Linguistic Bias

Imagine a historian, author of an award-winning dissertation and several books. He is an experienced lecturer and respected scholar; he is at the forefront of his field. His research methodology sets the bar for other academicians. He is so highly esteemed, in fact, that an article he has prepared is to be presented to and discussed by the United States’ oldest and largest society of professional historians. These are precisely the circumstances in which Ulrich B. Phillips wrote his 1928 essay, “The Central Theme of Southern History.” In this treatise he set forth a thesis which on its face is not revolutionary: that the cause behind which the South stood unified was not slavery, as such, but white supremacy. Over the course of

High school history textbooks are seen, by students, as presenting the last word on American History. Rarely, if ever, do they question what their text tells them about our collective past. According to James W. Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me, they should be. Loewen has spent considerable time and effort reviewing history texts that were written for high school students. In Lies, he has reviewed twenty texts and has compared them to the actual history. Sadly, not one text measures up to the author's expectation of teaching students to think. What is worse, though, is that students come away from their classes without "having developed the ability to think coherently about social

from the writings of others. In the media bias plays a role in the validity of certain things. An example,

Few topics in American history garner the attention, and generate the level of raw emotion among the populace, as chattel slavery during the nineteenth century. However, despite the importance this peculiar institution played, and continues to play, in shaping American society, relatively few people understand its history at more than a elementary level. Edward Baptist attempts to change this fundamental deficiency in The Half Has Never Been Told. Structured as a narrative, it brilliantly describes how a collaboration between white citizens of southern and northern states worked together to secure the continuation of white domination long after the Civil War removed slavery’s physical chains. While the author’s writing style and methodology is a welcome departure from tradition, and his research is commendable, his insistence that his main arguments have never been told by professional historians is dubious.

in texas, Students are going to be learning that slavery wasn't the major causes of the Civil War II was “states rights”(if you consider that owning other human beings as states rights) this is exemplified in the fact that students in Texas are required to read the speech Jefferson Davis gave when he was inaugurated president of a CSA. They don't want to mention slavery in that speech mean because it was trying to get political support from other nations of the world and yeah.

During the 19th century, slavery expanded geographically and demographically in the South and Southwest of America, generating a wave of abolitionist movements. These events provoked a different response in the country’s society, since not everyone shared the same definition of slavery and freedom. These concepts started to get involved in almost every part of American sociopolitical life, creating differing points of view that would later conform the two sides in the Civil War of America: The Union in the north, and Confederacy in the south.

In my opinion being bias has both good and bad characteristics. I believe the negative part of being bias is that you only think one sided and not open minded. You can 't be biased in some situations where you have to see both sides of view. A positive aspect is that you are consistent and not indecisive. If you have a passion or believe in something, then you will stay consistent with your decision.

Authors Sheldon Stern and Jeremy Stern are mentioned in the article as two of the people that hated what Texas had done with the history books, and they said that the writing the the texts "distorts or suppressed less triumph or more nyanced aspects of our past that the Board found politically unacceptable (slavery and segregation are all but ignored, while religious influences are grossly exaggerated)..." Think back in time, I remember that my history book only made references to race inequality, slavery, civil rights, and african american heroes in just a few sections, when there was so much to talk about. Not until recently, I found that Rosa Parks was much more than the black lady who refused to give up her seat in the bus, yet I had to get to college to learn more about her, because my history book simply lacked this

The world has faced the dangers of war almost since the beginnings of time, and America in the mid-1800’s was no different. Despite the Union having won its freedom from England during the Revolutionary War less than a century before, problems were brewing internally within the young and rapidly expanding country. As slavery boomed in the southern states, the North grew less and less content with this state of affairs. It is said that “to southern whites, the Republican victory in 1860 presented an immediate danger to the slave-owning republic that had existed since 1776” (Henretta, 2012, p. 418). Southerners were not ready to lose one of their most valuable commodities, slaves, which they feared would happen under the leadership of Abraham Lincoln, although he promised “to safeguard slavery where it existed but vowed to prevent its expansion” (Henretta, 2012, p. 420). Unheeding of Lincoln’s vows, and hoping to preserve the individual state’s rights, “radical southerners chose the dangerous enterprise of secession” (Henretta, 2012, p. 418).

