Sanitized History

An excerpt from the Huffington Post -

American Students Aren’t Learning The Full Truth About Slavery
Students often get only a superficial view of the atrocity that built the country, a new study finds.
By Rebecca Klein

American students are being taught an inadequate and often sanitized version of history when it comes to slavery, according to a new report.

The report, from the Southern Poverty Law Center, looks at how slavery is  presented in K-12 classrooms and found that students are often taught a deeply incomplete version of events. Students learn inspirational stories ― about figures like Harriet Tubman and good Samaritans who helped slaves reach freedom in the underground railroad ― before they learn about the horrors of enslavement. When they learn about slavery, it is often presented as an isolated, albeit unfortunate phenomenon, disconnected from white supremacist ideologies that abetted it and the racism that continues as a pervasive part of American life today.

Only 8 percent of high school seniors surveyed by an independent polling firm for the study identified slavery as the primary reason for the Civil War. Almost half identified tax protests as the main cause.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/schools-teaching-slavery_us_5a7243cbe4b03699143f144f