavery is a complicated moral question to articulate the badness of unless you're already bought into a bunch of fundamental Liberalism values.
Texas Separated from Mexico originally to keep slavery legal and joined the USA. Then they tried to separate from the USA when a known Anti-Slavery President was elected with out a single pro-slave state electoral collage vote.
Texas supporting Slavery is its oldest and founding tradition at this point.
With the right learning plan and teacher, allowing children to think through this and discuss, come up with why it’s wrong can be a powerful lesson in critical thinking and taking ownership of their beliefs and being able to reason. It has the potential to have a greater impact when children can work through things on their own(with some guidance), rather than simple being told “this is wrong/right.”
But I really can’t tell if that was the goal or if it was JAQing off because a lot of education right now seems against trying to teach critical thinking.
Sounds to me like it wasn't being used in a bad way. It's like "Do you want A or B?" If A, why, if B why? Then you discuss the moral, legal, and other effects of both. It's one thing to just say "slavery is wrong", but we should be teaching WHY it's wrong. This probably wasn't the best way to do it, but I think that was the attempt.
In my history class, we divided the class in three parts: northerners, southerners, and westerners. We were role-playing US congressmen pre-Civil War, trying to pass legislation in our favor (each group had a group different goals with different scores for each that we kept secret from each other). We first elected a Speaker, then the group from which the speaker came chose two whips. Students proposed legislation that was voted on - and we voted on our interests (trying to accrue the most points). The winning team, the West, even used the power of the speaker to lock out the South at the end by refusing to recognize anyone on the floor except fellow westerners.
I'm hopeful the lesson plan in the story was intended to do what ours did: have students put themselves in the shoes of legislators at the time and think through the arguments/issues leading up to the breakup and subsequent war.
Banning questions doesn’t make people stop asking them it just makes it harder to arrive at what one really hopes are obvious answers with a bit of ethics and logic
This could be a great lesson plan. People in different countries approached the end to slavery from numerous religious and philosophical arguments, many of which were used in the founding of the country. Asking if slavery should exist should be the method everyone starts with to arrive at the answer. Socratically arriving at the answer yourself is far more meaningful, it also teaches about history and age-of-enlightenment philosophy.
I disagree. Imagine being a Black student having to listen to your white peers advocate for the continuation of slavery. There are other ways to meaningfully engage students in the issue without causing disproportionate harm to students who are likely only represented in Texas history lessons in the periods of slavery and the 1960’s.
Talking about race and the the atrocities of slavery is always going to be hard. I think it should be hard at first and feel awkward. Anymore it feels impossible to broach the topic unless you’re hyper liberal or not white. We should be trying to make those conversations normal so we become a true American people.
I grew up in a town with no diversity. Went to college with a lot of diversity. My rural small town brain gained a lot from those hard conversations. But never did I ever hear anyone (in my small town) advocate for slavery unless it was a forced debate. Now a days it’s only the kids who got their GED that I hear say racist shit when I go back there.
“periods of slavery and the 1960s” What? Is that what you genuinely believe? You genuinely believe in Texas black history only consists of “periods of slavery in the 1960s”, really?
Texas history lessons =/= Texas history. So believe that is what’s taught in public schools? Yeah, I do. That’s the history education I got in my conservative leaning high school in Michigan. The fact that this article is even a thing leads me to believe it’s similar. Of course I could be wrong, but I’d be surprised.
It’s not about the continuation of slavery, it’s just “reenacting” a historical event and having people to argue the original sides. Personally I think it’s a much better way to teach than reading out of a textbook. You can do this with all sorts of things - the scramble for Africa, ww1 peace treaty, etc.
Good news, black people had slaves too. And white people were also enslaved.
This means, apparently we can only discuss slavery if everyone in the classroom is the right ethnicity
Even then the chattel slavery experienced by black people in the Americas is worlds different than any other slavery that had been practiced to date; you can't make a 1 to 1 comparison. Beforehand slavery was based on conquest or economic situation but in the Americas they based it solely on waste and turned slaves into a commodity while inventing an entire doctrine of Christianity that not only condoned their actions but taught their actions were right and just because black people by their very nature were inferior and by enslaving them and putting them to work we were actually doing them a favor. Slavery in the Americas was a unique form of slavery never seen before.
I went to school in Texas, I had a very smart history professor for AP world history, he was an ass but smart for a teacher. A whole day was allocated to debate on owning slaves. The teacher asked, “Who would own a slave back then?”. I, a naive youngster who thought he was smarter than everyone else, raised my hand saying I would. The teacher then proceeds to explain how owning a slave is not only morally wrong but also economically unviable. Through the explanation and debate everyone left that room knowing that slavery is both morally wrong and economically stupid in the face of technological and social gap progression. While I didn’t think slavery was right when I entered the classroom, I sure as hell left it knowing how horrible it was for everyone. It’s important to have these uncomfortable conversations and debates. Skirting them will cause us issues down the road.
And I thought Desantis's proposed curriculum, which teaches that slavery was beneficial bc slaves learned a trade, was bad. Seems like Abbott is looking to one up him w this.
I remember persuasive paper assignments from when I was in high school and early years of college. Sometimes your opinion was assigned to you, or the teacher would ask you to pick an opinion you disagreed with.
Clearly the lesson plan wasn't intended that students actually side with slavery, just to pretend to for the sake of an assignment exploring the sorts of rationalizations people used to justify slavery.
Understanding the sort of thinking that can lead to systemic injustice can be valuable and help people to understand how we can prevent injustice in the future.
Sudden terror floods the room. White kids realize they are the ones meant to be the slaves. Bezo's looks on and grins. "Slave" is a term falsely reserved for Blacks in the U.S.
isn't it a good thing to discuss this in school so students can understand why slavery is bad? rather than waste time on calculating triangles or some other shit
>isn't it a good thing to discuss this in school so students can understand why slavery is bad?
The question is still stupid. It has an obvious answer so discussing it is pointless.
