So much education and clarity in so few words, as is always the case with your daily newsetter. You are too classy to mention the book you wrote on this subject, but I will. "How the South Won the Civil War." A must-read, folks.
So much education and clarity in so few words, as is always the case with your daily newsetter. You are too classy to mention the book you wrote on this subject, but I will. "How the South Won the Civil War." A must-read, folks.
Am reading it now. I only wish that more Americans would take the time to know our history the way Heather has laid it out today. Because it is repeating itself.
I think there are too many Americans who don't believe that America could slide back to a time where democracy was secondary to hate, racism and class warfare. They are too busy ignoring the political mudslinging - it's so disgusting, why wouldn't one want to turn on that big TV and stare at social media nonsense on a fat phone?
Because we are in the process of losing the very essence of the nation that our Founding Fathers (and Mothers) risked their lives for. We are close to becoming the Italy and Germany of the early 20th Century.
I was a history teacher before retirement and had the good fortune of being able to actually teach history - rather than that watered-down thing called "social studies." One of my biggest concerns is that so many on the MAGA right manifest a remarkable ignorance of the history of their own country that they profess to be so patriotic about. Tudor Dixon's foot-in-mouth moment (she's also blissfully ignorant about THAT) is a perfect example. I think it would be very telling to find out how many on the right, including such congressional notables as Kevin McCarthy. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert, were actually exposed to history during their schooling. My bet: Nope. "Social Studies"
History and English major here. From these two disciplines I learned not only about our country and the world - past and present - but I also learned how to think, how to reason and how to come to rational conclusions about events, both past and present. The ability to think, to discern, and to learn is what is sorely lacking today, and that is woefully obvious in the halls of Congress.
Marg Yea verily and forsooth for the disciplines of History and English. These served me extremely well in diverse careers (with the fillip of a MS from MIT). Being able to think three dimensionally is essential in our modern-day world. One dimensional thinking is a hallmark of Trumpublicans for which we all. Are suffering.
I canтАЩt тАЬheartтАЭ your comment for some reason, Keith, but I do love your use of verily and forsooth. Bet Raphael and his ilk donтАЩt even know those words exist!
Marg Verily and forsooth from your humble and obedient servant (back in the 18th century this could be followed by execution or imprisonment, but in a most gentile manner.)
Isn't Raphael "our" guy? And, in response to Keith's comment below, being executed or imprisoned in "a most gentile manner" doesn't sound good at all. Back to reading class.
Also important to learn how to read (carefully), which should happen in history and English classes. (Also math classes, but a different sort of attention needed.)
I remember that, when I was a high school student, many of my classmates did not pay attention in our history class or do any of the required reading. They only did the minimum to get by and that did not result in much of an understanding of the material. They just werenтАЩt interested. I had traveled the country with my family visiting historical, patriotic, and governmental sites, so I had a context in which to fit the history lessons and was fascinated by it all. I think of of those disconnected students when I see the MAGA followers.
Susan, you have it right. Travel does indeed тАЬbroadenтАЭ one. I was lucky enough to have a Fulbright scholarship to France so felt perfectly able to return there as often as I could afford to. Recognizing the brain work required for a second language, I have written to Americans who donтАЩt тАЬget it,тАЭ that Ukrainians can learn the complicated weapons they receive in some part because they learned at least two languages and two alphabets in primary school. And have we noticed the excellence of the spoken English of so many Ukrainians on TV?
You were indeed fortunate. Your family's travels broadened your interest and understanding of the relevance of the storied on those history book pages.
Most Republican pols who spout quackery and conspiracies certainly know history. Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, JD Vance, Blake Masters, Ron DeSantis - all Ivy League and/or Stanford grads, most of them with a law degree. To be a successful Republican politician you have to proclaim ignorance for the ignorant voter base, but make no mistake, they are not themselves ignorant.
JR DeSantis was a history major at Yale. My understanding is that he was in the less rigorous general history major program. In contrast I was an intensive Yale history major in 1955. There the faculty provided an intense education to a limited number of history majors who chose to work hard to learn. More than half of the 37 initial intensive history majors dropped back to the easier track, where DeSantis started. Still, he should be ashamed of himself for his historical false fantasies..
Being intelligent is quite different from being book smart. Just about anyone can be accepted to an Ivy or any other university, do the class work, get the grades, graduate, on move on to a career. What is lacking in the cohort listed above is intellectual curiosity .
I had a friend in high school who had a straight 4.0 GPA all through school (highest possible at the time). She went on to a fine state university and graduated early with academic accomplishment. Her problem was once she took the class and got the A, she just moved on to the next course, just checked it off her To Do list. She took a quarter long course reading and studying James JoyceтАЩs Ulysses. As an English major, I expressed my admiration for tackling such weighted material and tried to engage her in a conversation about the book. It didnтАЩt make dent. Read the book, got the grade, moved on. No more interest in Joyce than she showed in any of her other subjects. No intellectual curiosity. My mom nailed it. тАЬSusie is as deep as a pie tin.тАЭ Thankfully, she never ran for elected office.
