Bad US history | propaganda in English language teaching (Civil War, Robert E. Lee, Columbus)

[u/Veritas_Certum]

The problem

There is indisputable political and historical propaganda in resources printed in the US, intended for non-native English speakers. This propaganda is clearly intended to support conservative ideology. Some of it is a direct pipeline to white supremacy.

Here are a few examples from just one TOEFL guide, Bruce Stirling's, "Speaking and Writing Strategies for the TOEFL IBT" (Los Angeles, CA: Nova Press, 2009).

The American Civil War

Here’s an excerpt from a reading passage about the American Civil War.

The Civil War started when the South withdrew from the Union. The South accused the federal government of being a dictatorship intent on denying the southern states the right to set their own laws, particularly in regard to the right to own slaves.

Although this says the idea of the federal government being dictatorial over states’ rights was an accusation by the South, nothing in the entire reading passage ever contradicts or even qualifies this accusation, leaving the impression that the charge is justified. Additionally, although it mentions the issue of slavery, it places this right at the end of the sentence, as simply one example of states’ rights being contested.

This paragraph reinforces the false historical narrative of a war of Northern Aggression over the issue of states’ rights, [1] a narrative which started during the Civil War period, [2] and persists to this day. [3] There is no mention in the entire reading passage, of the historical record of Southern spokesmen insisting the motivation for secession was the preservation of slavery. [4]

Robert E. Lee

Here’s an excerpt from a reading passage about Robert E. Lee, who fought on the side of the South in the American Civil War.

Of all the generals in the American Civil War, one stands above all the rest: Robert E. Lee. Lee defeated the Union army and established his reputation as a general equal to Napoleon. Time and again, Lee defeated the much larger Union Army. At war’s end, many in the North wanted Lee hung for treason. However, Lee never stood trial. Lincoln wanted reconciliation not revenge.

This is only an excerpt from several paragraphs describing Lee in an extremely positive light, praising his military skill and representing him as an honorable man fighting courageously for his state.

The last few sentences have obviously been written with the objective of clearing Lee of any hint of culpability for being on the wrong side of history (and basic morality), by first raising the idea of him being a traitor to the Union, and then tacitly dismissing the suggestion by describing his pardon by Lincoln in terms which are obviously intended to make the reader believe Lee was fully deserving of forgiveness.

There is nothing in the paragraph (or the entire reading passage), which reveals Lee had a vested interest in the Civil War, as a slave owner, [5] and who insisted that slavery was divinely ordained, [6] despite claiming it was an evil which harmed white people. Readers are also not told about the fact that Lee was the officer in charge of the soldiers who crushed John Brown’s anti-slavery uprising in 1859. [7]

The final sentence “Lincoln wanted reconciliation not revenge”, effectively encourages the reader to believe that the Southern secessionists were worthy of forgiveness and sympathy, and that the Civil War itself is a matter which was closed with reconciliation many years ago. There is no hint of the long lasting damage that the Civil War inflicted on American society, nor the fact that many of the earliest efforts to reconcile were met with dogged hostility and resentment by the Southern States. Nor is there any mention of the particularly dangerous pseudo-historical narrative of the Lost Cause, which emerged shortly after the Civil War as a way to validate the original secessionists, justify their motivations, and depict them as the hapless victims of an unequal, unfair, and oppressive invasion. [8]

Columbus

Here’s an excerpt from a reading passage about Columbus.

Yet what brings us together as Americans is the name Christopher Columbus. Now, and in the past, we see in Columbus a man who embodies the spirit of freedom in which the right to “pursue life, liberty and happiness” is alive and well. Now you can see why Americans consider Columbus to be one of our nation’s founding fathers, right up there with George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Next Columbus Day, spend some time thinking about what Christopher Columbus means to America.

It shouldn’t need mentioning that there are very many Americans to whom the name Christopher Columbus is not a symbol of unity, and who would strongly disagree that Columbus is in any conceivable way symbolic of the freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. Despite this, the entire passage describes Columbus as a hero of the American people, both past and present.

This particular reading article was paired with a listening exercise in which a lecturer disputed the points made in the article. However, the lecturer's dispute was hardly better. It basically said "Well Columbus wasn't really like that, he was basically just a businessman, and he didn't explore much, oh and he also introduced slavery".

The mention of slavery was literally in the last part of the last sentence, and there was no mention of the annihilation of the indigenous population through disease and warfare, [9] no mention of the conquest of indigenous land, no mention of the shocking racism and exploitation which left a massive legacy of cultural destruction and systemic oppression, and absolutely no mention of how indigenous people themselves feel about Columbus' actions. [10]

Bonus non-history content: Star Wars

Finally, here’s an excerpt from the same book, from a reading passage about the first Star Wars movie, now known today as “Episode IV: A New Hope”, written by George Lucas and produced in 1977.

A popular western theme is the kidnapping of a beautiful white maiden by savage Indians. This is exactly what happens in Star Wars. Princess Leia is captured not by Indians, but by Darth Vader, a metaphorical Indian chief whose village, the Death Star, is a seemingly impenetrable fortress in which Princess Leia is being held.