The Confederate flag has recently been another hot button issue in education with the events that happened in South Carolina in the summer of 2016. That flag represents different things for different people. African Americans view the flag a symbol of racism and oppression. While white people from the south view it has a symbol of their southern spirit and a salt of the earth hardworking heritage. As this debate continues to wage on, one wonders if the period of Reconstruction is not over. What does one do in the educational setting? If the image of the Confederate flag disrupts the educational setting then it is the principal’s responsibility to make sure the symbol is not scene in school. By doing this some students may believe that their freedom of speech is being suppressed, but the law is on the side of the school districts when it comes to this issue.

Later in life I moved South of the Mason-Dixon line to Richmond Virginia which was the one time capital of the Confederacy. Here I learned an alternate version of history, one of states’ rights against an oppressive government. What once I knew as the War on Slavery was here called the War Against Northern Aggression

In the early years of the 19th century, slavery was more than ever turning into a sectional concern, such that the nation had essentially become divided along regional lines. Based on economic or moral reasoning, people of the Northern states were increasingly in support of opposition to slavery, all the while Southerners became united to defend the institution of slavery. Brought on by profound changes including regional differences in the pattern of slavery in the upper and lower South, as well as the movement of abolitionism in the North, slavery in America had transformed from an issue of politics into a moral campaign during the period of 1815-1860, ultimately polarizing the North and the South to the point in which threats of a Southern disunion would mark the beginning of the Civil War in 1861 (Goldfield et. al, The American Journey, p. 281).

In efforts to better understand the Civil War most historians examine the Sectional Crisis and the Compromise of 1850 in the decades leading up to the worst years in American History. Some historians prefer to focus on the underlying theme of the war, others tightly examine individual leaders, events, and political parties, connecting them all together like puzzle pieces to define the years prior to the war. Despite the contrasting views, it is clear to realize the constant prevailing issues of the Antebellum Period, the Sectional Crisis and the Compromise of 1850. In particular, the Compromise of 1850 is deceivingly taught as only establishing 3 pivotal elements: the status of slavery in future territories (popular sovereignty), California statehood, and the fugitive slave law. Granted these elements of the compromise provide a great amount of controversy long after their birth, but one element of the compromise perceives to fail in obtaining recognition. The Texas-New Mexico boundary resolution seems to find itself fading away from its relevancy to the civil war, shadowed by more prominent issues regarding the stability of the Union. Abandoning the traditional teaching of the compromise, the Texas-New Mexico border decision figuratively and literally changed the identity of Texas. This was the long awaited result caused by deep rooted social and political issues dating back to the Texas Revolution.

American’s who live in the 21st century know that slavery is terrible and also a touchy subject. But Americans used to rely heavily on slavery, how we perceive slavery in today’s society can either be the same or different from how others thought of slavery living within mid 1800s. People who resided in the northern region of American found slavery wrong as we do today. Americans who lived farther south however liked, and relied on slavery. In today’s world, we Americans almost all agree that slavery had been a negative factor of our country. But within the 1840s and 1870s, Americans had been divided by slavery. People that were against slavery created the union as the pro slavery citizens created the confederates. Today, we can see why people of the mid 19th century either supported slavery or rebelled against it by reviewing sources.

Stereotypes have an overwhelming effect especially on the people they are directed towards. Studying stereotypes helps in understanding the factors leading to discrimination of certain people and not others. This is because stereotypes are depictive of opinions that are often passed from one generation to another within a particular culture. Mass media such as television and newspapers form a common source of opinions in the contemporary society (Kotter & Hess, 2012). The media presents messages in steady, repetitive, and compelling manner, making them believable to almost everybody. Stereotyping opinion and depictions from the media can thus have detrimental effects on the