Marg Loved тАЬSusie is as deep as a pie tin.тАЭ As a professor I encountered students who tried to memorize, spew forth on tests, grab an A, and go on to the next academic hurdle.
I foxed such folks by having a THINK essay to write at the start of each class with the grades on the THINK essays (dropping one or two) comprising about 50% of their grade.) Some memorizers were pissed, while others learned. To THINK. Reminds me of the IBM ad: THINK or swim.
Spot on. Sad situation for too many students. You can always pick them out later on. Just try to have a chat with them about something 'significant.' Andy Borowitz has a new book out that includes this topic.
You reminded me of my English teacher - who was a history buff (even more so than my history teacher). Lloyd Feisel - a real mensch. I remember I was in his class when JFK was shot.
I was actually an English major, at UVA, but had an incredible professor for U.S. Diplomatic History, Norman Graebner. Everyone who had to take a humanities course but was not a history or even humanities major wanted to take his course. It was peppered with what a liberal arts education is supposed to provide: lots of "Ah, ha!" moments. "I never knew that! Wow." It was during the Vietnam War, and we read such eye-opening primary sources such as Ho Chi-minh's message to President Truman in '46 pleading with the head of our Republic - which had thrown off an earlier colonial master - to help Vietnam block French re-assertion there after WW II. https://todaysdocument.tumblr.com/post/640657324945620993/letter-from-ho-chi-minh-to-president-harry-truman
To think of how different history would have been had Truman sided with international justice for an Asian people instead of bowing to the wishes of our cultural cousins in France (who soon enough got their comeuppance from Ho Chi-minh at Dien Bien-phu). So, to make a long story short, I became a history teacher rather than an English lit. one. Gladly.
I studied business. I hate business, but it was because I am so terrible at math (I never mastered basic algebra) that I was packed into a mold common for girls in the 1970's living in small towns all over America - it was decided that I should study to be an Executive Secretary, whatever that was. but I always loved history and literature, reading about so many things that high school never covered. Eventually, I wrote investigative reports, newsletters, even legal documents for the people I worked for over the years, and then I went to the middle east and taught English until I retired.
We can all look back and wonder, "what if"? What if the Cuban missile crisis exploded? What if the US had never gone to war in Vietnam (I just bought Pol Pot's biography by Philip Short)? And what if Al Gore had become president instead of Bush? Today, I contemplate the long history of the decline of the American conscience, a price we pay for American greed.
I was 6 years old and sitting on my school bus waiting to go home when our school principal came and told us JFK was shot. Ever since, I've been aware of the constant creation of history all around me. It's always been my favorite subject.
That had to be incredible. I was 5, and could not understand why all the grownups were in the living room watching TV and crying. I was banished to the back of the house with my "Quick Draw McGraw" album for the week.
I subsequently had long talks with my folks about that time, and how devastated they were by that event; later, we could discuss the assassinations of 1968 (MLK and RFK) in a much more impactful manner.
I was married with two kids - one in school, & the other a toddler at the time - sitting on a hassock watching the Kennedys driving thru Dallas - it was awful - watching in real time - seeing Jacky leaning way out over the back of the car to pull the SS guy in. I still wonder - exactly who really was responsible. Especially with the hate towards JFK.
The ignorance of history remains astounding to me, but less so than their abject lack of curiosity. So many are not interested in what actually happened. As explained to me by a philosophy professor, this is the misappropriation of Galbraith's "conventional wisdom," where the root of "conventional" was actually "convenient."
Peter I was a community colleague professor from age 58-to-80 and was unrestricted in what I could teach, ranging from similarities/ differences early Judaism, Christianity, Islam and societal discrimination from patriarchy to тАШraceтАЩ to the present.
I retired in 2013 rather aghast at what high school graduates didnтАЩt know about our Constitution, the hard road for Blacks, Native Americans, women, sand immigrants from Eastern Europe and Asia (also, IrishтАФin BostonтАФNINAтАФNo Irish Need Apply).
I shudder to think what history is being taught in many US states. Some of the Republican blow hards know better, but they donтАЩt care.
After how many years of hearing white supremacist crap, I am not convinced that people like this candidate are ignorant. I think there is a deliberate and cynical manipulation of history by these candidates to support their racist views. Do the masses care? I donтАЩt think soтАФwhat they want are these destructive and hate-filled candidates to defeat the тАЬelitesтАЭ. What their candidates say is irrelevant so long as the libs are outraged. Thank you Dr. Cox Richardson for reminding us of the real history of the Republican Party.
I didn't know about the R-D switch until I took American History in college. Do you have to be an AP History high school student to get this information? Definitely sharing this HCR letter.
