Twelve Years A Slave Looks Fantastic

A trailer for Twelve Years a Slave has been released that looks absolutely fantastic.

It is a difficult subject, certainly, but one that has not gotten remotely enough discussion given its importance within the scope of American history.  This story comes with a twist:  the main character, Solomon Northup, was a free man in New York State, when he was induced through false promise of employment, to cross into a slave state and then kidnapped into slavery by the men with whom he was working.

His narrative of captivity is available as an historical document online, and makes for a fascinating read:

...Since my return to liberty, I have not failed to perceive the increasing interest throughout the Northern States, in regard to the subject of Slavery....

I can speak of Slavery only so far as it came under my own observation—only so far as I have known and experienced it in my own person. My object is, to give a candid and truthful statement of facts: to repeat the story of my life, without exaggeration, leaving it for others to determine, whether even the pages of fiction present a picture of more cruel wrong or a severer bondage....

The cast is fantastic: Brad Pitt, Paul Giamatti, Alfre Wooddard, Benedict Cumberbatch and Chiwetel Ejiofor in the lead role.

This really has Oscar contender written all over it, doesn't it?

Library Lesson Plan For Digging Into History

For a chunk of my Christmas break, I've been working on lesson plans to take us through the next couple of months in the library.

One of the things I've noticed about my own child, as well her cousins out in Arizona, her friends at school and around our neighborhood and even some of the older kids at school, is that American history is a tough thing for them to put into any meaningful context.  The way the social studies curriculum is provided in the textbooks has always been a bit on the dry side -- it was when I was growing up, too.

For me, history began to come alive when I could put a real face or place to an event we were studying.

History is so important:  how can you know what not to do if you have no idea what a spectacular failure it was the last time it was attempted?  Or, worse, how can you know to look out for an enormous pothole if you have no idea it even exists in front of you?

For kids, the now is the only thing that really exists.  History can be a tough thing to understand.

And after trying to explain family history last summer when we buried my father-in-law in a full military service, the lack of a larger grasp on history with kids hit home:  none of them had any idea that grandpa served in both WWII and Korea, nor did anyone really have any context for what surviving the Battle of Tarawa or the Chosin Reservoir really meant.

I want to help to change that if I can.  Because our history is so much of who we are as a nation today.

History As Political Agenda

Oh, fer heaven's sakes.

What kind of moron thinks that the Pilgrims were socialists, or that Jamestown was a failing colony because they were all communists? Apparently, the very same kind of idiot that listens to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck and believes their manipulative swill wholeheartedly.

I don't have much patience for people who lie about history.  I have even less patience for people who try to paint the world as black and white or good and evil with strong, easily definable dividing lines.  The truth is, there is a lot of gray in life.  And, moreover, you should never, ever allow someone else to define what you think and why.

So wake up sheeple.

Will the idiocy never end?

William Hogeland, the author of “Inventing American History,” agreed. “Across the political spectrum, there’s a tendency to grab a hold of some historical incident and yoke it to a current agenda,” he said. “It doesn’t always mean there’s no connection, but often things are presented as historical first, rather than as part of the agenda first.”

For the bazillionth time: never, ever accept anything anyone ever says when interpreting history and telling you what conclusions to draw from it at face value. Especially when that person has a political agenda to push in service of raising their own personal income statements.

The answer?  Go to the original documents and read them for yourself.