There’s two main things I learned about the 1921 Tulsa massacre when I was in school:
- It happened.
- It was racially motivated.
The blacks were way more successful than the whites, and whites don’t handle “others” being more successful. So, instead of working hard & picking themselves up by their bootstraps, they killed all the people that were more successful than them.
So all I’m hearing is “this Republican’s family was involved in a massacre 100 years ago & they want to downplay it.”
That’s more than what I learned about it in school, because it never came up at all.
Yeah I’d love to hear about who learned about it in school and where.
I didn’t learn about it until my political sociology course in college.
On a side note, A Different Mirror: A History of Multiculturalism in America by Ronald Takaki is a really good book to read for more of these lesser known historical events that should really be known by everyone.
I have a hard time chalking stuff like that up to
I have a hard time chalking stuff like that up to pure propaganda or purposeful exclusion. I went to very conservative schools in very conservative states, and I still learned about a lot of “controversial” topics that come up in these conversations.
I think a lot of it is people forgetting something they were taught in school. I’ve absolutely forgotten a hell of a lot.
I’m guessing you either went to decent schools or took ap classes where they had to teach it.
The normal history classes I took brushed past huge swathes of history, while the ap classes actually covered them quite well.
Oh cool a form of “ethnic cleansing” that has nothing to do with race actually.
Like saying water is made of H2O but it doesn’t have hydrogen. 🤷
They out here saying two gases make a liquid! That defies common sense. They’re trying to make you look like idiots!
- Republicans probably
Tries to light a snowball on fire on the House floor
Checkmate, commie groomers!
Did they really nail it the day before it happened, or are all their articles from “yesterday”?
This article came out today, but the comments happened 2 days ago. So the onion “replied” the day after his comments.
As far as I know their dates are accurate. Time travel? Maybe that’s how they get so good at it.
Thing I like about lemmy is that the comments aren’t full of people seriously defending this shit.
Take a deep breath and inhale… This is a moment we want to remember.
I really hope lemmy keeps being openly hostile to bigots.
I see that Threads / Meta is welcoming them with open arms. (Anything for those sweet new user numbers!) Poor moderation seems to attract the worst and most miserable of society. Reddit will also be infested soon.
At least those garbage dumps keep all the freeze peaches in the honey pot, but I do feel bad for the sane people who accidentally wander inside.
Yet!
Well, so much for that…
It’s people like you that don’t want a nuanced discussion. It’s either you’re a good liberal that ticks all the boxes or you’re David Duke. There is no in between.
There’s not much nuance in a mob of people murdering a bunch of other people because of their skin color. That’s pretty much as far from nuance as you can get. Yeah there’s a lot going on around this but that’s the story we’re talking about.
The nuance isn’t about the massacre, but about why should white kids be made to obsess about it? Teach it and move on to the next subject.
See, this is why we can’t have a discussion. First, there’s your claim that we “don’t want nuance” here.
Then you immediately go to “racist liberal communist school teachers are brainwashing white youth to hate themselves” talking points. Sure you watered them down a bit, but that’s because they were watered down to make them palpable to you.
Great Replacement Theory. You’re pushing shitstain fascist (mainly neo-Nazi) propaganda; whether you realize it or not.
So maybe you should shut the fuck up until you gets your head in order.
Because we aren’t being taught it. I had a pretty good education and even I hadn’t heard of this until I personally looked into years later. It’s absolutely pertinent to learn that that there was a racially motivated massacre of successful black people that the authorities did nothing to quell – within the last century on American soil.
but about why should white kids be made to obsess about it?
Oh, the horrors of having to come to terms with your ancestors not being perfect paragons of virtue. The only true oppression.
There are political consequences to shoving a 1-sided history down the throats of white kids.
There are political consequences to shoving a 1-sided history down the throats of white kids.
Yes. We’ve seen what happens when we do. We get people like you who are threatened by teaching history as it happened instead of some sanitized version that doesn’t offend white people. I notice that you don’t give a solitary shit if black people are offended by you teaching lies to their children.
Also, what’s conservatives’ obsession with your throats?
Republicans are obsessed with children genitalia, not surprised they’re also concerned about what fits down their throats. Gross.
It’s people like you that don’t want a nuanced discussion.
There’s no nuance to be had here. It was a racism-fueled massacre.
What nuances are involved in the government bombing their own citizens?
Please, defend that action or the attempts to minimize it in recent history. Y’know, romance for me. Make me understand.
There are certain things where there is no in between, bigotry and government sanctioned murder fall imto that category.
