54 thoughts on “Educators call NH’s ‘teacher loyalty’ bill insulting and vague”

  2. Twice in one day, I am compelled to use the same word in describing what is happening in this country: CHILLING!

    A teacher isn’t loyal if he or she teaches facts about history because those facts are not whitewashed. The loyalty pledge is not to the school and its students; it appears to be about loyalty to watered down, incomplete and inaccurate history.

    A discussion about communism, Marxism or fascism could be construed by the narrow minded to be “indoctrination”. Little Johnny comes home from school and tells daddy that today’s history lesson was about fascism and understanding it. Daddy’s reply is automatically to assume that the history teacher is trying to turn Little Johnny and all of his classmates in to fascists.

    That’s all it takes. And now some circles want it codified so that teachers can go to jail for teaching history.

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    1. No one is not teaching history. Some, however, want to assign victimhood to a segment living today by slanting history and assigning oppressor to another segment living today by slanting history. You will never be happy unless whites owe blacks a living by fiat. Get over it, it’s divisive trash and I doubt that sewage will ever stick to the wall.

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      2. ” You will never be happy unless whites owe blacks a living by fiat.”

        You prover again your hatred. What you claim is not what is wanted. What is desired is honesty, truth and a full telling of the history of this country, warts and all. If those warts make you feel uncomfortable, who is the snow flake now?

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        1. Here’s your BS flag. Critical races theory only seeks to cast modern society as oppressors and oppressed. It has NADA to do with history. You keep saying this but it is factually untrue…as in lie.

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          2. Racism during slavery in the US is pretty obvious. Only one race was shackled and writings of important men held that the Africans were inferior people.

            Racism after slavery lingered legally and tacitly for another century. That too is pretty obvious through writings both for secession, post secession and Jim Crow.

            That we have not fully integrated the Black Americans into society even today is what we are debating. We still have HBCU’s, dense urban populations primarily Black, churches are still very much segregated. Income, education, wealth, health, are all measurably lower quantities and qualities. Loans have been studied and show biases not based on numbers alone.

            In other words, we do have a ways to go if our Black American fellow citizens are to be as integrated as Irish, Italian, Greek, Hispanics, etc. And yet, the ancestors of the Blacks have been here longer than many of us.

            Blame is complicated in political climates, but avoiding race discussions about whether or not there are, after 400 years, some racial disparities baked into the system is ostrich-like behavior, in my opinion. Laws change a lot faster than culture. Parents pass on views about everything, including race, to children and grand children. Over time, dilution of ideas, education and mores temper once strongly held views.

            For now, however, there is a rush to shut up about the elephant in the room. Books banned and teachers vilified are not productive in my view.

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  3. I don’t remember much about the history curriculum in high school. I don’t think Marxism was ever explained to us. We learned about the Cold War and that the Soviet Union were Communists and that we were Capitalists and the two were fundamentally opposed.

    I do remember learning about McCarthyism though.

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    1. I don’t recall if McCarthyism was taught. It may have been in Advanced Placement History which I did not take.

      I learned all I needed to learn about Communism from President Reagan. 😇

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  4. The text of the amendment reads:

    “I. No teacher shall advocate communism, socialism, or Marxism as a political doctrine or any other doctrine or theory which includes the overthrow by force of the government of the United States or of this state in any public or state approved school or in any state institution.

    “II. No teacher shall advocate any doctrine or theory promoting a negative account or representation of the founding and history of the United States of America in New Hampshire public schools which does not include the worldwide context of now outdated and discouraged practices. Such prohibition includes but is not limited to teaching that the United States was founded on racism.”

    I have no problem with the text. Both paragraphs begin with the words, “No teacher shall advocate…” That sounds reasonable.

    I’d be concerned about loyalty oaths if the requirement were to affirm some doctrine, theory or creed. But the clear intention here is to prevent undesirable affirmations.

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        1. “A discussion about communism, Marxism or fascism could be construed by the narrow minded to be “indoctrination”. Little Johnny comes home from school and tells daddy that today’s history lesson was about fascism and understanding it. Daddy’s reply is automatically to assume that the history teacher is trying to turn Little Johnny and all of his classmates in to fascists.”

