Dishonest History

When I was in school, it was clear that history had been heavily edited. The Civil War was one topic where I could tell my teachers were lying to me.  Officially, the Confederacy went to war for reasons such as slavery and economic concerns. Unofficially, it was all about slavery. There was no discussion whatsoever about why the North went to war.

Since my school years, a few convenient omissions have been cleared up. One example was evidence that Abraham Lincoln was more concerned with preserving the union than ending slavery. From what I have seen, the right to secede was a major factor in the Civil War.

Since then, various online sources have written about what we're all getting wrong about the Civil War. Now, it is considered wrong to acknowledge any causes of the Civil War other than slavery. It has also been clarified that the North did not go to war over slavery. I have brought this up before. You don't have to be a historian to know that there is a serious problem with the new narrative.

This new narrative pushes the idea that southern states all mentioned slavery in their reasons to secede. Seceding is not the same thing as declaring war. Even if it were, that doesn't mean that other less consistent arguments made by southern states are irrelevant. More importantly, how can a war be solely caused by something that one side wasn't fighting over?

There have been other pieces of information that I have bumped into that I was never told in school. For example, it turns out that there were black slaveowners and white slaves. Why wasn't this mentioned in school? Probably because it helps their narrative that slavery was a racist act. There's no question that there was a significant racial component to slavery, but slavery is not a strictly racist concept.

Among the organizations behind the new narrative surrounding the Civil War is the controversial Southern Poverty Law Center. They created an offshoot to push their agenda to students called Teaching Tolerance. Teaching Tolerance received a lot of attention when they evaluated the honesty of school curriculum.

An obvious example of what Teaching Tolerance called out for dishonesty was the cause of the Civil War. They were among those who rejected any factors other than slavery. They had another item that they liked to call out for dishonesty that I found to be ridiculous. It was considered dishonest to refer to slaves as slaves. It was considered dehumanizing, and a slave should instead be referred to as an enslaved person.

It is not dishonest to tell the truth about what these people were called. If you're honest with children, they can understand that slaves were people. It's insulting to insist that you have to lie to them for them to understand.

Teaching Tolerance has since changed its name to Learning for Justice, but they haven't changed much else. They remain an agenda-driven institution. Agenda-driven history is, by nature, dishonest history. Creators of agenda-driven history are amplifying anything that benefits their cause and omitting details that don't fit their narrative. Instead of starting with the truth, they are providing an intentionally deceptive perspective.

Learning for Justice isn't alone. The 1619 Project clearly qualifies as agenda-driven history. It was an open attempt to reframe America's founding around slavery. It didn't take much time before historians slammed the project for its inaccuracies. After the 1619 Project was effectively debunked, it won the Pulitzer Prize. Now, curriculum is being built around the 1619 Project.

There has been a lot of outrage aimed at indoctrinating children with curriculum based on the 1619 Project. Teachers' unions have come to the defense. If you are against forcing this piece of agenda-driven history, you must be against truth and honesty. Again, this is an agenda-driven curriculum. As such, it can't be honest. Teachers still have no problems insisting that anyone who doesn't want to indoctrinate children with a false narrative is afraid of the truth.