I still remember KKK rallies being held in American towns back in the 1980’s, they were all over television
Don’t f****ing tell me America isn’t racist, that’s a bold faced lie and it’s a lie that we’ve known about for so many decades which is why children have a right to know, and ought to know, the truth. Keeping the truth from them isn’t going to solve anything. When America deals with it’s demons out in the open, for everyone to see it brings more of us together
David Duke was in the Louisiana House when I was alive
David Ernest Duke (born July 1, 1950) is an American politician, author, white supremacist, antisemitic conspiracy theorist, and former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. From 1989 to 1992, he was a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives for the Republican Party
for the Republican Party
But morons online keep telling me that Democrats are the real racists?
for the Republican Party
But morons online keep telling me that Democrats are the real racists?
Hurr-durr LiCoLn WaS a RePubLicAn!
It always comes back to projection. When you accuse your “enemy” of something, it doesn’t seem as bad when you do it.
I know, it’s absolutely insane
KKK rallies are still occurring and in more frequency since 2012.
“Unite the Right” wasn’t that long ago.
I’d be curious to hear him say what it WAS motivated by. Lol
Ultimately, of course (according to the article), he does, sort of, admit it was motivated by race:
“1. The Tulsa race massacre is a terrible mark on our history. The events on that day were racist, evil, and it is inexcusable. Individuals are responsible for their actions and should be held accountable.
“2. Kids should never be made to feel bad or told they are inferior based on the color of their skin.”
I guess he is claiming that saying “people of race X murdered people of race Y because they are race Y” will make kids of race X feel bad? That’s the only (tenuous) link I can see here. It’s absurd on its face, of course.
According to the article, he really weasel-worded things:
Ryan Walters … said teachers could cover the 1921 massacre … but … should not “say that the skin color determined it”.
It’s weaselly because he didn’t outright say that it wasn’t racially motivated, just that teachers shouldn’t say that it was. Because of some kids’ feelings, apparently.
The best bit is his word salad response to the question of why the massacre doesn’t fall under his definition of Critical Race Theory:
“I would never tell a kid that because of your race, because of your color of your skin, or your gender or anything like that, you are less of a person or are inherently racist.
“That doesn’t mean you don’t judge the actions of individuals. Oh, you can, absolutely. Historically, you should: ‘This was right. This was wrong. They did this for this reason.’
“But to say it was inherent in that … because of their skin is where I say that is critical race theory. You’re saying that race defines a person. I reject that.
“So I would say you be judgmental of the issue, of the action, of the content, of the character of the individual, absolutely. But let’s not tie it to the skin color and say that the skin color determined it.”
What does this even mean? It’s fine to say that there was a reason for an action, and that the action was wrong… but if you say that the action was racially motivated, that’s not OK, because (here’s a massive leap of logic) that means race defines a person?
“Let’s not tie it to the skin color and say that the skin color determined it” is really just arguing that we shouldn’t care about motive. He acknowledges the massacre was wrong, but doesn’t want anybody to know why it occurred. I wonder if he’s as critical of racial motive when it’s black-on-white violence, for example…
All of this “anti CRT” revisionist bullshit revolves around the concept that teaching the history of racism in America must be avoided because it hurts the feelings of white children to know that white people have a history of being racists. So, the solution is, apparently, never to tell them that.
It’s pretty fucking disgusting. 
I think what he’s trying to say (his misunderstanding) is that he thinks Critical Race Theory (and all teaching about racism and its effects) inherently and unfairly labels all white people as “racist” and that that - in an of itself - is racist against white people.
His misunderstanding is that what he’s actually feeling is accountability and guilt. He doesn’t like feeling held responsible for situations that he feels weren’t or aren’t within his direct control. It makes him feel judged as being “bad” merely for existing.
When in reality, the only “bad” he is doing is fighting against the measures (like education) that bring equality, and/or doing nothing - by refraining from supporting those measures.
He doesn’t feel it should be his responsibility to compensate for the actions of his ancestors and the ancestors of other white people, that led to situations of inequality that still exist today. And he also doesn’t want to be held accountable for situations in the present day that disadvantage and treat minorities unfairly either.
He doesn’t feel that it is within his scope of responsibility to ensure that minorities can enjoy the same quality of life as the majority.
That’s what it all comes down to.
In the twisted heart of people like this is that they genuinely believe in their inherent superiority. White people persecuting black people is just the natural order of things. Accusing them of atrocity for that is racist, like making fun of a black person for their hair. He just can’t come out and say that.
