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Roundup

This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in each source note. Quotation marks are not used.

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    1/25/2023

    Florida's AP Fight Latest Battle in a Very Old Education War

    by Bethany Bell

    The state's rejection of the proposed curriculum as "indoctrination" stands on the foundation laid by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to establish the Lost Cause myth as the center of history education in the South for generations. 

  • SOURCE: Boston Globe
    1/30/2023

    Tyre Nichols's Death and America's Systemic Failure

    by Peniel E. Joseph

    Nichols's killing, like other police killings, emphasizes the need for what W.E.B. DuBois called "abolition democracy," meaning the "eradication of the institutions, vestiges, and badges of racial slavery and new investments in Black citizenship and dignity." This is more than "reform." 

  • SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
    2/1/2023

    We've Reached the Execution Stage of the Profession's Demise

    by Jacques Berlinerblau

    "The decisions which ravaged the future for coming generations of Ph.D.s were made not just by consultants and suits, but by those with Ph.D.s and likely a few peer-reviewed publications. This was scholar-on-scholar violence."

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    1/29/2023

    Do French Pension Protests Reveal a Lazy Nation?

    by Robert Zaretsky

    French workers are among the most productive in Europe, but today's protests over a potential increase in the retirement age show a long tradition of defending the value of leisure as the chance to pursue one's own ends outside of paid labor. 

  • SOURCE: Slate
    2/2/2023

    Native Wikipedians Fight Back against Erasure of Indigenous History

    by Kyle Keeler

    While the internet is often seen as a hotbed of revisionism and "political correctness," Wikipedia editors who seek the inclusion of indigenous perspectives on American history often are stymied by resistant editors and the platform's rules, which discount the reliability of new, critical scholarship. 

  • SOURCE: The New Yorker
    1/30/2023

    America's Lost Faith in the News

    by Louis Menand

    Politicians' success in demonizing and discrediting unfriendly news media threatens to undermine "the facts" as a shared social reality. Is anyone prepared to live in that world? 

  • SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
    1/30/2023

    On Florida's Erasure of Black History

    by Lynn Pasquerella and Mary Dana Hinton

    The Florida AP decision raises a host of troubling questions about what the state hopes to accomplish, with ominous implications for political enfranchisement, democratic deliberation, and civic connection. 

  • SOURCE: Age of Revolutions
    1/30/2023

    George Washington in Barbados?

    by Erica Johnson Edwards

    The local monuments to George Washington's 1751 visit to Barbados demonstrate the interconnectedness of American and Caribbean histories as well as the influence of Caribbean practices of enslavement on the institution in the United States. 

  • SOURCE: Richmond Times-Dispatch
    1/31/2023

    Beneath the Surface of Virginia's History Standards

    by Edward L. Ayers

    Virginia's Department of Education has ignored the guidance of historians and educators in revising the state's K-12 history standards. The example of how political appointees treated the role of African Americans in driving the movement for abolition is a telling example of the inadequate history they want to teach.

  • SOURCE: Truthout
    1/30/2023

    Refuse a Return to "Normalcy" after Police Killings

    by Austin McCoy

    Refusing to accept avoidable death as part of American life—from COVID or police violence—is the foundation of change. Americans need to organize a national day of mourning in the form of a work stoppage. 

  • SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
    1/31/2023

    If the Courts Won't Stop DeSantis Attacks on Higher Ed, What Will?

    by John Warner

    Academics have turned to the rhetoric of academic freedom to condemn the governor's moves to increase control over higher ed. The problem is that the public doesn't care about academic freedom—but they might be made to care about politicizing state colleges. 

  • SOURCE: TIME
    1/26/2023

    Why "Woke" is Such a Convenient Dog Whistle for the Right

    by Samuel L. Perry and Eric L. McDaniel

    The term hints at evoking demonized populations—Black and LGBTQ Floridians, for instance—while maintaining enough ambiguity to foster deniability about the consequences of legislation. It also has the auxiliary function of trolling white liberals. 

  • SOURCE: Yes!
    1/26/2023

    Why We Need Pirates

    by Paul Buhle, Marcus Rediker and David Lester

    Though vilified in popular culture, the history of piracy shows that many crews were egalitarian bands of maritime workers escaping their exploitation at the hands of merchant companies and navies. A new graphic adaptation of a recent history of piracy tells the story. 

  • SOURCE: TomDispatch
    1/29/2023

    The Real Failures of January 6

    by Karen J. Greenberg

    Despite surface similarities, the attack on Brazil's government buildings earlier this month differed from January 6, 2021 in one key respect: the transfer of presidential power had already been accomplished. The contrast is sobering—for America. 

  • SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
    1/30/2023

    Fear of a Black Studies Planet

    by Roderick A. Ferguson

    A scholar whose work was named in Florida's decision not to support the AP African American Studies course discusses a long history of conservative efforts to control textbooks and teaching and, failing that, to create politically useful hysteria about indoctrination.