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Editorial See other Editorial Articles Title: Proof Positive that Brainwashing Works In the study of History, it is important to introduce students to the use of original documents. After all, isn’t it better to read about the way things were through the words of those who were there, and the thinkers who rousted the stream of time from its sluggish, slumbering flow? Who better to tell us what was thought, believed, and acted upon? Certainly not the five or six generations removed, politically-correct, bowdlerized textbooks available to us today. At least that’s what I’ve always thought. But I have come to the sorrowful conclusion that today’s school brainwashing works, closing minds to reality, based on a recent conversation in my classroom. I am sure this will bring cheers to the lips of those who hate white people, including other, suicidal, whites. But that’s neither here nor there. We were discussing Reconstruction and the succeeding years, including the lives of prominent blacks of the late 1800s, and their different perspectives on relationships between the races and how to make them better. I’d given the students writings by several, and the recommendations of two whose attitudes were very different from each other, but also very different from the black-people-were-mistreated-slaves-and-wanted-only-to-be-equal mantra children hear repeated every year from Kindergarten on. The students had time in class and time outside of class to read what each great man had to say; in the last class devoted to the subject they were to compare and contrast the two very different points of view. Easy enough, I thought. Just read, digest, and regurgitate the information into the correct column on the table. Easy enough. Now I understand that many pitiable young folks today believe that any sentence longer than a simple subject-verb-object combination is unreadable. And surely those 19th century writers loved to stitch together a plethora of clauses and fancy language. But surely with a teacher to guide them through the reading and a yellow highlighter held firmly in hand a student could pick out the main point of a late-19th century sentence or paragraph. Surely! Five years ago I was able to guide my students through this little exercise with only small instances of suffering and uncomfortable exercise of relatively unused neurons. So I was unprepared for the sea of blank faces and hands firmly placed on the desks when I called for volunteers to share their information with the class. I pulled out my gradebook and went to my fallback system; encouraging participation by obviously writing down extra credit points for students who give information after I call on them. Usually this will get them going. “Mark!” I picked out a boy whose record for participation was sterling, hoping he would jump start the discussion. Mark sat quietly in place, his hands twisting together nervously, and he had the look; the look students get when they know the answer they are about to give is incorrect, but they can’t avoid giving it. “Mark, can you tell me what the great educator said about the things African-Americans in the South in his time should do to improve relations between them and white people?” “He said that the slaves should fight for their freedom, Miss Loflund.” “Mark, this document was written 30 years after the Civil War. The slaves were free already. If you look on the first page, fourth paragraph, you will see what he actually said.” “I can’t figure it out, Miss Loflund. It’s too hard to read.” I looked around the room, which was much quieter than usual. A multi-cultural sea of faces, all blank. Especially the white ones. I read a portion of the paragraph out loud. “To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land, or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next door neighbor, I would say: “Cast down your bucket where you are"--cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.” Silence. Finally, a girl with oriental eyes and blond hair tentatively raised her hand. “Miss Loflund, that sounds like Washington is saying that African-Americans should try to be friends and work with white people, but that can’t be true. Everyone knows that Southern white people were racist and treated black people like dirt.” Again, I looked around. A few heads were nodding in assent, the rest looked blank, or guarded in the way people look when they have opinions and are afraid to share them. “One of the most important things in the study of history is to learn about events through the voices of those who were there at the time, who can speak more knowledgeably then we can at a distance, and not to just apply what we think we think about the events of the past. To say ‘but it can’t be true’ about something said by someone who was influential at the time is to deny reality.” A new voice piped up into the silence. It was a boy who didn’t share much in the classroom, a quiet boy with what some might describe as a learning disability. Awkward and innocent, he didn’t know he shouldn’t share what he did. But the clarity of his statement and its fundamental truth cut through the burgeoning angst of the class. “Miss Loflund, you expect us to read these things and understand them. But they don’t say the same things that our teachers have been telling us every year since we started school. So why should we believe them?” The number of nodding heads had increased, as had the number of guarded faces. I could not help but sigh as I surveyed the perfect result of brainwashing year after year; a group of people who could not believe the truth when it was writ plain in front of them, by someone who should know. If a big lie is repeated often enough, people accept it as truth. Another first person statement from history. Why indeed should we believe the words of those who were there? Why indeed?
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#1. To: X-15 (#0)
Excellent.
Consequences. Not mere verbal knowledge of consequences remote in the past or future, but present. If they can be so contrived. Good piece.
Be happy, go lucky, go Lucky Strike today!
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