New State of Texas History Teaching Module

So-called Slavery and the Greatness of America

[Devised by the Texas Straight-Talkin’ History Committee in accordance with recent legislation.]

Historical facts

Students will be taught:

- Many years ago*, Africans who wanted to go abroad and experience the blessings of Western Civilization such as plumbing and liberty were offered free passage to North America in exchange for labor, sometimes on terms that to modern sensibilities may seem harsh; as a kind of shorthand, modern scholars came to call this slavery.

- Texas did not have anything to do with these labor issues, being too busy at the time fighting for their freedom to not pay taxes to Mexicans**.

- Conflict over the right of states to govern themselves *** on a number of issues including labor relations led to a War of Northern Aggression. Texans’ sympathy was naturally with the Confederate States, so much so that they continued to resist the North after the war was over.

- After a notorious period called Reconstruction in which rapscallions and carpetbaggers lorded the Northern victory over Southerners, promoting many former black laborers to Congress via affirmative action, American equality was restored under the government of Rutherford B. Hayes with the aid of moderate Democrats.

- In developments wholly different and distinct from and unrelated to the aforementioned black labor issues, in the 1960s some Americans of color, at the agitation of folk singers and communists, demanded a return to affirmative action and generous welfare benefits. A compromise was arranged between the U.S. Government and Martin Luther King Jr., whereby black Americans could use the same bathrooms as white people, and in return blacks would stop playing the race card and judge little children not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

- Nonetheless, for reasons that are still unsolved by science ****, African Americans go through phases of rioting. In an earnest effort to keep the peace, ordinary Americans occasionally make further concessions to African Americans, such as electing a black president. But they remain inexplicably intransigent, and sometimes Texas and its neighbor states must resort to punitive measures, such as limiting early and drop-box voting, to restore comity.

Exercises

- Think of ways you have used the word “slave” to describe working hard, but not under unjust coercion.

- Think of how you would feel if your sister were made to use the same bathroom as a transgendered person, and how that might be like the experience of an ordinary Texan in years past being made use the same bathroom as an African American. (Students may bring in grandparents who had experienced this to talk to their classmates about it.)

- Compare the position of Israel and its troublesome Palestinian population with the position of America and its blacks. (Note similarities, for example, between the dilapidated and ill-cared-for homes of the Palestinians and African Americans, and how that might cause jealousy leading to violence.)

- Role play, having black students (if available) take the part of whites and vice-versa, in which two people of different races have a dispute at the concession stand at a tractor pull and the “black” person calls the “white” person a “honky,” a “jive turkey,” or other racial epithets. Talk about the feelings this brings up, effective conflict resolution, and the importance of having a police panic button on your cell phone.

- For extra credit, discuss alternate theories of George Floyd’s “murder” and their suppression, the theft of the 2020 Presidential election, the junk science of social distancing, and the prophecies of Q.

[* Do not mention the date “1619” in any context.]

[** Any student mentioning contradictory resources such as the Teaching Texas Slavery Project will be disciplined.]

[*** Do not use the term “states’ rights,” which the Committee finds divisive at present.]

[**** Advanced students may be assigned “The Bell Curve” by Charles Murray.]