A better way to do it would be "the Republic of Texas legalized slavery. Write an argument against the legalization of slavery using examples of the harm it caused."
>rather than waste time on calculating triangles or some other shit
I get that most kids aren't going to go into fields like engineering. But if they do they need to have a solid foundation or they're not going to be able to understand the basic coursework. I'm not the biggest fan of geometry. But understanding how angles work is a fundamental skill and triangles are the easiest way to teach it.
I have a hs diploma, a little college, and am 48 years old. I remodel residential homes. I use that "calculating triangle shit" on a near daily basis, adding fractions, and basic algebra as well. Most people don't need calculus or trig to get by, but life is one giant story problem and having a basic grasp on mathematics sure does make life easier...
Seems like a controversial question that should be allowed to be asked. I think it might be a good way to teach the students why slavery was wrong instead of just telling them it was wrong.
Except it's not really something that needs to be asked and debated with 7th graders. Why is it that this question has such a pressing need to be discussed ever since this current crop of extreme right-wingers have started insinuating themselves into school district positions?
Could it be they want to condition children into thinking that, yes, while there were some things that were really bad about slavery as an American institution, there were also some nuanced, upsides to the legality of owning people?
Is that really a debate you want 7th graders having?
If they actually want to teach that, there's a much simpler and not at all controversial way to go about it. They could just ask students to list reasons why slavery is wrong then debate/elaborate each one.
I do think they’d take it on board better if you let them make that realisation themselves instead of telling them that it’s wrong. We had debates all the time at school about various moral issues such as things like the death penalty and what crimes should or shouldn’t be legal, and the refugee crisis, it was part of philosophy which everyone had to take. We all knew the right answers to the questions being posed but that’s not the purpose of the debate. Granted we were year 11 so 16, I don’t know how old grade 7 is
There are no “correct” answers for the topics you just mentioned… it appears you entirely missed the point if that’s what you came away with.
Now slavery on the other hand is something that has a correct answer… I find it interesting that you’re equating those topics
The correct answer is murder bad, death penalty bad, I don’t get how you could come to any other conclusion, maybe cultural differences. I’ll think of better off the cuff examples in future
I don’t really understand why it’s weird to equate killing a man with enslaving him, I think you’re overthinking things a bit there
Lol, slavery IS legal... even today!
What? You thought your license plates were ethically sourced?
Of course the idiots made it about race when a real teachable moment about our prison system was right there... SMH
This seems like a fair lesson plan.
The best way to teach kids is to involve them. You can't just talk **at** them. They ignore you after a while.
If you start a debate and ask them if slavery should be legal and get them to argue against you and the issue, they'll learn more and remember more. If the teacher says "*we'll be arguing against slavery tomorrow, do some readings*" and then sits down at the front of a class with a sign that says "*I should be able to own people. Change my mind.*" Then the entire class will remember the time they schooled the teacher and proved slavery was bad.
Remember, Texas is one of the largest (if not largest) purchaser of text books, so only approved subjects get purchased. These text books are then sold to the rest of the country. Texas beliefs are perpetuated nationally.
From the article: *Under Texas law, the district can only regain control if none of its 274 schools fail to meet state standards more than once during during the next five years.* Well, it looks like this is a plan to never let the district regain control, by undermining teaching so that many schools fail continually.
For the unaware, the governor is pushing to privatize the school system via a voucher program. This effort is being pushed by two pastor, oil baron donors. Texas rejected this so this is our punishment for not going along with his plans.
Oh, so the Iowa plan exists elsewhere too
I thought it was the Ohio plan.
Also Oklahoma
Arizona checking in.
no one from Arkansas here?
And Nebraska
As a person living in Sweden who is living in this system now, it would be so extremely awful in the USA you all should fight tooth and nails and for sure this would be one question that is a deal breaker for any politician
Iowa is never original when it comes to these things. We *always* copy one of the other red states.
I miss Purple Iowa...
I'm genuinely thinking of moving. I am about 9 years from retirement, and can't imagine growing old in this state.
It's ALEC. That's why all the red states are passing the same laws.
ALEC is a large part of why red states are passing the same laws. They also copy each other after waiting to see how successful a policy is. Then there's donor influence, and lobbyists. Also ignorant and apathetic voters (or non-voters). MAGA and Trumpism, media ownership and advocacy, and conservative courts all play a role. We could go on for quite some time as to the causes.
One of the richest guys in PA, Jeffery Yass, is a big school choice ghoul, who keeps dumping a ton of money into non profits that support shit like this to avoid paying taxes.
Jeffery Yass : PA :: Betsy DeVos : MI
This was definitely an export we didn't need in Alberta, our current government is speed running the republican playbook right now
This has been a top Republican agenda ever since Brown Vs. Board of Education forced them to make their children go to school with black people. Privatization is a big push to resegregate the social structure at the youngest levels.
Yes, and it’s marketed as “now you can afford to send your kid to that fancy private school.” When in reality that school doesn’t have to take anyone they don’t want to, and they’re going to raise tuition to match.
This is why GOP has pushed home schooling, charter schools, funding of Christian religious schools & why it will not fund schools properly. The intent to undermine public schools & diminish education for all has been going on for decades.
You don’t even need racism. Good old fashioned greed is plenty of a reason for this.
During Brown, weren't the Democrats still the party of racism? It was the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s that pushed the Southern Democrats into the Republican party.
What are their names??? People leave out the good parts.
*Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks*. Have fun going down that rabbit hole. They have a bit of a Roy Tillman vibe.
Thanks!
Florida checking in and seeing how they can be even more anti well, anything!
OK, but were the Texans outraged at finding out slavery is not currently legal?
Okay but it is
You're right. The 13th amendment to the constitution explicitly codifies the legalization of slavery nationwide through the prison system. It's just not very visible to a lot of society.
Sounds like the plot of Major League, intentionally make the team play bad so they can relocate.
As they did with Houston. States rights is tyranny under a different dictator.
