Notice that the reason stated for this change is a law passed by the Republicans that nothing can be taught that would upset white kids. Also they wanted to compare slavery with the immigration of Irish people. Hugs
The Texas State Board of Education, which is considering social studies curriculum revisions this summer, says the group has been asked to revise that phrasing.
A group of Texas educators have proposed to the Texas State Board of Education that slavery should be taught as “involuntary relocation” during second grade social studies instruction but board members have asked them to reconsider the phrasing, according to the state board’s chairman.
“The board — with unanimous consent — directed the work group to revisit that specific language,” Keven Ellis, chair of the Texas State Board of Education said in a statement issued late Thursday.
The working group of nine educators, including a professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, is one of many such groups advising the state education board to make curriculum changes. This summer, the board will consider updates to social studies instruction a year after lawmakers passed a law to keep topics that make students “feel discomfort” out of Texas classrooms. The board will have a final vote on the curriculum in November.
The suggested change surfaced late during its June 15 meeting that lasted more than 12 hours. Board member Aicha Davis, a Democrat who represents Dallas and Fort Worth, brought up concerns to the board saying that it wasn’t a “fair representation” of the slave trade. The board, upon reading the language in the suggested curriculum, sent the working draft back for revision. “For K-2, carefully examine the language used to describe events, specifically the term “involuntary relocation.”
“I can’t say what their intention was, but that’s not going to be acceptable,” Davis told The Texas Tribune on Thursday.
This group proposing second grade curriculum revisions was given a copy of Senate Bill 3, Texas’ law that dictates how slavery and race is taught in Texas. In it, the law states that slavery can’t be taught as a true founding of the United States and that slavery was nothing more than a deviation from American values.
“They were given Senate Bill 3 so that had to have influenced their mind with that being a document given to them right before they had to perform this review,” she said.
Ellis’ statement pointed out that slavery is currently not included in social studies instruction to second graders.
“The topic of slavery is not currently addressed in the 2nd Grade curriculum; this work is meant to address that deficiency,” he said.
Stephanie Alvarez, a professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and a member of the group, said she was did not attend the meetings when the language was crafted because of personal issues, but that the language was “extremely disturbing.” She would not comment any further because of her role in the work group, she said.
Part of the proposed social studies curriculum standards outline that students should “compare journeys to America, including voluntary Irish immigration and involuntary relocation of African people during colonial times.”
Annette Gordon-Reed, a history professor at Harvard University, said using “involuntary relocation” to describe the slavery threatens to blur out what actually occurred during that time in history. There is no excuse to use this language.
“Young kids can grasp the concept of slavery and being kidnapped into it,” Gordon-Reed said. “The African slave trade is unlike anything that had or has happened, the numbers and distance.”
If language like this is accepted and taught to children, it means the country is moving in the wrong direction, she said.
“Tell children the truth. They can handle it,” she said.
Texas is in the middle of developing a new curriculum for social studies, a process that happens about every decade to update what children should be learning in Texas’ 8,866 public schools.
This process comes as the state’s public education system has become heavily politicized, from lawmakers passing legislation on how race and slavery should be taught in schools to conservative political action committees pouring large amounts of money to put more conservatives on school boards who promise to get rid of curriculum and programs they consider divisive and make white children feel bad.
Last year’s SB 3 was designed to keep critical race theory, a university-level theory out of secondary schools even though the bill never mentions it. Critical race theory is the idea that racism is embedded in legal systems and not limited to individuals. It has become a common phrase used by conservatives to include anything about race taught or discussed in public secondary schools.
The work group that proposed this language change is one of several groups presenting their drafts to the state education board, which has the final say on whether to accept or reject them.
“I don’t like it because it’s a personal belief. I don’t like it because it’s not rooted in truth,” she said. “We can have all the discussions we want, but we have to adopt the truth for our students.”
A group of Texas educators proposed to the State Board of Education that slavery should be replaced with “involuntary relocation” in the second grade social studies curriculum.
It’s obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention that today’s Republican Party is one of the most virulently anti-Semitic elements in American society today.
Their support of Israel has nothing — zero — to do with love or respect for the Jewish people. It’s merely the party following the guidance of their christofascist puppet masters, the evangelical right.
“Israel must remain strong and vital in anticipation of the Second Coming, there, of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ who — in keeping with biblical truth — will then smite all non-believers, including the Jews.”
So as you read the story of how thugs enter a library and say they will prevent a event of reading to children and despite a 45 minute stand off with library staff asking them to leave, library security telling them to leave and the police coming and arguing with them, they get their way. Scared parents took their kids and left so the event was canceled. This is the brown shirts of the Republican party, scaring and threatening people to get their way and the police allowing it. This is stunning, it was a legal event supported by the patrons of the library and a gang of thugs was allowed to just stop it because they did not like it based on the rabid rantings of the Republicans in office and their rabid right followers. The accusations have no basis in fact, it is completely wrong. Yet this is the new fascist theocracy USA. Hugs
Minutes before a scheduled “Rainbow Storytime” program, about a half a dozen men walked into a reading room at the Tutt Branch of the St. Joseph County Public Library and demanded the event be shut down.
The men mostly wore black shirts and hats with yellow trim. At one point during the confrontation, one member unfurled a flag reading “Michiana Proud Boys,” appearing to identify the men as a local chapter of the white nationalist hate group.
In a video, the men badgered library staff and event attendees for around 45 minutes, calling the books that were to be read a “perversion” and belligerently asking “what gives you the right” to push sexuality on children.