I seriously doubt he feels guilty.
As a white person and former conservative, I can tell you flat out that most of these people don’t believe that white people are inherently superior. But they still harbor racist attitudes and viewpoints. It’s a weird mental gymnastics. And a LOT of it comes down to them being taught eugenics and social Darwinism.
I dunno. I’ve never been very conservative but I’m a white man who spent much of my life doing blue collar work in small town Missouri and people make assumptions about such a person. Did people tell me they thought minorities were inferior? No, not often, but they were assumed to be lazy, or dishonest, or criminal (often by lazy dishonest criminals).
The thought that they had been better off as slaves than they had been in Africa, or that George Floyd got what he deserved was pretty common. And many of the people I worked with were black, some of the people who held these views would have called them friends; but they never would have acknowledged them as equals, not if they weren’t around. It was just a sort of tribalism that no one really explored or talked about it.
I’m not disagreeing with you. I’m sure your lived experience is different from mine. But people like that may not be as rare as you think.
I think we’re saying the same thing.
What he said is weirdly incoherent.
I’m surprises they didn’t outright denied it ever happened.
Funny, I don’t even live in the USA, and I know about Tulsa, who the people that died were, and whose homes and businesses were burned to the ground… How is it that someone who lives where it happened doesn’t know?
That’s some serious weapons-grade ignorance there.
Never learned about this in school. It took the HBO show Watchmen to bring it to most Americans attention.
It’s not ignorance when our elected officials make sure our education is sub-par. Its sabotage.
It is not taught in schools. That’s the simple and unfortunate answer.
OT, but are you the FlyingSquid who used to spend a lot of time in /r/skeptic?
That’s me. Good to see (or sea?) you on this side!
Absolutely!
I’d say its more weaponized ignorance. He knows what happened and why. He’s a current racist that doesn’t want past racists cast in a bad light. His ilk define critical race theory as being critical of racism and they don’t care for it.
I mean, as someone who teaches critical race theory, I’d say it is very critical of racism and the dynamics that create it, in addition to other things.
Removed by mod
Not ignorance, propaganda. People in the US don’t know because, for the status quo to continue without major upheaval, they must not know. Not just Tulsa, but all this history.
That’s some serious weapons-grade ignorance there.
Lets call it “Keeping people dumb enough to be ruled”. It is done on purpose, on many levels, mostly in REP run states.
Official denial of past racism as current political policy is a perfect example of systemic racism
…nailed it
“Who controls the past now controls the future. Who controls the present now controls the past.” - “Testify”, Rage Against the Machine (also Orwell in 1984, but I wanted to mention the RATM song since it slaps so hard)
“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
The main character of that book literally revises words for a living and you went with a quote about seeing actual evidence of a thing and ignoring it, which is the opposite of not teaching it.
In a text, Walters, who has previously pushed a conspiracy theory that schools had installed litter boxes in classrooms to accommodate children who identified as cats, said “the media is twisting” his remarks.
Gotta love critical reporting.
I went to a Tulsa county school when growing up. The Black Wall Street massacre was brought up in a history class briefly. Maybe a page or two in a history book. We didn’t delve into it deep at all, they just made us aware it was a thing. This was back in the early 00’s.
Went to school in the south, I didn’t know it happened at all until the HBO show watchmen, and at first I thought it was a made up event.
It’s not surprising it happened, it’s just denied or downplayed anyway. The south liked to pretend everything that happened after the civil war was them being victimized by the evil northern carpetbaggers and maybe some confused people who might have gone too far.
Same experience, I grew up in Arkansas so a neighbor to Oklahoma. You’d think something of that historical significance would be covered thoroughly. But nope. I was in third or fourth grade with Timothy McVeigh bombed a municipal building in Oklahoma and they wheeled in a TV on one of those media carts for us to watch that, though.
How long before Republicans don’t want anyone to teach why McVeigh did it?
Arkansas is a very dangerous place to be poor
Oklahoma public education here. I didn’t learn about the Tulsa race massacre until the blm movement kicked off a few years ago.
Stuff You Should Know podcast did a very informative one about this topic:
That was my introduction to this shameful piece of American history.
In a text, Walters, who has previously pushed a conspiracy theory that schools had installed litter boxes in classrooms to accommodate children who identified as cats, said “the media is twisting” his remarks.
A hilarious and purposefully ironic phrasing that is an absolutely brutal and hilarious takedown of this clown.
Oh look, it’s the dipshit who believed kids were identifying as cats and shitting in litter boxes. I bet he has something intelligent to say! /s