Peter Tenney: Rather than just тАЬSocial StudiesтАЭ (actually a poor choice of a title. ItтАЩs real function was to introduce isolated Americans to the cultures of other nations.); what we have lost is found in the study of History, Literature, and the Arts. That is: how does the individual fit in (or not) their larger society. And, when they donтАЩt fit in, how can that be remedied (or not)? We used to call that тАЬHumanitiesтАЭ. Not only did тАЬSocial StudiesтАЭ get a bad name from conservatives, тАЬHumanitiesтАЭ as a topic is no longer taught widely. It is simply a study of how History, Literature, and the Arts express the values of a time and how they change (or not) with the experiences of the society that generates them. We have other language difficulties, such as тАЬGlobal WarmingтАЭ. While it might explain the process, it doesnтАЩt explain the effects of that process -- as we can see every time it snows!
IтАЩm going to go out on a limb here to inject a bit of humor...IтАЩm a bit of a trivia buff and one of my favorite sources of minutiae are the Uncle JohnтАЩs Bathroom series books. I know, humor me...many salient points of interest have been made in this series, lots of fun stories, and also historical asides. And some inclusions are just bats*ht crazy, which sometimes makes what weтАЩre living with today seem almost normal. LetтАЩs all take a long deep breath or two and look ahead to what we hope will be a brighter and better future.
I wouldn't disparage "social studies" as invaluable. Look deeper into the cabal who decided decades ago that we ought not let those we didn't consider 'qualified' to learn too much about any of the 'social studies' including history, political science, sociology, anthropology, etc. Didn't want too much actual thinking, critically or otherwise, about these issues. Might have them wanting 'change' and you know how dangerous THAT is... (tongue partially in cheek) It's not an accident that these people don't know history or why it's important. And then just let 'em run around with guns... yeah, that's the ticket.
People are turned off by history because in the past education centered on the memorization of dates and facts. There was also an awful lot of distortion of the real events.
I'd make that "too many *white* Americans," and I might add "Christian" too. For many Americans it's not a matter of sliding *back* because we never really slid *out* of that long period where our "democracy," such as it was, was secondary to racism, sexism, and corporate interests.
Professor Richardson has done a couple of "chats" on Facebook twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays) since the beginning of the pandemic. They are archived to YouTube shortly after they are done live. If you go back to the very beginning of them, the first dozen or so (I'm guessing here) are, conversationally, about "How the South Won the Civil War").
I liked learning the stories of the past in history class. HOWEVER, I have learned so much vital history of America since I began reading this newsletter. Many thanks to HCR!
Agreed. тАЬHow the South Won The Civil WarтАЭ is a must read. We must tie our barbaric, cruel, colonialists history to the poor state of health we are in today! We are a nation of collective historical traumas. The damage to our bodies and souls has been inequitable, and inevitable, and is passed down from generation to generation with indigenous and Black peoples being predisposed to stress-related health conditions, and more vulnerable to premature death and death, as the Pandemic showed, due multigenerational trauma; inequities. (Inequity/injustice is trauma.) Just as the damage to the ability to build and transfer wealth has affected Native American and Black, Brown and other people of color the most, the health of BIPOC people bears the epigenetic damage of centuries of historical trauma, racism, systemic oppression, poverty, INEQUITY. We tie all of this together with public health data at PACESConnection.com, where we have been hosting a series on Historical Trauma in America with a webinar focused on each region about every-other month for the last 18 months. This is our passion and mission, to share the science of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study of 1998, and the hundreds of subsequent studies correlating the devastating health consequences of toxic childhood stress to adult health outcomes. We also focus on the newer science of positive childhood experiences (PCEs) and their buffering impact, hence PACEs for positive and adverse childhood experiences. On the ACEs side there is toxic childhood stress in the home (sexual, physical, emotional abuse and neglect, parental addiction and/or mental illness, incarceration of a family member, domestic violence of the father attacking the mother), community toxic stress (poverty, food and housing insecurity, racism, inequity across education, healthcare, nutrition, employment, opportunities, and on and on to include historical or generational trauma) and environmental ACEs, including environmental racism, pollution, climate change, the pandemics and epidemics, catastrophic weather events -- wildfires, floods, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, famines, droughts -- and more.
There is much more to share on this, so I am going to save what I have here and come back and drop in some links. So glad we can edit these posts now!
And so grateful for Heather Cox Richardson and her writings. Our dream is to have her join us for our Historical Trauma in America series someday, of course! The nexus historical trauma and public health and culture is a vital area of study. These truths, we hope and believe will help build understanding, empathy, and compassion, toward healthier, more compassionate communities.
I agree, instead of living in a society that provides security, economic support, and aspirations on an equitable basis across the land - for individuals, families, schools, workplaces, communities - we are stuck with a society oriented toward profits for corporations and discounting or exploitation of about 50% of Americans through racism, low wages, and lack of social supports.