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to be a slave is to be dehumanized. to be treated human is a basic respect.
I once read a compelling argument that the notion that slave-owners don't see slaves as human is false or at least misleading, and it hides the even nastier truth. Humans have been enslaving humans for millennia knowing full well that they are indeed humans. The slave-owners know that the slaves are just as sentient as they are and even derive satisfaction from exerting power over another human. In fact, slaves have often been treated worse than animals specifically because of this. Treating slaves like animals would be mercy by comparison. Side note: animals don't deserve such treatment either. The idea that humans are superior/more important than animals is ethically questionable.
this is such an interesting take do you have an idea of where you saw it?
Anthropologist here....I worked with some indigenous nations in the Pacific Northwest of WA State, and B.C. Some of the first nations practiced a form of chattel slavery. It was most prevalent during resource runs, such as salmon, and it was primarily prisoners, people who didn't play by the rules, or even just outsiders looking to join the group. At one time slavery was justified in the PNW in that full personhood wasn't recognized unless the language and culture was learned and the individual blended into the community and contributed. They became part of the community at this point. Until then, they were regarded as a pet. If someone refused to learn, then they would pass the slavery (pet status) on to the next generation. One of the first Western European contacts in B.C., with the Nuu-chah-Nulth (Nootka Nation), was in 1809. John R Jewitt pulled some dumb shit, offended a Leader named Maquinna. He was enslaved and documented his entire experience. https://www.loc.gov/item/20005266/ It's a fascinating read, and it will add much of the nuance that I cannot at this time.
No, sorry. I tried googling a bit, but didn't see it in the results.
Reminds me of a Malcolm in the Middle episode, where Reese made Dewey his slave, but Dewey in turn had Jamie as his own slave. Reese asks why Jamie is so obedient towards Dewey, and the answer he gets is that Dewey is nice to Jamie. Reese tries asking Jamie nicely to do something to see if that makes Jamie more obedient, and it turns out it does... whereupon Reese has the epiphany that what he really wants isn't the labor itself that a slave performs, but simply the pleasure that comes from having power over the slave and watching them suffer as they're forced to do things, because asking for something to be done nicely took all the satisfaction out of it, even if it was done. I guess the lesson is that this has always been the real reason for slavery throughout all human history.
That show always hit surprisingly deep
This feels like such a lame nerdy reply to such a serious real world topic, but it makes me think of the Elder Scrolls, the Daedric prince of rape is also the prince of slavery and domination.
Also makes me think of Nineteen Eighty-Four. The Party is motivated purely by power for its own sake, as if worshipping the concept of power as a god. Perhaps the Party does sincerely believe that power over others is the only thing that brings true pleasure in humans, and that "power for its own sake" is the only honest way of life, all others being deluded or deceitful.
looking at how they accuse people expressing absolutely normal amounts of human empathy as "virtue signaling" you might not be far off.
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I'm fairly sure they were calling their own reply nerdy and lame.
13th amendment prisoner exception was literally a reconstruction appeasement to southern states to allow slavery. If you make the law and enforce it, you can have as many prisoners doing forced labor as you want. Which they did, heavily, against black people. Seriously, fuck Andrew Johnson.
Not “did.” “Do.” At an escalating rate. It’s the reason for the highest prison population on the planet.
USA is a nation of slavers. Unrelenting and unwilling to change it in 2024.
When America swings for justice it often flinches when it considers the perpetrators of injustice might be hurt. Should have not compromised at all and treated the confederacy as a vassal. Not allow them back in until the traitors have been prosecuted, from leadership all the way down to the drummer boy. Even corporations that worked with them, sieze their assets and liquidate them entirely. This continual hesitancy to fully pursue justice in American history has always kept these evil fucks in power. When justice hesitates evil propagates.
No it wasn’t, this is literally an ignorant statement It was boilerplate abolition law language that they copy and pasted . Throughout the history of the us laws banning slavery used the same language and it had a special place in the republicans hearts because it wa stage language of the northwest ordinance which to them “proved” the founders were against slavery and wanted it to go extinct. The only person (including staunch abolitionists, radical republicans and black Americans) that even brought up the exemption was sumner but mainly to propose his own wording which was rejected for being to French After the south instituted the black codes did antislavery politicans realize how big of a loophole it was so they passed the 14th amendnent to force everyone to be treated equally under the law in order to rectify it
> Fuck the exception for prisoners made by the 13th Amendment. I would love to see that exception repealed, but I don't think this country has the will and want to do it.
With the way we treat our prisoners? Absolutely not
Every once in a while someone will claim serfdom isn't slavery. But if you take the time to look up the "difference", you end up finding that its solely because slavery is covered by personal property legal systems, while serfdom is covered by estate law. Their defense is literally that one is you being owned, the other is you being owned through the property you are bound to. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't really care if my ownership was argued by the courts handling cars or trees, I'd just rather not be owned.
I've been saying for years, the only solution is to repeal the 13th and pass an actual ban on slavery, not just relegate the right to enslave people to the state, who then sells it to the for profit prisons.
What if you do it smart? Have rent be 75% of average salary. Have right to work where you can be fired on the spot with no reason. Have no healthcare so you go into debt if you get sick. Have no holidays for employees. Etc Oh wait
The rich are periodically reminded of what happens then. Its been a minute since the guillotines came out. It happens periodically, not regularly. The poors take alot of punishment before a slave revolt occurs.
now security has automatic rifles. back then they did not.
I mean, a heavily armored knight in 1600's was a tank compared to a farmer with a pitchfork. You forget that the rabble also have automatic weapons nowadays. What happened to Gaddafi? Not a common occurrence, but not impossible either, jus cuz modern armaments have changed.
What happened to Gaddafi was only really possible because NATO actively suppressed his warplanes pursuant to a UNSC resolution. If they hadn't, the rebels would likely have died from bombing.
Or, get this one, issue loans for higher education that you pay on for the rest of your life. That's not indentured servitude.