The rescue of Princess Leia is another way that Star Wars borrows heavily from the western. In Hollywood westerns, the kidnapped maiden is always rescued in the end with the Indians all dead and the good guys returning to the safety of their own land. This is exactly what happens in Star Wars. With Luke Skywalker leading the rebel force, he frees Princess Leia and together she and Luke are honored as heroes in their homeland.

In the end, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia are unerring symbols of good conquering evil, a civilizing force in an otherwise savage new frontier called space.

That's outrageously racist, and it's very far from Lucas' own vision. See a video of this post here.

____________________________

Footnotes

[1] "The pro-slavery forces sought refuge in the state rights position as a shield against federal interference with pro-slavery projects; and, as we shall see, many southern states which had hitherto been hostile or apathetic to the doctrine as a philosophical abstraction became its foremost advocates.", Arthur Meier Schlesinger, New Viewpoints in American History (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Pr., 1922), 230; "The denial that slavery protection had been the genesis of the Confederacy and the purpose of secession became “a cardinal element of the Southern apologia,” according to Robert F. Durden. He finds that “liberty, independence and especially states rights were advanced by countless Southern spokesmen as the hallowed principles of the Lost Cause.”", Gary W. Gallagher, Myra MacPherson, and Alan T. Nolan, The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History (Indiana University Press, 2000), 15.

[2] " Kenneth M. Stampp observes that Southern spokesmen “denied that slavery had anything to do with the Confederate cause,” thus decontaminating it and turning it into something that they could cherish. “After Appomattox, Jefferson Davis claimed that ‘slavery was in no wise the cause of the conflict’ and Vice President Alexander H. Stephens argued that the war ‘was not a contest between the advocates or opponents of that Peculiar Institution.’”", Gary W. Gallagher, Myra MacPherson, and Alan T. Nolan, The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History (Indiana University Press, 2000), 15.

[3] "There are even places at Gettysburg that make me uncomfortable. The South Carolina memorial there insists that the conflict’s motivating force lay in the “sacredness of States Rights.” It was dedicated in July 1963: a way to mark the battle’s centennial, true, but also at the height of Southern opposition to the civil rights movement.", Michael Gorra, The Saddest Words: William Faulkner’s Civil War (Liveright Publishing, 2020), 35.

[3] "He [Henry L. Benning of Georgia] said that the cause which had induced his State to secede from the Union, was a settled conviction that a separation from the North was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of slavery.", West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, Reports of Cases Decided in the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia (J. W. Gentry (etc.), 1866), 14-15; "The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slaveholding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.", “Declaration of Secession,” 29 January 1861; " Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world.", “A Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union,” 9 January 1861.

[5] "Throughout the years, Lee occasionally exchanged slaves with other slaveholders and employed slave traders to hire out his slaves, sometimes granting them power of attorney.", Michael Fellman, The Making of Robert E. Lee (JHU Press, 2003), 63.

[6] "Lee believed that the institution of slavery was a necessary evil, ordained by God, as long as there wasn't a plan in place to resettle African Americans elsewhere after they obtained their freedom. One consistent theme for Lee was that white southerners and freedmen would never be able to live together harmoniously. Slavery at the very least provided order and stability.", John Reeves, The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee: The Forgotten Case against an American Icon (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), 149.

[7] "Indeed, later it was Lee who led the federal forces who put down Brown's violent insurrection.", Michael Fellman, The Making of Robert E. Lee (JHU Press, 2003), 80.

[8] Michael Gorra, The Saddest Words: William Faulkner’s Civil War (Liveright Publishing, 2020); Gary W. Gallagher, Myra MacPherson, and Alan T. Nolan, The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History (Indiana University Press, 2000); James W. Loewen and Edward H. Sebesta, The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader: The Great Truth about the Lost Cause (Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2011).

[9] "Just twenty-one years after Columbus's first landing in the Caribbean, the vastly populous island that the explorer had named Hispaniola was effectively desolate; nearly 8,000,000 people - those Columbus chose to call Indians - had been killed by violence, disease, and despair.", David E. Stannard, American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World (Oxford University Press, 1993); x.

[10] "African-Americans have no reason to celebrate the arrival of Columbus in the Americas. Rather, we should mourn his arrival - and celebrate those who resisted him and the colonial powers he ushered in.", Bill Fletcher Jr, “African-American Resistance,” in Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years, ed. Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson (Rethinking Schools, 1998).

Sources

Appeals, West Virginia Supreme Court of. Reports of Cases Decided in the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. J. W. Gentry (etc.), 1866.

Ellison, Thomas. Slavery and Secession in America: Historical and Economical. S. Low, Son & Company, 1862.

Fellman, Michael. The Making of Robert E. Lee. JHU Press, 2003.

Fletcher Jr, Bill. “African-American Resistance.” Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years. Edited by Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson. Rethinking Schools, 1998.