Growing out of expanding knowledge of the tragic lifelong harms of child maltreatment, PACES knowledge has expanded to comprehend the persistent, intergenerational toxicity of racism and poverty. The current fabulist paranoia gripping so many Americans is boosted, but not created, by fake news and would be authoritarian politicians. It is the end result of decades of neoliberal economics (promoted by both major parties) which power boosted economic growth while ignoring people needs. This created the current state of massive income inequality which is destroying democratic society.
PACES wisdom is an underappreciated science/activity proven to rebuild and rehabilitate individuals, families, and communities from the ground up creating strengths and resilience in the midst of a failing and flailing society. It remains to be seen if it can part of a movement strong enough to stem the flood of decline and the loss of democracy. It also remains to be seen if interventions based on empathy, compassion, moral values and justice have the capacity to impact a political system now based on raw power.
Thanks, Jeoff. We have to use this knowledge as best we can. It is like sitting on the preventative for cancer, crime, poverty, hatred, depression, toxic polarization тАФ and NOT sharing it. The solutions come from the awareness of the problems: violence, greed, greed, inequity, greed and did I say greed? A system that rewards greed and inequity, that prevents hardworking people from creating generational wealth, that provides healthcare and a decent education to some but not all fosters the toxic polarization of the haves vs the have nots which is ridiculous. We are in abundance if our laws and policies were not created and perpetuated to stack things for the wealthy.
тАЬ the health of BIPOC people bears the epigenetic damage of centuries of historical trauma, racism, systemic oppression, poverty, INEQUITY.тАЭ
IMO, as a retired doc and public health officer, spreading the word on тАЬepigeneticsтАЭ is crucial to getting past older тАЬsocial/behavioralтАЭ models for understanding the true structural harm our society has caused BIPOC people (and whites raised in toxic environments.) As we better understand that regulation of the body, health, longevity has MUCH more to do with epigenetics than inherited DNA, we realize the direct physical harm caused by children being raised in inequitable environments and how the very real damage is trans-generational.
Thanks for further opening my eyes, Carey. IтАЩve only been peripherally aware of research on ACE - and plan to study it further, including reading the PACESConnection.com site.
This will give you some of an overview. Would love to see you join us and spread the word about the event among your friends who may want to know more!
Please join pacesconnection.com. ItтАЩs free. We curate and send a Daily Digest MTTF and a Weekly Roundup on Wednesdays. These emailed publications have the latest news pertaining to the learnings, policies, challenges, opportunities, events and more. Our YouTube channel has more than 100 free webinars; we dove into the pandemic with webinars as a way to connect our reeling membership of then some 50k people. WeтАЩre now more than 57,430 members. Many are pediatricians, educators, people with lived experience, judges, social workers, people in city, county and state governments who are coming to realize the upstream benefits of creating тАЬtrauma-informedтАЭ schools, clinics, businesses, courtrooms, government entities and more. My email is csipp@pacesconnection.com and I would be delighted to send you an invitation. We are an inclusive anti-racist organization led by educators, journalists, people with public health backgrounds and more. A nonprofit we were originally funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The California Endowment. I believe you will find like minded and amazing humans there who will welcome you. We also have some 440 or so cross-sector geographic communities and about 40 interest-based communities, and a LibSource resources center full of free materials and every PACEs-related publication we can find.
We have policy partners, too, in our efforts to track states that have passed trauma-informed legislation and are working to help our communities learn how to advocate for trauma-informed practices and policies.
This is a movement, not unlike a labor movement or the ACT UP movement to create awareness, understanding, and resources necessary to fight and end AIDs.
ItтАЩs a long-haul to change public policy and create awareness of the damage we do to everyone when we donтАЩt protect our children from the toxic stress of violence, poverty, racism, inequity, injustice, climate change, environmental racism, hatred.
So much education and clarity in so few words, as is always the case with your daily newsetter. You are too classy to mention the book you wrote on this subject, but I will. "How the South Won the Civil War." A must-read, folks.
Am reading it now. I only wish that more Americans would take the time to know our history the way Heather has laid it out today. Because it is repeating itself.
I think there are too many Americans who don't believe that America could slide back to a time where democracy was secondary to hate, racism and class warfare. They are too busy ignoring the political mudslinging - it's so disgusting, why wouldn't one want to turn on that big TV and stare at social media nonsense on a fat phone?
Because we are in the process of losing the very essence of the nation that our Founding Fathers (and Mothers) risked their lives for. We are close to becoming the Italy and Germany of the early 20th Century.
