The boy said to Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, “Ain’t that whitewashing history?”
Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered carelessly:
“Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain’t. All I know is, it suits Tom Horne.”
(With apologies to Mark Twain for my “fractured fairy tale” reading of Tom Sawyer, Chapter Two, 1876)
*****
Yessir! It sho’ does suit Massa Horne, who’s running for Arizona State Attorney General. Seems like he’s running his campaign from the front porch of some kind of antebellum mansion though, sippin’ on mint juleps as “overseer” – uh, I mean Superintendent of Public Instruction – for the state some of us are beginning to call the “Mississippi of the Southwest.”
Tom Horne is the champion of Arizona’s latest legislative outrage, recently signed by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer. It’s called HB 2281, and it’s about horsewhippin’ the Tucson Unified School District for gittin’ all uppity in their curriculum by including a Mexican-American studies program. The subversive vision of these revolutionaries?
“The Mexican American Studies Department is dedicated to the empowerment and strengthening of our community of learners. Students will attain an understanding and appreciation of historic and contemporary Mexican-American contributions.”
Sounds pretty dangerous to me. Tom Horne thinks so, too. HB 2281 threatens to punish TUSD and any other Arizona schools who offer programs which:
1. Promote the overthrow of the United States Government.
2. Promote resentment toward a race or class of people.
3. Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.
4. Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.
Really, now, what could be wrong with banning “ethnic studies” classes? Why do we need to confuse our Mexican-American or African-American or Native American or Asian-American kids, when they can just sign up for the whitewashed classes called “American History?” We certainly don’t want them learning about racism and oppression, and the nativist right-wing racists who supported slavery in the Confederacy and elsewhere, and whose ideological descendants are now venting their spleens about people of a lighter shade of brown. For chrissakes, the latinos in Arizona might learn who’s been screwin’ ‘em all these decades, and start votin’ Democratic! They’re 30 percent of the Arizona population and havin’ kids with funny foreign names like Hey-soos and Mar-ee-yah (See, I told you the porous border was connected to terrorists…Jesus and Mary were from the Middle East!) Add in the 14 percent of Arizonans who report themselves as Black, American Indian, Asian, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander and Persons Reporting Two or More Races (miscegenation!!), and that 44 percent might challenge the God-given right of white people – especially Republican white people – to rule the world!
Besides, Mr. Horne is just jumpin’ on a national bandwagon. In many places across our fearful nation, like the Great Racist State of Texas, nut-jobs are actually re-writing history textbooks to downplay such messy little contretemps as slavery, the rationale for separation of church and state, the role of Thomas Jefferson as a Founding Father, while including Confederate President Jefferson Davis’s inaugural address as a counterpoint to the first inaugural of President Lincoln (“Abe, you ignorant slut!”).
Now it seems this whole thing got personal for our esteemed Superintendent when labor activist Dolores Huerta allegedly told a group of students “Republicans hate latinos.” So the Super, using the critical thinking skills he likes to model for his youthful charges, thought to himself, “I’ll show her! I’m gonna pass a bill that proves Republicans hate latinos! I’m gonna cover up past racism by instituting some current and future racism!” Well-played, Tom.
According to Mr. Horne, the ethnic studies classes “are teaching a radical ideology…including that Arizona and other states were stolen from Mexico.”
One little problem. We did steal it. “President Polk sanctioned war to annex California and the Southwest, believing American exceptionalism would make this grab for territory morally different from European imperialism, which he condemned,” according to Jeffrey Mankoff, in “The Lessons of Mr. Polk’s War,” and according to all the other reality-based historians.
OK, Tom…give it another try:
Studying ethnic history is “just like the old South, and it’s long past time that we prohibited it,” Horne said.
I think you’re holding the textbook upside down, Tom. Here…that’s more like it. Let’s read it right-side up. This is a nice piece of real U.S. history – “A Dangerous Pamphlet in the Old South,” by Clement Eaton, published in 1936 in The Journal of Southern History.
“During the late autumn of 1829 a dangerous incendiary pamphlet was found circulating among the blacks at Savannah, Georgia. (Ed. Note: the slaves weren’t even allowed to attend school in the Old South, so this was their version of ethnic studies). Later the same pamphlet was discovered in the possession of Negroes in the Upper South. The governor of North Carolina was informed of its appearance at Wilmington by a magistrate of police who described its contents as ‘treating in most inflammatory terms the condition of the slaves in the Southern States exaggerating their sufferings, magnifying their physical strength and underrating the power of the whites; containing also an open appeal to their natural love of liberty; and throughout expressing sentiments totally subversive of all subordination in our slaves.’ This document, entitled Walker’s Appeal in Four Articles Together with a Preamble to the Colored Citizens of the World, But in Particular and Very Expressly to Those of the United States of America, frightened two states into enacting laws prohibiting the circulation of incendiary publications and forbidding the teaching of slaves to read and write.”
OK, class, that’s your history lesson for today. Now let’s use some plain English (or plain Spanish or plain any other language) to understand what Tom Horne and his confederates are really saying here:
“A school district or charter school in this State shall not include in its program of instruction any courses or classes that:
1. Promote understanding of how the United States Government has given aid and comfort to racists across the nation and on the U.S.-Mexico border throughout its history.
2. Promote resentment toward a race or class of people, unless it’s the white Republican “real Americans” doing the resenting, and those dirty Mexicans and liberal fellow-travelers and socialists, including the current half-black President of the United States, being resented.
3. Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group, unless that group is a whiter shade of pale.
4. Advocate ethnic solidarity unless it’s white solidarity.
Quiet down, class. Yes, I know this is outrageous. Yes, I know you’re pissed. But it’s time to test your understanding of the subject with a little pop-quiz.
Question: What do Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, Tom Horne, the wing-nuts in the Arizona legislature, HB 2281, SB 1070 and up to 70 percent of Arizonans have in common?
Answer: Their favorite color is white.
Class dismissed.
Behind The Curtain | Contributor
Left-wing corporate executive. Arizona native. U.S. Navy veteran, former firefighter, backpacking guide and outdoor instructor. 50-something Non-HeteroNormative male. Dog lover. Speaking of dogs, remember Toto in The Wizard of Oz? We could all use more of that terrier spirit. Pull back the curtains to find the wizards behind them. Shine a bright light on the people who have buried our state and the nation in red-tiled roofs, golden arches, and a fog of little white lies so thick we can almost skip the sunscreen. Expose those Masters of the Universe and bankers and media moguls and advertisers and wing nuts and fools. Grab ‘em and give ‘em a good shake.
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