MY LITTLE SISTER’S HISTORY TEACHER IS MAKING THEM LIST THE “POSITIVE EFFECTS” OF IMPERIALISM??????
forcing students into the mental exercise of justifying/rationalizing genocide because of its supposed “positive effects” itself perpetuates genocide and indoctrinates them into supporting an imperial war machine.
my sister is @CeceWalsh3 btw <3
and to be clear, this is a public high school in one of the most "progressive" cities in the US — Cambridge, MA.
it's not just Republicans banning CRT that are revising history — racist, imperialist revisionism it is a key objective of the entire US education system.
Positive effects of imperialism:
- It gave Lenin something to write about
My lib history teacher made me do that too. On one column was "the British built ports in their colonies :so-true: " and the other was "fucking genocide :agony-deep:
Ports, and shit any infrastructure, specifically built and designed to export materials and goods from the colony.
"wow the Brits * gave* this country railroads!" yeah, but why is it a single rail, running from the port, to the mines, with no stops inbetween?
Note here the difference between heavily colonized countries in East Africa and a settler-colonial project like South Africa. Also note that the gauges do not match.
"Enrichment of the metropole at the expense of imperialized subjects allows for sufficient development of productive forces for the proletariat to institute a new mode of production and cease the imperialist subjugation as the bourgeois state collapses under this very contradiction" :marx-goth:
What a goodass answer, turns out capitalism sows the seeds of its own destruction.
not uncommon in the slightest. teachers love "graphic organizers" on worksheets. anything that can break down content into tables or lists. this is either oversight from a teacher who taught "the colonizers brought with them modern medicines and agriculture techniques" or it came straight from the curriculum company cuz nobody involved in the creation of that stuff has a soul or brain. source: taught high school long enough
Yeah, this seems like the most likely explanation. They probably do one of these every lesson and the person preparing the resource just whacked it into that same format out of convenience.
My little brother is in his sophomore year of high school and last semester he had an assignment for his world history class in which he had to make a list of the "pros and cons" of the British colonization of India. Extremely grim shit coming out of the US educational system.
Of course it is liberal, they think they are progressive and enlightened for saying there are hypothetical bad effects
liberals think it's a virtue to make no solid conclusions on anything
It's extremely convenient for them, they get to project the aesthetic of change and progress without having to lift a fucking finger to actually make any change.
In my first semester of my PhD program, my white woman professor made us go around the room and talk about the positives about colonialism in africa.
This was also in the Northeast "liberal" USA
- can re-write history of imperial subjects and come up with justification later
- exotic treats
I'm a teacher, and I often give younger students a graphic organizer like this when I want to teach them about controversial ideas. I want students to be aware of arguments for and against controversial ideas, I think that makes them build more sound conceptions.
Like maybe you were really keyed in when you were 14 but there are a ton of kids who really have no idea about anything, all of these ideas are brand new and they have no context, no ethical framework yet, and some of them need something like this to structure their thoughts. At a certain age just getting students to understand what imperialism is and hear some arguments against it can be a small revolutionary act as a teacher.
There are obvious topics this would definitely be inappropriate for, like slavery. I can understand why people would feel weird about imperialism being a pro/con thing, but sometimes the point is that there aren't a ton of good arguments for something. I don't know a ton about (or teach) history but maybe you could put in the left column that it incentivized the romans to build aqueducts in England? Putting a single thing in a column doesn't mean the teacher is arguing for or justifying it.
I don't know, I'm just saying without being in that class it's hard to say exactly how this activity was framed. :shrug-outta-hecks: Like maybe the point is that all the benefits of imperialism go to the bourgeoisie.
I think you can get the lesson across with better phrasing though. Instead of "positive effects of imperialism", ask students to list "justifications made by imperialists" or something like that. I'm doing a college Latin American history class right now, and that's how we've been doing it - understand the point of view of the colonizers, but don't do apologia for them.
I'd bet most people don't know what banana republic even means anymore :sadness:
broke: positive and negative effects
bespoke: positive effects....for whom?
Get her copies of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa and Open Veins of Latin America for her birthday