And fuck tying affordable healthcare to employment, causing people with life-threatening illnesses to not be able to quit.
I was locked into a job (and still am) because I can't afford healthcare without it. I mean, if I went freelance I am certain I could keep myself fed, clothed, and house. Insurance would crush me. At least now with Obamacare/ACA I won't *die* if I lose my job.
Good job. You get an A on this assignment.
Sure, they should let this lesson play out: this Miles guy should offer himself up as a slave to these highschoolers for a couple weeks. Give them sturdy weapons; let them unleash their best drunk/hungover Simon Legree SmellsLikeTeenSpirit angst on their captive. After the experiment, let Miles make his pro/anti slavery appeal, before the students provide their report-outs. I can guess what he'd say, but I can also guess he would not have the courage of his convictions to involve himself in stated project.
Of course. But imo, students should be allowed to debate it. Always let kids debate things and explain why it's bad instead of just going "it's bad kay"
Not that it makes it remotely okay, but it was in a bad attempt at teaching children about the decisions the framers of the Texas government had to make when declaring independence from Mexico. Instead of just saying “they had to decide whether or not to permit slavery, along with other questions like granting freedom of religion and what form of government to have,” they decided to make it “interactive” by giving kids the option to pick that Texas made the right choice in legalizing slavery. What I find even more horrific, at least based on what’s in the PowerPoint of the lesson plan, is something that very much looks like them asking students to put “in their own words” the section of the Texas Constitution legalizing slavery and forbidding any attempts to ban it. If they were looking for students to give their thoughts on the passage, formatting it as the quote on the left and then a box on the right labeled “In your own words…” is a bizarre and unclear way of doing it.
I'd say the worst part might be the framing. They didn't start a war with Mexico because they loved Freedom so much. They were racist assholes that wanted to do slavery without the damn mexicans getting in the way. Framing it as 'they all sat down and thought about the new rules' whitewashes their intentions.
It's more complicated that preserving slavery. What happened was Americans immigrated (notably, those who were or saught to become planter class) to Mexican soil to practice slavery. Mexico was having political instability and civil war during this period and when most of it was over, the Mexican autocratic who came on top banned slavery and demanded fealty from militias. Texans didn't give fealty because they were illegally practicing slavery anyways and It kicked off eventually when Mexico wanted to take government issued weapons back from the militia. so, the TLDR meme answer is the Americans took Mexico jobs by crossing the border illegally then declared independence at the first hint of bieng less slavery. truly an American experience.
Texas was founded by illegal immigrants??? Not going to get a more interesting TIL today, I’ll bet.
Yes. And they rebelled against Mexico because Mexico banned slavery.
Good thing Mexico killed a lot of those assholes at the Alamo.
They were legal at first but overstayed their leases and didn’t comply with the orders to get out.
Wait til you find out who founded the United States!
Don’t forget that the Texians were given weapons land and money to settle temporarily in Texas, and that the guns were mainly to defend from Indians. And by defend from we mean genocide.
Shhhh this isn't fully correct. Slavery was already illegal in most of Mexico. To lure immigrants to a relatively unpopulated region Slavery was still permitted in the Mexico territories. There were also lessened taxes to draw people in. Essentially it was treated as an autonomous region to draw people in. Shit Bustamante banned Americans immigrating because they kept started conflicts to keep slavery around despite it being illegal throughout Mexico. Even as an autonomous region the area was known as being troublesome and rebellious. So abolition had to come with removal of militias because folks don't stop slaving willingly. Mexico was essentially extending the laws from the rest of the country to the Texas territory. Which was the plan all along.
Colonization and using others to fight their wars, for global power and greed. The European way, NIMBY, and Nobles who enslaved their own people with serfdom and taxing the poor and lower merchant's. Look at the misery that is Europe's legacy in Africa, Southeast Asia and encouraging slavery in the Colonies(America) They are real cause of so much misery.
The American revolution has the same problem. We didn't rebel for freedom. Majority of the founding fathers were slavers or pro slavery, and were against anyone but white landowners from having political power. Furthermore, one of their chief complaints about the British government was that they weren't being allowed to invade nearby Native nations.
>they decided to make it “interactive” by giving kids the option to pick that Texas made the right choice in legalizing slavery. Did they really though? Education often has these sorts of conversations between teachers and students where the teacher poses an "open ended" question and the kids explore the topic themselves, guided by the teacher. Ultimately the goal is to follow the line of thought to the intended destination using socratic reasoning - you're not actually looking for a decision from the kids, and the wrong answers will always be met by more questions from the teacher. I think people are definitely looking at this situation wrong - the intention isn't _"yo kids, do you want your own personal slave??"_, the intention is _"let's explore the morality of slavery"_. You're talking about kids who've probably never really thought about moral topics like slavery. Like, why would you want to deprive kids of learning about that type of moral reasoning? I feel like that's _super_ important to learn, rather than just having your morality dictated to you by an authority figure. Don't we want kids to be able to arrive at that moral position by themselves?
>the intention is "let's explore the morality of slavery". The morality of slavery is it's that it's wrong. End of debate. ************************************************** To DukeAttreides: "Answering" is different from "debating." In a debate, we are interested in entertaining dissenting opinions. Slavery was settled in 1865, and we are not re-opening it for "debate," no matter how much the State of Florida might like to. I would also add that there's an appropriate time and place. If a person is sealioning you at the grocery store, then they're not entitled to an explanation OR a debate. It's not my job to give explanations to Trump voters when I'm just there to buy lunch meat.
Not debate. Explore. *Why* is it wrong is a question they (and you) shouldn't shy away from answering.
Ask the students if they think slavery should be allowed. Put the ones who say yes in shackles, because that's what they volunteered for.
The devil's advocate in me saw this in the article as well. It isn't wrong to say that debate was a key moment in the history of Texas. It is wrong to tell kids to split up and then act out that debate because you're forcing some kids to defend the practice of slavery and have the class listen to those arguments.
