School censorship

[Sephiroth]

This has to be one of the stupiest things I have ever read in my life.

Quote:

LOS ANGELES ? A textbook review process taking place in states across the country has changed or eliminated references to everything from the Founding Fathers (search) to hot dogs, leaving many to charge educators with distorting history in the name of political correctness.

The review process, which is routinely done in many states, is meant to eliminate or replace outdated words or phrases. But what?s happening has a lot of people wondering ? quite literally ? "Where?s the beef?"

That?s because many textbooks will no longer feature pictures of hot dogs, sodas, cakes, butter and other kinds of food that are not considered nutritious. Nor will the books contain any phrases judged to be sexist or politically insensitive.

The Founding Fathers, for instance, are now referred to as "The Framers," in an apparent effort to make them sound less male-dominant. And there will be no more reading about Mount Rushmore (search), where the faces of four U.S. presidents are carved into stone, because it appears to offend some American-Indian groups.

The changes, which reflect a wide range of political correctness (search), have been brought about by pressure groups on both sides of the political aisle, as both Democratic and Republican legislators have been lobbied.

Snowman? No more. Melt that image and replace with Snowperson. Want to sail away on a yacht? No, again. It?s too elitist.

And if you think grandpa is a senior citizen, guess what? You?re wrong. That?s demeaning, according to the new standards. He is now simply an "older person."

The laundry list of words and images banned or considered offensive is not a short one. The word "jungle" has been replaced with "rain forest." The word "devil" has disappeared entirely, with no replacement.

Many of the changes seem to represent a direct assault on historical accuracy. For example, the new guidelines dictate American Indians should not be depicted with long braids, in rural settings or on reservations. There are no suggestions on how they should be depicted, however.

The problem there, say historians, is that some American Indians did wear their hair in braids, and generally lived in rural settings before being relocated to reservations.

Some say the changes are needed to better reach out to today?s diverse student population. Others have a different name for it.

"It's outright censorship," said author Diane Ravitch, who has written extensively on the subject of how the nation's schools have dealt with the issue. "It dumbs down our textbooks, makes them bland, far less interesting than anything children might see in the movies -- even in G-rated movies or TV.

"The problems that have happened in education is that the textbook publishers and the test developers have become so sensitive to any controversy that whenever they receive a complaint it is very likely that they will remove the source of the complaint," explained Ravitch.

Textbook publishers admit they are in a bind. They say if they don't adopt the changes made by large states like California and Texas, they would suffer severe economic consequences.

Still, there are those who defend the changes made.

"I think our textbooks should, to our greatest capacity, be free of any type of stereotyping," said Sue Stickel, deputy superintendent for curriculum and instruction for the California Department of Education (search). "We need to make sure that all ethnicities are represented. We need to make sure that both males and females are represented. We need to make sure that our materials cover the full gamut."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,85594,00.html

IMO, history is history. It shouldn't be censored. Who cares if it offends somebody? It happened, live with it. What next, are they going the rip the entire holocaust out of textbooks because it offends 99% of the Jewish population of the world?

[Tomboy]

Sephiroth,

I agree with everything you have said. I would like to add that I think these changes to our history are being made with a sinister purpose. Even more than just political correctness, I think this is a deliberate and considered effort by liberals to purge all vestiges of our country's true beginnings from our history. When a generation is raised that knows nothing about the strong influence of Christianity and personal morals on the founding of our government, it is easier to perpetuate the lies they have been passing as the truth for the last 50 years. For example, the notion of "separation of church and state". Many uninformed people think this phrase is in our constitution or bill of rights....WRONG! This lie was created by activist judges on the supreme court and DOES NOT reflect the relationship religion and government had for the first 150 years of our existance. If anyone cares for the true origin (with references to the original documents) of the "separation of church and state, I would be glad to add it in a later post.

In conclusion, this is just another step towards creating a nation full of dumb, passive and easy to manipulate 9-5 workers. They will be heavily taxed and dependent on government benefits to survive, but will be happy in their domesticated state.

Tomboy

===========

Edit:

The link below does a pretty good job of addressing the "separation of church and state" myth:

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/articl...TICLE_ID=32361

Tomboy

[DoG]

Hmmmmmm, not so much censorship as outright stupidity. WTF were\are they thinking?