Eventually the men left after being talked to by South Bend police officers and the library’s security personnel, though the reading event was postponed after most of the families went home.
“It is a shock and we are very disappointed an event celebrating LGBTQ+ communities was disrupted,” said Marissa Gebhard, communications manager for the library system. “Our staff are very affected by it.”
Gebhard added that the library will reschedule the event, which was planned in partnership with the Tree House Gender Resource Center, and will continue to offer programming “to all members of our community.”
“The library will always be a welcoming place for everyone of all viewpoints, so the library will continue to offer programs like this no matter what the response is,” Gebhard said.
She added that the books that were to be read were “carefully selected” and meant to promote gender inclusivity in an age-appropriate manner.
Though Monday’s standoff ended without violence, similar confrontations have played out in libraries and schools across the county in recent months as members of the Proud Boys have disrupted LGBTQ-themed events.
The Proud Boys has been designated as a hate group by multiple advocacy groups, and often engages in violence to further its white extremist agenda, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Local activist Tonna Robinson, who works with the Indiana Mutual Aid Coalition and Black Lives Matter South Bend, said the local Proud Boys chapter has not been active to her knowledge, but said the group’s attempt to target an LGBTQ-themed event at the library is part of the group’s national goal.
“This is an organized effort to disrupt and target LGBTQ people nationwide,” Robinson said.
Robinson pointed out altercations at libraries in San Fransisco, Wilmington, N.C, and Dallas in the last month, as well as an incident in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho where nearly three dozen members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front were arrested for planning a riot at a pride parade.
Earlier this month, federal prosecutors charged former Proud Boys national chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and four other group leaders with seditious conspiracy in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Locally, Gebhard couldn’t remember any other instances of library events being disrupted by white supremacist or any other groups.
Rainbow Storytime
A video posted by the Proud Boys appeared to depict the incident and begins by showing six men and their videographer walk into the library and stand in the middle of a room where staff were preparing for the Rainbow Storytime event. The event was set for 5 p.m. on Monday.
The men then accost a librarian setting up a whiteboard with questions about why she’s indoctrinating children with “sexuality.”
“You’re grooming these children’s minds,” one of the Proud Boys said. “This is our region and we will not have that in our region.”
A library patron then enters and begins debating with the group before a manager asks the group to leave. The group doesn’t and other staff and patrons come talk to and argue with the group for 20 to 30 minutes. One woman enters, identifies herself as a mother and also criticizes the event. Eventually, South Bend police officers show up and tell the group they can’t interfere the event.
Proud Boys members repeatedly deny disrupting the event, while also repeating the contradictory statement that they will not permit the event to take place.
At one point near the end of the video, an unidentified South Bend police officer tells the group they can remain at the library only if they quietly observe the event and not disrupt it. The members reiterate their intention to prevent the event, and the officer says, “You know the program is going to go on, right?” Less than a minute after police tell them they cannot stop the event, the video abruptly ends.
Rona Plummer, the St. Joseph Public Library’s director of branch services, arrived at the Tutt branch around 5:15 p.m. to a scene full of confusion as the Proud Boys confronted library staff, curious patrons and police. Plummer said library staff were concerned for their safety during the incident.
“The Proud Boys vocalized that the program was not going to happen, period. That’s where our concern was,” Plummer said. “It was very disruptive and it changed what was supposed to be a pleasant, positive experience into a confusing and negative experience.”
Gebhard and Plummer said they didn’t see any violence and don’t believe members of the Proud Boys were carrying weapons.
South Bend Police Department logs list the incident as a miscellaneous public report and show no arrests were made. A representative with the department did not respond to a message from The Tribune seeking more information about the incident.
Gebhard said the library has two security officers stationed at library’s main branch in downtown South Bend, as well as a few other officers at different branches. After Monday, library leadership is considering changes to security, Gebhard said, but nothing has been finalized.
— Indiana Mutual Aid Coalition (@INMutualAid) June 28, 2022
The Proud Boys recognized one person because Purple for Parents (a local hate group focused on schools) had doxxed her before.
This disruption is extremely concerning because it seems to be a part of coordinated disruptions of similar events across the country. 2/4 pic.twitter.com/QumqYn4Bxd
— Indiana Mutual Aid Coalition (@INMutualAid) June 28, 2022
In a video on their public Telegram channel the Proud Boys posted a video of themselves flashing white power hand signs during the disruption.
Hate like this cannot be tolerated, it is dangerous. At another disruption in Nevada a gun was pulled. 3/4 pic.twitter.com/L3HEBoffA8
— Indiana Mutual Aid Coalition (@INMutualAid) June 28, 2022
Far-right attacks on LGBTQ+ events are spiking around the country. In response, communities in North Texas are organizing for self-defense.
Newport, RI police officers are caught on camera going all-out with unnecessary brutality during a late-night arrest. David Shuster breaks it down on Rebel HQ.
Pro-democracy champion Texas Paul gives red alert plea that if we don’t stop the GOP they will turn the United States into a fascist theocratic state as they have already begun.
This happened in Poland but it will be happening in the US now. Women will die due to these anti- abortion laws and bans.
Following the US Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, CNN’s Melissa Bell takes a closer look at life in Poland – where abortion has been restricted for 30 years
/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/bc9fd95e277ba07b7e49d0e45206bccf/Cactus%20Elementary%20MG%20TT%2004.jpg)
Scottie's Playtime 