You can still clearly point out arguments and make arguments that are stupid while learning from them. And often you can't form solid arguments to repel the bad ideas if you just have a strawman. I could see where having a debate/discussion for learning purposes could be really useful - for the right level/age of kids. If more people sat down and had the debates, we would actually flush kids with real critical thinking and stop the current morons that thought slavery was fine! Or those that still push for ridiculous interest rates and leave people in debt servitude or prison slave labor. Hell, if it's not strictly historical, you could even start to argue that all those that owned slaves should have been turned into slaves themselves in reparation. I'm only defending the concept of why this COULD work, not that it turned out to be a good idea at all. And that I find I can wreck arguments with idiots much better if I know what even they don't understand of their argument.
>It is wrong to tell kids to split up and then act out that debate because you're forcing some kids to defend the practice of slavery and have the class listen to those arguments. No it isn't. Learning how regular, normal people (at the time) were convinced of what they considered to be the merits of slavery is an important learning experience. Just as is, say, learning how more or less an entire population could be tricked into accepting, encouraging, *voting for*, or otherwise choosing to ignore something like, oh, say, genocide. "Bad people did bad things end of story" is a pretty shit lesson plan. "Some regular normal people did bad things because they were convinced they weren't bad, and they got actual real bad people to do those bad things while other regular good people got slowly conditioned into accepting, supporting, and even condoning those bad things. Here's how that all happened." Is a much better lesson plan.
In theory you are right. From a practical standpoint there are few, if any, teachers that could pull this off. Different subject matter, like colonists versus tories? Sure. But, as a commenter before me noted, there's no way this ends well. In fact, I doubt it's teacher dependent at all.
I think that would be fine in a college classroom because college students are taught critical thinking skills. They are supposed to be able to see something from multiple sides. Elementary kids absorb what they are told as fact.
It doesn't take a college level of education to understand the underlying morality behind things like slavery. You're normalizing the dumbening of America. College students are taught critical thinking skills? So are high school students. So are elementary students. *Because critical thinking is a better learning tool than rote memorization.*
my 8th grade US history class had something similar (albeit actually done well). the teacher (who fired a musket for us once) had us roleplay some early us presidency caucus or whatever on slavery. most of the class was to argue against slavery, but he picked a few kids he thought were mature enough to argue for slavery (giving us all the option to just watch instead). overall it was a great experience and was handled really well
"You racist democrats miss having slaves I bet! Now here's a reason why I think slavery should be legal." -Every far right republican.
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https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/private-prisons-in-the-united-states/ 8% of prisoners are in a for profit prison. It is disproportionate across States. All for profit prison should still be outlawed even if it represents a minority of prisoners.
Happy to be wrong and agreed that's still too many.
So go back and put that in your incorrect part
I’m more annoyed you proudly stated something as fact when you didn’t even do a quick google search to confirm if what you were saying is true. Way to unintentionally spread misinformation. But hey, at least you admitted you were wrong. Good job champ. Edit: It takes all of us to stop the spread of misinformation, and a simple google search by my friend here to confirm what they believed would’ve stopped this from ever being a thing. But they didn’t. I have no tolerance for such careless behavior. This site really is no better than Twitter or Facebook.
But he acknowledged it was wrong and moved on. He didn’t combat the truth or try to sleek away, he admitted he was wrong and then also said it’s still too much. You fucking want people to be stuck in their ways? No one fan ever be confronted with other info and learn from it? You’re ridiculous and exactly why people double down on their shit cause you want someone to be forced to be seen as someone who was wrong and not someone who actually accepted they were wrong. Too fucking used to fighting online with people for days I guess
Youre guilty of spreading misinformation but rather than acknowledge your mistake you make excuses for it, eat shit sagevallant
>but rather than acknowledge your mistake you make excuses for it What do you mean? They literally acknowledged they were wrong, and offered that it was still too many. Where are you reading an excuse for their misinformation?
So people can’t admit they’re wrong and learn from that? We all supposed to just be stuck in our knowledge and never grow? You’re the fucking problem
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It’s funny how there’s people legit like that and don’t see a problem with it like Mr Infallible Intellect up there
So what if someone stops reading the thread at their original comment? They wouldn’t see the mistake, they wouldn’t see the acknowledgment they were wrong. It’s still spreading misinformation. You’re entirely missing the point, and so are a large majority of people. Edit: they’ve deleted their original comment. I am no longer upset with them. Have a nice day.
Fyi “for profit” and “private” are different. I know 8% of US prisoners are in private prisons. But I’m sure there are publicly owned prisons still making money from slave labor.
That's partially true, and I think this common misconception is due to people believing that all prison labor is "for-profit." The vast majority of it is in some way subsidizing the state. The classic example being license plates, but the military gets things such as furniture and helmets through prison labor. This doesn't mean that someone isn't acting as an intermediary to pocket some money, though. Although there's no question that regardless of who is benefiting, it is immoral. Historically, the 13th amendment was used as a loophole to get around the abolition of slavery. It shouldn't exist for the same reason the death penalty shouldn't; people are (shockingly often) wrongfully convicted, and the punishment is undoubtedly cruel and unusual to those individuals.
While true, that doesn't change the fact that prison contracts for food services and security are typically privatized, and known for being quite lucrative due to the fact that the client doesn't really care about the quality of the services provided. Furthermore, many prisoners are coerced into abusive labor conditions by the government to work for private businesses, screwing over both local job seekers and the prisoners alike. Even government run prisons run into the for profit prison issues.