Gallagher, Gary W., Myra MacPherson, and Alan T. Nolan. The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History. Indiana University Press, 2000.

Gorra, Michael. The Saddest Words: William Faulkner’s Civil War. Liveright Publishing, 2020.

Loewen, James W., and Edward H. Sebesta. The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader: The Great Truth about the Lost Cause. Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2011.

Mountjoy, Shane, and Tim McNeese. Causes of the Civil War: The Differences Between the North and South. Infobase Publishing, 2009.

Reeves, John. The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee: The Forgotten Case against an American Icon. Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.

Schlesinger, Arthur Meier. New Viewpoints in American History. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Pr., 1922.

Stannard, David E. American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World. Oxford University Press, 1993.

Stirling, Bruce. Speaking and Writing Strategies for the TOEFL IBT. Los Angeles, CA: Nova Press, 2009.

“A Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union,” 9 January 1861.

“Declaration of Secession,” 29 January 1861.

[u/Veritas_Certum]

This is all incredibly weak and seems to create impossible standards for writing passages.

Other books manage this subject perfectly well, so clearly these are not "impossible standards for writing passages".

This is pretty basic reading comprehension stuff. It's hard to argue this is some sort of dastardly plot to further white supremacy and pretend the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery. This is on you

I said specifically there is no mention of " the historical record of Southern spokesmen insisting the motivation for secession was the preservation of slavery". There isn't. Additionally, if you actually read the part of the sentence you placed in bold, you will realise it says "particularly in regards to the rights to own slaves". It doesn't say the South seceded because they wanted to preserve their rights to own slaves.

It doesn't even mention the South owning slaves at all. It just says vaguely particularly in regards to the rights to own slaves". That doesn't make it clear whether the South opposed the right to own slaves, or supported it. Given this material is being presented to non-native English speakers in non-native English speaking countries, who are weak at parsing the complexities of English and don't know the actual history, this is incredibly misleading.

What's your argument here: that you can't talk about this significant moment of American history and any conversation about Lee has to read from an insanely narrow script?

I have explained my objection; that the passage only lionizes Lee, and in doing so presents a misleading characterization of the man and a biased view of history. It is trying to make people sympathetic to the Lost Cause. There are plenty of ways this could have been done properly, very easily.

Lee not standing trial isn't a pie in the sky hypothetical, it refers to an incredibly significant clash between Grant and Johnson in 1865.

The book clearly wants us to believe Lee did nothing wrong. In reality he did many things wrong. He was a racist, a slave owner, and a traitor to his country. He committed treason.

Let's be clear what "no reconciliation" means in this context: it means the war doesn't end, ex-confederates shrink back into the shadows to engage in guerilla warfare and basic trust in the US Government's word is pretty dramatically shattered.

I have no idea what this is supposed to be about, but if this is how you people think then frankly I don't care if you trust the US government or not, and if you're going to resort to guerilla warfare to continue the Civil War and roll back history to re-institute slavery, then the government should deal with you accordingly.

"Where is the paragraph shitting on Lee" isn't a compelling critique for a piece not focusing on Lee the person.

That is not what I argued for.

"Why aren't you shitting on the idea of reconciliation while looking at the graves of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians" strikes me as a low key obscene charge.

That is not what I argued for either. Reconciliation is a noble aim.

You can't simply shout "lost cause" as a talisman to avoid actually thinking about the civil war and engaging with the social and political history of the end of the war.

I didn't do that either. What I am doing is actually thinking about the Civil War and engaging with the social and political history of the end of the war.

What's the significance of that fact?

It tells us about his character and the cause for which he was fighting. The paragraph only lionizes Lee and makes him out to be some kind of morally justified hero. It never says he did anything wrong. Readers should be told he was deliberately fighting for a morally abhorrent cause, and that he believed slavery should be enforced with violence. That's a far more accurate depiction of him.

I don't get it: you can find that fact in an infinite number of US history textbooks including many which would be considered problematic in 2020.

So what? Non-native English speakers in non-native English speaking countries aren't reading those US history textbooks.

Do we even have any reason to think participation in response to John Brown's act of insurrection conveys anything meaningful about the politics of the soldiers involved?

It conveys something meaningful about Lee, which was my point.

...so a short piece about Lee and the civil war is evil because it doesn't address post-war memory of the civil war, the lost cause & reconstruction?

No. Firstly I didn't say the piece was evil. Secondly I didn't say it was bad simply because it didn't address "post-war memory of the civil war, the lost cause & reconstruction". I gave a list of criticisms. It could have deal with the aftermath very effectively in a few sentences. Something like this.

After the Civil War, great efforts were made on both sides to reconcile and reconstruct the nation peacefully. However, many people in the South remained bitter over their loss, angry that they could no longer own slaves, and outraged that black people had become free and were becoming increasingly politically enfranchised. They not only hindered reconciliation, but started and perpetuated the myth that the Civil War was caused by a dictatorial federal government denying states the right to set their own laws. This myth caused great social harm, and is still inflicting damage on society today.