[Zone-MR]

I dont know how far the situation has progressed in the US, but in the UK its completly ridicoulous. Every single textbook has to pass through censorship before it is printed to ensure there is the correct proportion of ethnic minorities, yada yada.

It is now "pollitically incorrect" to have a question which begins "john and jane are attempting to measure...". It needs to be replaced with "Sanjeep and Mohammed Singh Baldginder are attempting to measure...".

For fucks sake, do people not have anything better to do than dumben down the average person. Language only becomes offensive if it is treated as such. Anyone with an IQ over 2 can deduce that when I say "I think we should have a quick brainstorm to decide the course of action", I am reffering to a so called 'mind-map', and not saying "I think you should just lapse into an epileptic fit, shrivel up and die.".

It may be a difficult concept for the equal rights beurocrats to grasp, but ill try and explain it simply. Snowmen are white, because *SNOW* is white. Unless you add some urine to darken the skin tones, precipritation is not inherintly racist. Get over it.

If I wish to drink some "white coffee" as opposed to "coffee with added milk", I am merely stating my prefference of additives to a drink. The term "black cofee" does not in fact imply "faq off you nigger, I only want to deal with white homos" as some people might mistakenly think.

The people who are making excuses about how their jobs censoring textbooks and replacing names are vital for "social acceptance of ethnic minorities" perhaps need to rethink their outlook on life - im sure I get out more, and im a geek. If people treat snowmen as offensive and racist symbols, thats what they will become.

What these people do not realise is noone takes them seriously. I have made a habbit - each time I see a question about "Abul Madeek-Aught" (thanks gus for the name), I neatly cross it out and write "John". Why complicate matters?

[JacKDynne]

I have seen this stuff start to creep into the systems here in the US and am totally disgusted by it. Even the classic fairy tales are being distorted and twisted, a subtle form of propaganda and mind control that really makes the case for home schooling

It's funny how stories like this are not broadcast on the mainstream media channels (read liberal). IMHO the liberals here in the US are just pushing a very sneaky form of socialism; what Tomboy said about being sheep of the state.

I am gonna go have a hotdog and contemplate moving my family to a mountaintop where the major data pipes of the US pass through, so at least I'll have a fast connection

/JD

[adams]

Quote:

Originally posted by DoG@May 1 2003, 03:36 PM
Hmmmmmm, not so much censorship as outright stupidity.

my thoughts exactly. i haven't noticed it yet here, but then again i don't read the books much.

[war59312]

Yea just saw this yesterday on fox news. So stupid!!!!!!

[just_do_IT]

This crap has been in Canada for years and has progressively gotten worse. In my last job (Government Job) we had to take a course on what we could and could not say.

The funniest one that still stands out is in regards to people that cannot hear. For years we were taught to say "hearing impaired." The last memo I saw was to refer to them as "deaf" as they didnt like to be referred to as impaired. Quite a 360 as calling someone "deaf" was considered rude until just recently.

[billybob3]

Ya, I saw something on the news a few months back about these Indians. Turns out, researchers found the remains of what they thought was older then an Indian. However, it was on the Indian Reservation Property, so they could not investigate it. During the process of trying to find out more, the Indian's covered the whole thing up with rocks that they dropped from helicopters.

It's kind of off topic, but hey, it has to do with history.

[Zone-MR]

This has been going round quite a while, a little parody making fun of political corectness.

Dirty Old Man: Sexually focused chronologically gifted individual.
Perverted: Sexually dysfunctional.
Panhandler: Unaffiliated applicant for private-sector funding.
Serial-Killer: Person with difficult-to-meet needs.
Lazy: Motivationally deficient.
Fat: Horizontally challenged.
Fail: Acheive a deficiency.
Dishonest: Ethically disoriented.
Bald: Follicularly challenged
Clumsy: Uniquely coordinated.
Body Odor: Nondiscretionary fragrance.
Alive: Temporarily metabolically abled.
Worst: Least best.
Wrong: Differently logical.
Ugly: Cosmetically different.
Unemployed: Involuntarily leisured.
Short: Vertically challanged.
Dead: Living impaired.
Vagrant: Nonspecifically destinationed individual.
Spendthrift: Negative saver.
Stoned: Chemically inconvenienced.
Pregnant: Parasitically opressed.
Ignorant: Knowledge-based nonpossessor.
Sephiroth: Analy Gifted