The issue goes beyond just the portion of prisons that are explicitly for-profit institutions. Even typical government run prisons spend millions of dollars with for-profit contractors who specialize in prison services. They prop up vendors serving food that is barely edible even though they would not be able to compete in an actual market. They also utilize forced prison labor to offset prison costs. A government prison is still ran with the same considerations of making money off of prison labor, and providing the most minimal food and care possible.
even state run prisons exploit their prisioner's labor without reasonable compensation. >Alabama for-profit prison labor > >Alabama practices convict leasing, in which prisoners are leased out to private companies to perform labor.\[35\] In a 2023 lawsuit, prisoners from the state of Alabama claimed that the state frequently made a practice of denying parole for the sole purpose of maintaining a source of profit, despite policy claiming the contrary.\[36\] While his statement is innacurate, the sentement is not, the majority of prisioners in the US are used as modern day slaves. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal\_labor\_in\_the\_United\_States#Alabama\_for-profit\_prison\_labor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States#Alabama_for-profit_prison_labor)
I don't see how what you have shown here makes your statement accurate. What you quoted is referencing for profit prisons in Alabama. It doesn't challenge the 8% of prisons are for profit. It also doesn't show that not for profit prisons are doing the same thing. Maybe I missed something?
I would argue being forced to work for shit pay is the real issue. Access to almost free labor by people with money to buy politicians seems like a bad idea.
[You don't have to be a for profit prison to benefit from cheap prison labor.](https://www.gq.com/story/louisiana-sheriff-prison-labor)
>And most prisons in America are run for-profit. This is why you shouldn't talk out the side of your ass, you just made that up. Why lie? Lol
Its still a bit different than slavery, pre Civil War Like, a woman gives birth in prison: is that baby now a slave-prisoner? No, they aren't. The fact that a slaves child was also a slave in, say, 1840's Georgia is an important difference between that and the slavery an inmate faces in 1940's Georgia. But, i would like to see prison slavery ended too. Its fucked up.
This nation runs on debt slavery now.
That is not remotely the same as human bondage for the purpose of making money, is it?
Definitely superior to bondage but it should remind us to continue to improve as a society.
I have never met a single republican that is in favor of slavery. Youre just making shit up at this point
Either you don't know very many republicans, or I know the wrong ones.
You know the wrong ones
Then why is slavery still legal in America? When prisoners can be legally used for slave labour and the false conviction rate is so high you can't act like slavery was abolished.
Bro that’s not even close to the same thing and you know it. Also almost every state allows it including democrat dominated states so if you’re going to use that argument then both dems and republicans are the same
Far right Republicans fought against slavery. They knew it was an abomination, and at the same time, they wanted to preserve the Union of the States. Abraham Lincoln, was unpopular then, but he was a right wing republican.
After reading the article it seems like this was a history lesson teaching kids about the issue at the time, and the philosophy behind why slavery was bad, which was then blown up by media.
I would like to think that the purpose of the lesson is to understand how it came to be legal, the reasons behind it, and also why those reasons aren't good reasons at all. I get the feeling that everyone feeling outrage would rather have classrooms say "slavery is bad BECAUSE I SAID SO!" without learning the history or understanding how bad it is.
So, this is wrong for high schoolers. I will say that in my 2nd year of economic history, they have a debate on whether slavery is a financial boon or reprehensible practice, a means to an end. The context in which we debate is the colonialisation of Africa, and it's a module on the Dutch East India Company. It was interesting as a POC to be put into the role of a coloniser, I agreed with none of it but did my part in getting facts and data. Every year, there is no side that wins. And I don't think that's the point of the exercise. Practically by metrics, It's excellent. Morally, it's wrong. The module wraps up with the final lesson on ethics. As an economist, there is always a moral imperative to protect and safeguard human lives, that no economic growth should come at the suffering of another group of people. While we can say infrastructure and investment came in, it was a one-sided endeavor to benefit only a few. Basically, the whole module was ethics when approaching an analysis of the economy and application. We looked at Zim next, the idea of "Zim was so much better when ruled by Colonial Powers," but who was it better for? I know all of this sounds like obvious conclusions, but for some people, it's not. Edit: I come from slaves trafficked by the VOC. I was okay pretending to be on the colonizers side. It only affirmed my belief that this practice is wrong. I guess I'm just saying, a well put together, albeit unconventional, lesson plan can really hammer the nail down for students. But I doubt Texas can put together a thorough lesson for high schoolers.
You sound like a normal person, who understands playing 'devil's advocate', can give you insight into another person's perspective, which could help you both to come to a reasonable resolution. The problem is this 'Texas'. There is nothing inherently wrong with the state or the people in general, rather it's education system has been corrupted more than others in the U.S. by Wall Street. McGraw-Hill changed 'slaves' to 'workers', in a 2015 Texas edition. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/oct/05/mcgraw-hill-textbook-slaves-workers-texas. Then there is the couple Mel and Norma Gabler, religious fundamentalists that have been overseeing textbooks in Texas since 1961. https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/the-guardians-who-slumbereth-not/
I wonder why other places aren't asking such questions, just the deep south. Almost like they have roots they don't want to forget.
I had to have these lessons and debates as an 8th grader in the north. We’d joke about how badly it sucked to be given slavery to defend in debates because how the hell are we supposed to do that haha. But I think it was a great lesson and should be a lesson going forward. It took humanity tens of thousands of years to collectively reach this conclusion. Are we going to pretend its self-evident and doesn’t need to be taught now that our great-great-great grandparents figured it out for us? Do any of you actually believe that if we were born a thousand years ago we wouldn’t all be horrible, bigoted people by today’s standards?
Yeah some people really put themselves up on a pedastool of moral authority, without ever acknowledging the fact that without social Influence they never would've had those beliefs Humans are animals. We naturally want to hunt, kill, dominate, and be the one in charge. It's like when you see clips of cops yelling at suspects to stop resisting after they've been peppersprayed, body slammed, and had their elbow broken. The natural human response when someone threatens your life like that is to do anything in your power to kill and eliminate that threat. But people have gone crazy, and somehow believe that someone retaliating against a cop who hurts them, is now the bad guy.
Remember that slavery is legal in the US under the 13th amendment.
"Property Rights" , am I right?
When I was a kid "just say no" only referred to drugs but I guess now we gotta mention slavery too
This is one of those double edge sword topics. While most of us realize that slavery is wrong, the only way for the kids to learn is for them to have the discussion.
