News bulletin: The Republican speaker of the Texas House has called for a Confederate plaque on the state capitol grounds to come down.
To which we cats say, big woo.
Really! Before you get all squishy about Joe Straus and his sudden attack of alleged reasonableness, remember that this is just one plaque on one building. The damage that the Republicans have done and are doing to the teaching of history is unbelievable — and it continues unabated.
That's because Texas is the largest state that buys school textbooks, and what goes into books used by students in Houston and Dallas and Austin and Abilene influences every other school tome in the nation. Here are a few of the howlers they've produced:
The Texas Board of Education has backed textbooks that tout the merits of capitalism and GOP policy positions, and question the Founders' commitment to secular government.
Republicans support textbooks that teach that McCarthyism was good, climate change is a hoax and the Bible is true. They also have supported books that portray Muslims in a negative light.
A Texas mom complained after her son's geography textbook called Africans brought to the Americas in bondage "workers" instead of slaves.
Joe Straus and his GOP friends in the Texas legislature have no problem with any of this stuff. So let's all hold off on anointing him as the new voice of reason because he wants to take down one Confederate plaque, okay? We cats HISS.
No comments:
Post a Comment