          I wrote this earlier in this thread. I post it again to remind you that simple minded individuals can take a discussion of a topic to be indoctrination.

          If you don’t see that, then your eyes are closed.

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          1. I do see that. I’m not too worried about simple minded people, although I agree they can be nettlesome.

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          2. “I’m not too worried about simple minded people”…

            You should be. Those are the ones that are causing many of the issues, especially in this debate. Volume doses not equal veracity, but the loudest get to drown out the reasonable.

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  5. “Such prohibition includes but is not limited to teaching that the United States was founded on racism.”

    And yet, it absolutely was. Look at the Constitution if you do not want to believe me.

    1. Article 1, Section 2, The “Three-Fifths Clause”
    2. Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1 (Protecting the importation of slaves)
    3. Article 4, Section 2, Clause 3 (Requires return of escaped slaves)

    These clauses AND the Second Amendment (included to protect slave catcher patrols) all protected the racist institution of slavery.

    The idea that actual history cannot be taught is Stalinist thinking right out of 1984.

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    1. RE: “These clauses AND the Second Amendment (included to protect slave catcher patrols) all protected the racist institution of slavery.”

      Maybe they did offer some protection of slavery. That’s very different from claiming the U.S. was founded on racism.

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      1. You can quibble with words all you want. Our founding document is riddled with racism. Roger Taney, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, wrote about the attitude of the framers of the Constitution in his 1857 Dred Scott opinion as follows. . .

        “[Negroes] had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.”

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      2. I think “founded ON racism” might be less accurate than founded WITH racism as a major influence on human rights, equality and justice post slavery.

        White supremacy was the main excuse for continuing slavery as long as we did.

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        1. RE: “I think ‘founded ON racism’ might be less accurate than founded WITH racism as a major influence on human rights, equality and justice post slavery.”

          That’s fair, I think.

          RE: “White supremacy was the main excuse for continuing slavery as long as we did.”

          That’s not fair. In fact, it is an unprovable proposition.

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          1. How else would you justify slavery? Economic? If that is the case, then how come we didn’t enslave White people? Sell their children?

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    2. That makes you a racist piece of trash then doesn’t it. Liquidate all of your assets and send it all including your SS to Paul Whitaker for distribution and you shall be cleansed.

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      1. “That makes you a racist piece of trash then doesn’t it.”

        How so? Because you are ignorant, and I am not? Strange logic.
        I will bet that you did not even know that the Constitution itself protected slavery so explicitly.

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        1. If you wish to cry, sob, sniffle, pay for and beg forgiveness for that of which is over 150 years old and you have no responsibility for be my guest but don’t expect the non-pandering crowd to join you. Be happy in your phony liberal shame…er…ignorance. Bet you didn’t know that whites were enslaved by blacks in the same time frame and blacks were responsible for the slave trade to begin with by capturing and selling them to whomever would buy them. Oh, you probably DO know that but you are ignorant and I am not.

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        2. If you don’t understand the connection between your apology tour and you being a white racist piece of trash, you truly are ignorant.

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          6. What apology tour are you talking about?

            Knowing history and understanding its impacts is not “apologizing.” Nor does being Not Ignorant make me, or anyone, a “white racist piece of trash” as you so eloquently claim.

            Why do you people think being profoundly ignorant is a good thing? It is a mystery.

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  6. How would the Jim Crow era be taught? After all it did lead to Brown v. Board of Education, Loving v. Virginia and finally the major Civil Rights legislation passed in 1965.

    1. Fast forward from 1877 to 1965 with a quick stop at WW1 and WW2?

    2. Black Americans had reserved seating on public buses, but no one else did?

    3. The lines at water fountains were sped up by have two side by side? Same with restrooms. Hotels. Restaurants.

    4. Lynchings that had large community gatherings and picnics were just like parades and county fairs? Kind of a version of Burning Man festivities?

    Certainly if any teacher hinted that racism was the core reason for denying full citizenship to descendants of slaves for another century after slavery was outlawed they would face the wrath of an inquisition.

    Conservatives are creating Gordian Knots of twisted legislation to keep the little darlin’s from even understanding racial issues that are obviously still relevant.

    Mao’s Red Book and purges now have modern versions among our own “Reds”.