I was a history teacher before retirement and had the good fortune of being able to actually teach history - rather than that watered-down thing called "social studies." One of my biggest concerns is that so many on the MAGA right manifest a remarkable ignorance of the history of their own country that they profess to be so patriotic about. Tudor Dixon's foot-in-mouth moment (she's also blissfully ignorant about THAT) is a perfect example. I think it would be very telling to find out how many on the right, including such congressional notables as Kevin McCarthy. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert, were actually exposed to history during their schooling. My bet: Nope. "Social Studies"
History and English major here. From these two disciplines I learned not only about our country and the world - past and present - but I also learned how to think, how to reason and how to come to rational conclusions about events, both past and present. The ability to think, to discern, and to learn is what is sorely lacking today, and that is woefully obvious in the halls of Congress.
I also learned how to do very well on Jeopardy! ЁЯШЙ
Marg Yea verily and forsooth for the disciplines of History and English. These served me extremely well in diverse careers (with the fillip of a MS from MIT). Being able to think three dimensionally is essential in our modern-day world. One dimensional thinking is a hallmark of Trumpublicans for which we all. Are suffering.
I canтАЩt тАЬheartтАЭ your comment for some reason, Keith, but I do love your use of verily and forsooth. Bet Raphael and his ilk donтАЩt even know those words exist!
Marg Verily and forsooth from your humble and obedient servant (back in the 18th century this could be followed by execution or imprisonment, but in a most gentile manner.)
Isn't Raphael "our" guy? And, in response to Keith's comment below, being executed or imprisoned in "a most gentile manner" doesn't sound good at all. Back to reading class.
Also important to learn how to read (carefully), which should happen in history and English classes. (Also math classes, but a different sort of attention needed.)
I'm replying to myself here: reading is even more important than math. (I'm a retired mathematician, so my word is law on this topic.)
I remember that, when I was a high school student, many of my classmates did not pay attention in our history class or do any of the required reading. They only did the minimum to get by and that did not result in much of an understanding of the material. They just werenтАЩt interested. I had traveled the country with my family visiting historical, patriotic, and governmental sites, so I had a context in which to fit the history lessons and was fascinated by it all. I think of of those disconnected students when I see the MAGA followers.
Susan, you have it right. Travel does indeed тАЬbroadenтАЭ one. I was lucky enough to have a Fulbright scholarship to France so felt perfectly able to return there as often as I could afford to. Recognizing the brain work required for a second language, I have written to Americans who donтАЩt тАЬget it,тАЭ that Ukrainians can learn the complicated weapons they receive in some part because they learned at least two languages and two alphabets in primary school. And have we noticed the excellence of the spoken English of so many Ukrainians on TV?
Yes, I have noticed how many Ukrainians speak English. This is true for all of the western European countries, it's part of their education programs.
You were indeed fortunate. Your family's travels broadened your interest and understanding of the relevance of the storied on those history book pages.
Most Republican pols who spout quackery and conspiracies certainly know history. Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, JD Vance, Blake Masters, Ron DeSantis - all Ivy League and/or Stanford grads, most of them with a law degree. To be a successful Republican politician you have to proclaim ignorance for the ignorant voter base, but make no mistake, they are not themselves ignorant.
JR DeSantis was a history major at Yale. My understanding is that he was in the less rigorous general history major program. In contrast I was an intensive Yale history major in 1955. There the faculty provided an intense education to a limited number of history majors who chose to work hard to learn. More than half of the 37 initial intensive history majors dropped back to the easier track, where DeSantis started. Still, he should be ashamed of himself for his historical false fantasies..
Being intelligent is quite different from being book smart. Just about anyone can be accepted to an Ivy or any other university, do the class work, get the grades, graduate, on move on to a career. What is lacking in the cohort listed above is intellectual curiosity .
I had a friend in high school who had a straight 4.0 GPA all through school (highest possible at the time). She went on to a fine state university and graduated early with academic accomplishment. Her problem was once she took the class and got the A, she just moved on to the next course, just checked it off her To Do list. She took a quarter long course reading and studying James JoyceтАЩs Ulysses. As an English major, I expressed my admiration for tackling such weighted material and tried to engage her in a conversation about the book. It didnтАЩt make dent. Read the book, got the grade, moved on. No more interest in Joyce than she showed in any of her other subjects. No intellectual curiosity. My mom nailed it. тАЬSusie is as deep as a pie tin.тАЭ Thankfully, she never ran for elected office.
Marg Loved тАЬSusie is as deep as a pie tin.тАЭ As a professor I encountered students who tried to memorize, spew forth on tests, grab an A, and go on to the next academic hurdle.
I foxed such folks by having a THINK essay to write at the start of each class with the grades on the THINK essays (dropping one or two) comprising about 50% of their grade.) Some memorizers were pissed, while others learned. To THINK. Reminds me of the IBM ad: THINK or swim.
I think I would have had a love/hate relationship with you as a prof, and I did with several of mine. Always the best relationships!
Spot on. Sad situation for too many students. You can always pick them out later on. Just try to have a chat with them about something 'significant.' Andy Borowitz has a new book out that includes this topic.
