[PEN-L:11562] So What?

["James Michael Craven" <CRAVJM@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Every day, African-American, American Indian, Female, Working-class,
Hispanic, poor-White and immigrant schoolchildren in America read
history books that mention nothing or at best present caricatures
of the roles and forms of suffering of African-Americans, American
Indians, Women, Workers, Hispanics, poor-Whites, immigrants and
people from disenfranchised religious groups in American history.
They are taught that history is made by "great politicians",
geniuses, "captains of industry", technology, imperial manifest
destiny, etc- - anything but the masses of people through ongoing
struggles against the very same forces that determine the content of
the history books and texts from other disciplines.

Of course students from historically disenfranchised groups do not
find themselves and their ancestors represented in the history books
because, in addition to the warped paradigms and academic whoring of
the authors, they just might get the idea that the various forms and
levels of disenfranchisement and oppression are not simply a matter
of "history"; they continue today in old as well as new forms. They
just might get the idea that capitalism is anything but some kind of
harmonious, self-equilibrating, progressive, dynamic, eternal system
distributing rewards and benefits in excess of costs and tragedies.
The just might get the idea that the so-called wealth and prosperity
of America was built on far more than "genius", risk-taking and
superior technology: imperial plunder, war, systematic
disenfranchisement and wholesale oppression etc. They just might get
the idea that forms and levels of oppression result not from
accidents, bad characters or systemic friction, but rather flow
inexorably from the core imperatives, defining institutions and power
structures and inner-logic of capitalism itself. And worst of all,
they just might get the idea that the past not only lives in and
shapes the present and the future, what is different in the present
is only the forms and mechanisms of oppression and to some degree the
targets, and that the past and present is the future as long as this
system continues.

Of course many past forms of oppression can never be corrected by
simply and continually bringing them up. On the other hand lessons
can and must be learned and victims honored by remembering and
challenging the revisionist and anti-historical versions of what
really went on and what continues to go on.

So when someone says to all of this "So What?" and signs off with a
quote illustrating the arrogance of Sununu in response to a charge of
arrogance, I have to wonder if that quote reflects the author's
mockery of Sununu--or admiration.

                              Jim Craven

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