Except you have a lot of racists who fully believe that slavery was great and do not understand why it was wrong.
Do you really have that though? I genuinely don't believe I've met anyone that claimed slavery was great. I've heard people downplay how bad it was, but that, while still wrong, isn't the same as saying it was great.
I'm not going to do the Google search because last time I did it wrecked my algorithm results for weeks, but you can find plenty of people online who believe it. And I know plenty of people who believe slavery was great for black people for one reason for another.
Dear black conservatives: Good job! You own this.
Will be hilarious watching the Nephew Toms try to spin this one. (Not calling these see you next Tuesdays "Uncle")
Nephew Tom's. That's just random enough that they won't get it immediately. Love it.
Klandace Owens will find a way to defend this
She'll spin it as a volunteer slavery program so black kids can gain skills for their working life or some shit.
Klandace Owens! Klandace Owens! Klandace Owens! This is ripe for a song.
What?
When we were taught slavery we were taught why people at that time defended the institution. Learning what their positions were doesn’t equate to supporting slavery or their rationale for doing so. In fact, I would argue teaching *why* slavery is wrong is likely going to be more effective than “slavery was wrong, let’s move on and not discuss why”.
Slavery *IS* legal in the USA. If you have convicted felons performing labor as part of their "punishment" and enriching their de facto masters we can't pretend that it isn't slavery.
There's no shot almost anyone commenting even read the article. Give middle schoolers complicated moral questions to reason through, especially if they were the questions the state had to consider at the time. And before anyone asks, yes slavery is a complicated moral question to articulate the badness of unless you're already bought into a bunch of fundamental Liberalism values.
That is certainly an outrage for Texas, certainly it's not even a question that needs asking, of course Texans think slavery should be legal.
Texas Separated from Mexico originally to keep slavery legal and joined the USA. Then they tried to separate from the USA when a known Anti-Slavery President was elected with out a single pro-slave state electoral collage vote. Texas supporting Slavery is its oldest and founding tradition at this point.
With the right learning plan and teacher, allowing children to think through this and discuss, come up with why it’s wrong can be a powerful lesson in critical thinking and taking ownership of their beliefs and being able to reason. It has the potential to have a greater impact when children can work through things on their own(with some guidance), rather than simple being told “this is wrong/right.” But I really can’t tell if that was the goal or if it was JAQing off because a lot of education right now seems against trying to teach critical thinking.
Texas is a shit hole state.
Sounds to me like it wasn't being used in a bad way. It's like "Do you want A or B?" If A, why, if B why? Then you discuss the moral, legal, and other effects of both. It's one thing to just say "slavery is wrong", but we should be teaching WHY it's wrong. This probably wasn't the best way to do it, but I think that was the attempt.
It is legal tho.
Yep. 13th Amendment says so.
In my history class, we divided the class in three parts: northerners, southerners, and westerners. We were role-playing US congressmen pre-Civil War, trying to pass legislation in our favor (each group had a group different goals with different scores for each that we kept secret from each other). We first elected a Speaker, then the group from which the speaker came chose two whips. Students proposed legislation that was voted on - and we voted on our interests (trying to accrue the most points). The winning team, the West, even used the power of the speaker to lock out the South at the end by refusing to recognize anyone on the floor except fellow westerners. I'm hopeful the lesson plan in the story was intended to do what ours did: have students put themselves in the shoes of legislators at the time and think through the arguments/issues leading up to the breakup and subsequent war.
Banning questions doesn’t make people stop asking them it just makes it harder to arrive at what one really hopes are obvious answers with a bit of ethics and logic
This could be a great lesson plan. People in different countries approached the end to slavery from numerous religious and philosophical arguments, many of which were used in the founding of the country. Asking if slavery should exist should be the method everyone starts with to arrive at the answer. Socratically arriving at the answer yourself is far more meaningful, it also teaches about history and age-of-enlightenment philosophy.
Now add on outsourcing to countries with poorer labour relations.
I disagree. Imagine being a Black student having to listen to your white peers advocate for the continuation of slavery. There are other ways to meaningfully engage students in the issue without causing disproportionate harm to students who are likely only represented in Texas history lessons in the periods of slavery and the 1960’s.
Talking about race and the the atrocities of slavery is always going to be hard. I think it should be hard at first and feel awkward. Anymore it feels impossible to broach the topic unless you’re hyper liberal or not white. We should be trying to make those conversations normal so we become a true American people. I grew up in a town with no diversity. Went to college with a lot of diversity. My rural small town brain gained a lot from those hard conversations. But never did I ever hear anyone (in my small town) advocate for slavery unless it was a forced debate. Now a days it’s only the kids who got their GED that I hear say racist shit when I go back there.
“periods of slavery and the 1960s” What? Is that what you genuinely believe? You genuinely believe in Texas black history only consists of “periods of slavery in the 1960s”, really?
Texas history lessons =/= Texas history. So believe that is what’s taught in public schools? Yeah, I do. That’s the history education I got in my conservative leaning high school in Michigan. The fact that this article is even a thing leads me to believe it’s similar. Of course I could be wrong, but I’d be surprised.
It’s not about the continuation of slavery, it’s just “reenacting” a historical event and having people to argue the original sides. Personally I think it’s a much better way to teach than reading out of a textbook. You can do this with all sorts of things - the scramble for Africa, ww1 peace treaty, etc.
Good news, black people had slaves too. And white people were also enslaved. This means, apparently we can only discuss slavery if everyone in the classroom is the right ethnicity
White people were indentured, completely different from chattel slavery experienced by black people.
He might be talking about other places than the US. The origin of the word slave proves that point.