History teachers were some of my favorite instructors.
You reminded me of my English teacher - who was a history buff (even more so than my history teacher). Lloyd Feisel - a real mensch. I remember I was in his class when JFK was shot.
I was actually an English major, at UVA, but had an incredible professor for U.S. Diplomatic History, Norman Graebner. Everyone who had to take a humanities course but was not a history or even humanities major wanted to take his course. It was peppered with what a liberal arts education is supposed to provide: lots of "Ah, ha!" moments. "I never knew that! Wow." It was during the Vietnam War, and we read such eye-opening primary sources such as Ho Chi-minh's message to President Truman in '46 pleading with the head of our Republic - which had thrown off an earlier colonial master - to help Vietnam block French re-assertion there after WW II. https://todaysdocument.tumblr.com/post/640657324945620993/letter-from-ho-chi-minh-to-president-harry-truman
To think of how different history would have been had Truman sided with international justice for an Asian people instead of bowing to the wishes of our cultural cousins in France (who soon enough got their comeuppance from Ho Chi-minh at Dien Bien-phu). So, to make a long story short, I became a history teacher rather than an English lit. one. Gladly.
I studied business. I hate business, but it was because I am so terrible at math (I never mastered basic algebra) that I was packed into a mold common for girls in the 1970's living in small towns all over America - it was decided that I should study to be an Executive Secretary, whatever that was. but I always loved history and literature, reading about so many things that high school never covered. Eventually, I wrote investigative reports, newsletters, even legal documents for the people I worked for over the years, and then I went to the middle east and taught English until I retired.
We can all look back and wonder, "what if"? What if the Cuban missile crisis exploded? What if the US had never gone to war in Vietnam (I just bought Pol Pot's biography by Philip Short)? And what if Al Gore had become president instead of Bush? Today, I contemplate the long history of the decline of the American conscience, a price we pay for American greed.
I was 6 years old and sitting on my school bus waiting to go home when our school principal came and told us JFK was shot. Ever since, I've been aware of the constant creation of history all around me. It's always been my favorite subject.
That had to be incredible. I was 5, and could not understand why all the grownups were in the living room watching TV and crying. I was banished to the back of the house with my "Quick Draw McGraw" album for the week.
I subsequently had long talks with my folks about that time, and how devastated they were by that event; later, we could discuss the assassinations of 1968 (MLK and RFK) in a much more impactful manner.
I was married with two kids - one in school, & the other a toddler at the time - sitting on a hassock watching the Kennedys driving thru Dallas - it was awful - watching in real time - seeing Jacky leaning way out over the back of the car to pull the SS guy in. I still wonder - exactly who really was responsible. Especially with the hate towards JFK.
The ignorance of history remains astounding to me, but less so than their abject lack of curiosity. So many are not interested in what actually happened. As explained to me by a philosophy professor, this is the misappropriation of Galbraith's "conventional wisdom," where the root of "conventional" was actually "convenient."
A sense of curiosity is, I believe, ever so much more important than even a good History class. The need to find out "what really happened".
Peter I was a community colleague professor from age 58-to-80 and was unrestricted in what I could teach, ranging from similarities/ differences early Judaism, Christianity, Islam and societal discrimination from patriarchy to тАШraceтАЩ to the present.
I retired in 2013 rather aghast at what high school graduates didnтАЩt know about our Constitution, the hard road for Blacks, Native Americans, women, sand immigrants from Eastern Europe and Asia (also, IrishтАФin BostonтАФNINAтАФNo Irish Need Apply).
I shudder to think what history is being taught in many US states. Some of the Republican blow hards know better, but they donтАЩt care.
After how many years of hearing white supremacist crap, I am not convinced that people like this candidate are ignorant. I think there is a deliberate and cynical manipulation of history by these candidates to support their racist views. Do the masses care? I donтАЩt think soтАФwhat they want are these destructive and hate-filled candidates to defeat the тАЬelitesтАЭ. What their candidates say is irrelevant so long as the libs are outraged. Thank you Dr. Cox Richardson for reminding us of the real history of the Republican Party.
I didn't know about the R-D switch until I took American History in college. Do you have to be an AP History high school student to get this information? Definitely sharing this HCR letter.
As best I could, I taught this "lesson" to my talented 8th graders, and I hope for many it "stuck."
Peter Tenney: Rather than just тАЬSocial StudiesтАЭ (actually a poor choice of a title. ItтАЩs real function was to introduce isolated Americans to the cultures of other nations.); what we have lost is found in the study of History, Literature, and the Arts. That is: how does the individual fit in (or not) their larger society. And, when they donтАЩt fit in, how can that be remedied (or not)? We used to call that тАЬHumanitiesтАЭ. Not only did тАЬSocial StudiesтАЭ get a bad name from conservatives, тАЬHumanitiesтАЭ as a topic is no longer taught widely. It is simply a study of how History, Literature, and the Arts express the values of a time and how they change (or not) with the experiences of the society that generates them. We have other language difficulties, such as тАЬGlobal WarmingтАЭ. While it might explain the process, it doesnтАЩt explain the effects of that process -- as we can see every time it snows!