    IMHANEO

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    1. RE: “Certainly if any teacher hinted that racism was the core reason for denying full citizenship to descendants of slaves for another century after slavery was outlawed they would face the wrath of an inquisition.”

      Whether racism was the core reason or not is a debatable point. Some people sure think so, but others just as adamantly think not.

      If a teacher “hinted that racism was the core reason,” that would certainly be a violation of the loyalty law. If a teacher noted that racism played a role in the denial of full citizenship, I think that would be both true and allowable under the loyalty law.

      Put another way, to teach that racism is the primary cause for historical events is to teach an opinion, not an objective fact. The race hustlers who want to teach their opinions as truth are the true Maoists, in many cases literally.

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      1. “Whether racism was the core reason or not is a debatable point.”

        Enlighten please. What is the other side of the debate on why Black Americans were not accorded full citizenship and rights for a century after the Civil War? Why they could not use the GI Bill for housing and schooling of their choice? Why they had to leave towns at sunset?

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        1. RE: “Enlighten please. What is the other side of the debate on why Black Americans were not accorded full citizenship and rights for a century after the Civil War?”

          Read Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams on the topic of Jim Crow laws. Sowell in particular debunks the view that Jim Crow laws were widely popular in the white communities of the time. He also published substantial scholarship showing that Black Americans prospered despite obstacles during the Jim Crow era, only to see their organically achieved gains wiped out by LBJ’s Great Society.

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          1. That’s dodging the question.

            Popular or not depending upon the community, the laws were on the books and enforced through terror.

            Sure some Black Americans prospered. Greenwood OK was a good example of a parallel society that prospered.

            Why was it not integrated? Why was it totally destroyed by White mobs?

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          3. As I have shared here before, in 1958 I lived in the small town of Wrightsville, Georgia where every adult citizen had the legal right to vote. A few days before Election Day the county sheriff stopped by our home to encourage my father to bring a shotgun to the Court House on election day to make sure that only the right people voted. He didn’t, of course, we were transplanted “Yankees,” but plenty of local white men did. Just like “conservative’ s” dream, it was a very peaceful day and only the right people voted. No violence of any kind.

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  7. Guys, I think you’re looking at this the wrong way. Slavery and the genocide of Native Americans weren’t bad because people thought they were inferior and used slurs to refer to them. These events and time periods were bad because they resulted in millions of people being enslaved, raped, murdered, relegated to second class status, etc.

    Attempting to prove the personal motivations of every individual throughout history is both (in most cases) impossible, and a convenient distraction for those in power who very much want to take any discussion of structural changes off the table.

    History is full of Eichmans–otherwise normal, even pleasant people who are happy to acquiesce to the program, regardless of how horrible that may be.

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    1. “ Slavery and the genocide of Native Americans weren’t bad because people thought they were inferior and used slurs to refer to them.”

      True…maybe. It was the impetus and excuse to act out the horrors. Easier to kill non-humans, so de-humanizing was the modus operandi. And if Biblical passages can be interpreted to help in the persecution, so much the better. Who’s gonna argue with God, after all?

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      1. Sure. It is much more difficult to inflict horrors on people you perceive to be like you than people who are “racially inferior,” or “sub-human.” What I’m saying is, bigoted thinking is certainly a problem, and one that should be addressed when and where possible. But a bigger problem is when existing or emerging economic systems or systemic shocks incentivize people/states to act on these feelings.

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        1. I think that if people feel threatened for any reason that they may not, in their view, be able to control, they could, and have in history, look for a leader who will save them.

          Given enough impetus, propaganda and self-proving events, it gets ugly.

          So, yes, if conditions become intolerable, things can escalate.

          And right now, conservatives have been told that things are intolerable and they believe it. At some point, truth is irrelevant.

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          1. “At some point, truth is irrelevant.”

            Hasn’t that been the case since someone descended a gold0plated escalator to claim that Mexicans were all rapists and drug dealers? 😇

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          3. We just had bomb threats at many HBCU’s on one day or so. Obviously some kind of coordination to hit that many at almost the same time.

            No bombs were found, but I get the ugly feeling that this was just testing the waters and a terrorist equivalent of a shot across the bow.

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