I took a book out of Old Forge Library called An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. Labeled, “A book for young people.” I hate to type this, but I get why some folks hate CRT, and I have been defending it. I still do.
     Yes, black and native our history classes when I was a kid were absent true history like extermination of both, driving them across the country: and I don’t mean just the Trail of Tears. The atrocities unmentioned in our classes have been plenty and they ARE part of our history. For too long educators were ghettoizing both, setting them up for failure to educate.
     There’s more, but let me just tag it with a far too mild “disgusting.”
     Yet, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States goes too far into committing the same sins, and “for young people?” I’m about as liberal as an old no longer Con gets, but doing what they do? If it’s wrong for the bad history purveyors, it’s wrong.
     There were plenty of whites who sympathized and helped natives.
     Plenty who tried to help Blacks, tried to free them. tried to free both. I understand: started as college level course. But if a book is for the young and there’s almost NO balance; all you are doing is confirming the crazy.
     I’m not asking for that being anywhere near as bad as the butchered version of history favoring: ironic since that’s exactly what happened to both without providing context. But I think more mentions of those whites who did try to help, to protect, who actually lived among them, slaughtered with them, would be more accurate.
     There are times I agree with the left, there are times I am more on the right. Partisans want to slap a canned meat, canned vegetable label on every ‘can.’ Or if you disagree with them the label, to much mocking laughter, reads “fruity.” They want you, they want me, canned and placed on the shelf of “we know exactly who they are.”
     I like to challenge such incorrect assumptions because that’s not even close to how it works with most sane people. As we get more and more specific we all disagree about something. Personal examples: unlike more on the left, I am generally not in favor of most gun laws. Pandora’s box and the Ark have been left open way too long, culture is what it is, and like Indian Jones the evil spirits have escaped. They are among us.
     However, when it comes to abortion I don’t want the state deciding for anyone, because the state that can decide one can’t have an abortion has been given the power to demand the politically inconvenient must get an abortion. We have accepted abortion by bullet since gins were invented. It’s called war, and bombs, and landmines, razor wire. How many abortions by bomb were there at Nagasaki and Hiroshima?
     Go ahead and call it collateral damage. If we are to accept “collateral damage” I would much rather one life lives and the state doesn’t decide which one for us. Why would you trust the state here, but not in other situations.
     The whole issue is nonsense, IMO. Example: do you trust the state that much.
     BTW, I am pro-death penalty. But I think it should be voluntary. Let them end their own misery: not the state.
     By “the state” I mean both THE states and the feds.
     I don’t believe in violence whether summer protests, or 1/6, but they are NOT the same. The difference being no president gets to decide whether they win or lose despite the EC or the vote count, or should encourage murderous crowds. If one in prison those who encouraged wish to leave this world, let them.
     When it comes to CRT I truly feel the authors have committed the same sin they criticize. And for KIDS? If it’s wrong, it’s wrong. And if they think writing it that way will balance it out, no, no more than FOX when Murdoch started the first organization that competed with CBS, NBC and ABC on a purely partisan model. Some dare call it “news.”
     I understand: children need to learn about the massacres: blacks, the indigenous: especially those who could be called illegal immigrants, except many tribes welcomed them. If we treat early education like we’re FOX on the left providing only the story where white man was wrong it will only get more idiotic CRT bans.
     DON’T HELP THEM.
     Please?

                                      -30-

     Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for almost 50 years, first published in fall of 1972. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks, and into the unseen cracks and crevasses, that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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