IтАЩm going to go out on a limb here to inject a bit of humor...IтАЩm a bit of a trivia buff and one of my favorite sources of minutiae are the Uncle JohnтАЩs Bathroom series books. I know, humor me...many salient points of interest have been made in this series, lots of fun stories, and also historical asides. And some inclusions are just bats*ht crazy, which sometimes makes what weтАЩre living with today seem almost normal. LetтАЩs all take a long deep breath or two and look ahead to what we hope will be a brighter and better future.
Peace out.
Marg I like the Hornblower series and currently imagine Trumpublicans on the poop deck, while I struggle to avoid their excrement.
I wouldn't disparage "social studies" as invaluable. Look deeper into the cabal who decided decades ago that we ought not let those we didn't consider 'qualified' to learn too much about any of the 'social studies' including history, political science, sociology, anthropology, etc. Didn't want too much actual thinking, critically or otherwise, about these issues. Might have them wanting 'change' and you know how dangerous THAT is... (tongue partially in cheek) It's not an accident that these people don't know history or why it's important. And then just let 'em run around with guns... yeah, that's the ticket.
People are turned off by history because in the past education centered on the memorization of dates and facts. There was also an awful lot of distortion of the real events.
I'd make that "too many *white* Americans," and I might add "Christian" too. For many Americans it's not a matter of sliding *back* because we never really slid *out* of that long period where our "democracy," such as it was, was secondary to racism, sexism, and corporate interests.
And excellent online history class series based on it, done during pandemic. Still available ... incredibly worthwhile and valuable learning.
Link please?
Professor Richardson has done a couple of "chats" on Facebook twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays) since the beginning of the pandemic. They are archived to YouTube shortly after they are done live. If you go back to the very beginning of them, the first dozen or so (I'm guessing here) are, conversationally, about "How the South Won the Civil War").
Mike, I think this is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-Tz4awyyNU
Also, I highly recommend the book "How the South Won the Civil War" by HCR.
Thanks for the link! I just sent a request to the President!
Thanks, Liz, and yes, it would be.
Done!
Also - done!
Mike, this is a better place to view talks by HCR about the bookтАФHow the South...
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2dS6uX1RkUw2AWBqq_nEtAj1HpF8U-yw
Arthur
Many thanks.
Perfect for my homeschool. Thank you!
I liked learning the stories of the past in history class. HOWEVER, I have learned so much vital history of America since I began reading this newsletter. Many thanks to HCR!
Agreed. тАЬHow the South Won The Civil WarтАЭ is a must read. We must tie our barbaric, cruel, colonialists history to the poor state of health we are in today! We are a nation of collective historical traumas. The damage to our bodies and souls has been inequitable, and inevitable, and is passed down from generation to generation with indigenous and Black peoples being predisposed to stress-related health conditions, and more vulnerable to premature death and death, as the Pandemic showed, due multigenerational trauma; inequities. (Inequity/injustice is trauma.) Just as the damage to the ability to build and transfer wealth has affected Native American and Black, Brown and other people of color the most, the health of BIPOC people bears the epigenetic damage of centuries of historical trauma, racism, systemic oppression, poverty, INEQUITY. We tie all of this together with public health data at PACESConnection.com, where we have been hosting a series on Historical Trauma in America with a webinar focused on each region about every-other month for the last 18 months. This is our passion and mission, to share the science of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study of 1998, and the hundreds of subsequent studies correlating the devastating health consequences of toxic childhood stress to adult health outcomes. We also focus on the newer science of positive childhood experiences (PCEs) and their buffering impact, hence PACEs for positive and adverse childhood experiences. On the ACEs side there is toxic childhood stress in the home (sexual, physical, emotional abuse and neglect, parental addiction and/or mental illness, incarceration of a family member, domestic violence of the father attacking the mother), community toxic stress (poverty, food and housing insecurity, racism, inequity across education, healthcare, nutrition, employment, opportunities, and on and on to include historical or generational trauma) and environmental ACEs, including environmental racism, pollution, climate change, the pandemics and epidemics, catastrophic weather events -- wildfires, floods, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, famines, droughts -- and more.
There is much more to share on this, so I am going to save what I have here and come back and drop in some links. So glad we can edit these posts now!
And so grateful for Heather Cox Richardson and her writings. Our dream is to have her join us for our Historical Trauma in America series someday, of course! The nexus historical trauma and public health and culture is a vital area of study. These truths, we hope and believe will help build understanding, empathy, and compassion, toward healthier, more compassionate communities.