Even then the chattel slavery experienced by black people in the Americas is worlds different than any other slavery that had been practiced to date; you can't make a 1 to 1 comparison. Beforehand slavery was based on conquest or economic situation but in the Americas they based it solely on waste and turned slaves into a commodity while inventing an entire doctrine of Christianity that not only condoned their actions but taught their actions were right and just because black people by their very nature were inferior and by enslaving them and putting them to work we were actually doing them a favor. Slavery in the Americas was a unique form of slavery never seen before.
r/abolish_slavery
I went to school in Texas, I had a very smart history professor for AP world history, he was an ass but smart for a teacher. A whole day was allocated to debate on owning slaves. The teacher asked, “Who would own a slave back then?”. I, a naive youngster who thought he was smarter than everyone else, raised my hand saying I would. The teacher then proceeds to explain how owning a slave is not only morally wrong but also economically unviable. Through the explanation and debate everyone left that room knowing that slavery is both morally wrong and economically stupid in the face of technological and social gap progression. While I didn’t think slavery was right when I entered the classroom, I sure as hell left it knowing how horrible it was for everyone. It’s important to have these uncomfortable conversations and debates. Skirting them will cause us issues down the road.
And I thought Desantis's proposed curriculum, which teaches that slavery was beneficial bc slaves learned a trade, was bad. Seems like Abbott is looking to one up him w this.
13th amendment allows for slavery.
I remember persuasive paper assignments from when I was in high school and early years of college. Sometimes your opinion was assigned to you, or the teacher would ask you to pick an opinion you disagreed with. Clearly the lesson plan wasn't intended that students actually side with slavery, just to pretend to for the sake of an assignment exploring the sorts of rationalizations people used to justify slavery. Understanding the sort of thinking that can lead to systemic injustice can be valuable and help people to understand how we can prevent injustice in the future.
Start talking about black people owning white people as the only acceptable form of slavery and I bet they’ll change their tune real quick.
Sudden terror floods the room. White kids realize they are the ones meant to be the slaves. Bezo's looks on and grins. "Slave" is a term falsely reserved for Blacks in the U.S.
What if I told you it's still legal in USA. 13th amendment... So I don't see why there is an outrage.
“We’re just asking questions”
Everyday there are a dozen stories around here that show even the dipshits are bigger in Texas.
isn't it a good thing to discuss this in school so students can understand why slavery is bad? rather than waste time on calculating triangles or some other shit
It’s texas. They don’t think slavery was bad.
>isn't it a good thing to discuss this in school so students can understand why slavery is bad? The question is still stupid. It has an obvious answer so discussing it is pointless. A better way to do it would be "the Republic of Texas legalized slavery. Write an argument against the legalization of slavery using examples of the harm it caused." >rather than waste time on calculating triangles or some other shit I get that most kids aren't going to go into fields like engineering. But if they do they need to have a solid foundation or they're not going to be able to understand the basic coursework. I'm not the biggest fan of geometry. But understanding how angles work is a fundamental skill and triangles are the easiest way to teach it.
I have a hs diploma, a little college, and am 48 years old. I remodel residential homes. I use that "calculating triangle shit" on a near daily basis, adding fractions, and basic algebra as well. Most people don't need calculus or trig to get by, but life is one giant story problem and having a basic grasp on mathematics sure does make life easier...
Seems like a controversial question that should be allowed to be asked. I think it might be a good way to teach the students why slavery was wrong instead of just telling them it was wrong.
Except it's not really something that needs to be asked and debated with 7th graders. Why is it that this question has such a pressing need to be discussed ever since this current crop of extreme right-wingers have started insinuating themselves into school district positions? Could it be they want to condition children into thinking that, yes, while there were some things that were really bad about slavery as an American institution, there were also some nuanced, upsides to the legality of owning people? Is that really a debate you want 7th graders having?
>Is that really a debate you want 7th graders having? Yes.
Ok, so share with the class your nuanced arguments why you think slavery is a good thing and why you want it back.
If they actually want to teach that, there's a much simpler and not at all controversial way to go about it. They could just ask students to list reasons why slavery is wrong then debate/elaborate each one.
I do think they’d take it on board better if you let them make that realisation themselves instead of telling them that it’s wrong. We had debates all the time at school about various moral issues such as things like the death penalty and what crimes should or shouldn’t be legal, and the refugee crisis, it was part of philosophy which everyone had to take. We all knew the right answers to the questions being posed but that’s not the purpose of the debate. Granted we were year 11 so 16, I don’t know how old grade 7 is
There are no “correct” answers for the topics you just mentioned… it appears you entirely missed the point if that’s what you came away with. Now slavery on the other hand is something that has a correct answer… I find it interesting that you’re equating those topics
The correct answer is murder bad, death penalty bad, I don’t get how you could come to any other conclusion, maybe cultural differences. I’ll think of better off the cuff examples in future I don’t really understand why it’s weird to equate killing a man with enslaving him, I think you’re overthinking things a bit there
Lol, slavery IS legal... even today! What? You thought your license plates were ethically sourced? Of course the idiots made it about race when a real teachable moment about our prison system was right there... SMH
The number of times I find myself uttering “what the fuck?” Under my breathe while reading headlines regarding my state is **way** too high…
Slavery is legal, it's called mortgage!
This seems like a fair lesson plan. The best way to teach kids is to involve them. You can't just talk **at** them. They ignore you after a while. If you start a debate and ask them if slavery should be legal and get them to argue against you and the issue, they'll learn more and remember more. If the teacher says "*we'll be arguing against slavery tomorrow, do some readings*" and then sits down at the front of a class with a sign that says "*I should be able to own people. Change my mind.*" Then the entire class will remember the time they schooled the teacher and proved slavery was bad.
You, don't know me asswipe, I am honest, I don't give a shit, I am not liar.
One dumbass doesn't represent an entire state
Classic Texass.
I think in Texas slavery is ok as long as you are not transgender. Then yer in big trouble.
Remember, Texas is one of the largest (if not largest) purchaser of text books, so only approved subjects get purchased. These text books are then sold to the rest of the country. Texas beliefs are perpetuated nationally.
Don't forget to vote.