I agree, instead of living in a society that provides security, economic support, and aspirations on an equitable basis across the land - for individuals, families, schools, workplaces, communities - we are stuck with a society oriented toward profits for corporations and discounting or exploitation of about 50% of Americans through racism, low wages, and lack of social supports.
Growing out of expanding knowledge of the tragic lifelong harms of child maltreatment, PACES knowledge has expanded to comprehend the persistent, intergenerational toxicity of racism and poverty. The current fabulist paranoia gripping so many Americans is boosted, but not created, by fake news and would be authoritarian politicians. It is the end result of decades of neoliberal economics (promoted by both major parties) which power boosted economic growth while ignoring people needs. This created the current state of massive income inequality which is destroying democratic society.
PACES wisdom is an underappreciated science/activity proven to rebuild and rehabilitate individuals, families, and communities from the ground up creating strengths and resilience in the midst of a failing and flailing society. It remains to be seen if it can part of a movement strong enough to stem the flood of decline and the loss of democracy. It also remains to be seen if interventions based on empathy, compassion, moral values and justice have the capacity to impact a political system now based on raw power.
Thanks, Jeoff. We have to use this knowledge as best we can. It is like sitting on the preventative for cancer, crime, poverty, hatred, depression, toxic polarization тАФ and NOT sharing it. The solutions come from the awareness of the problems: violence, greed, greed, inequity, greed and did I say greed? A system that rewards greed and inequity, that prevents hardworking people from creating generational wealth, that provides healthcare and a decent education to some but not all fosters the toxic polarization of the haves vs the have nots which is ridiculous. We are in abundance if our laws and policies were not created and perpetuated to stack things for the wealthy.
DonтАЩt forget the lack of understanding of these issues brought on by the constant din of right-wing propaganda and mis-education.
тАЬ the health of BIPOC people bears the epigenetic damage of centuries of historical trauma, racism, systemic oppression, poverty, INEQUITY.тАЭ
IMO, as a retired doc and public health officer, spreading the word on тАЬepigeneticsтАЭ is crucial to getting past older тАЬsocial/behavioralтАЭ models for understanding the true structural harm our society has caused BIPOC people (and whites raised in toxic environments.) As we better understand that regulation of the body, health, longevity has MUCH more to do with epigenetics than inherited DNA, we realize the direct physical harm caused by children being raised in inequitable environments and how the very real damage is trans-generational.
Thanks for further opening my eyes, Carey. IтАЩve only been peripherally aware of research on ACE - and plan to study it further, including reading the PACESConnection.com site.
https://www.eventbrite.com/x/paces-connections-collective-grief-collective-healing-conference-tickets-418163758057?utm_source=eventbrite&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=reminder_attendees_48hour_email&utm_term=eventname&ref=eemaileventremind
This will give you some of an overview. Would love to see you join us and spread the word about the event among your friends who may want to know more!
Thank you Peter!
Please join pacesconnection.com. ItтАЩs free. We curate and send a Daily Digest MTTF and a Weekly Roundup on Wednesdays. These emailed publications have the latest news pertaining to the learnings, policies, challenges, opportunities, events and more. Our YouTube channel has more than 100 free webinars; we dove into the pandemic with webinars as a way to connect our reeling membership of then some 50k people. WeтАЩre now more than 57,430 members. Many are pediatricians, educators, people with lived experience, judges, social workers, people in city, county and state governments who are coming to realize the upstream benefits of creating тАЬtrauma-informedтАЭ schools, clinics, businesses, courtrooms, government entities and more. My email is csipp@pacesconnection.com and I would be delighted to send you an invitation. We are an inclusive anti-racist organization led by educators, journalists, people with public health backgrounds and more. A nonprofit we were originally funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The California Endowment. I believe you will find like minded and amazing humans there who will welcome you. We also have some 440 or so cross-sector geographic communities and about 40 interest-based communities, and a LibSource resources center full of free materials and every PACEs-related publication we can find.
We have policy partners, too, in our efforts to track states that have passed trauma-informed legislation and are working to help our communities learn how to advocate for trauma-informed practices and policies.
This is a movement, not unlike a labor movement or the ACT UP movement to create awareness, understanding, and resources necessary to fight and end AIDs.
ItтАЩs a long-haul to change public policy and create awareness of the damage we do to everyone when we donтАЩt protect our children from the toxic stress of violence, poverty, racism, inequity, injustice, climate change, environmental racism, hatred.
Thank you!
Peace!
Carey
Thanks for the heads up. I ordered it just now. HCR is such a great historian and
a readable writer. I hope to get a firmer grasp on this subject I've only had a fragmented understanding of.
Yes, a terrific book!
Or listen to on Audible!
Robert, agreed. "How the South Won the Civil War" is a must-read.
gonna read it....thanks Heather
Agreed.