'History, when taught well, shows us how to improve the world, but history, when taught poorly, falsely claims there is nothing to improve,' the LastWeekTonight host said on Sunday's show
"History, when taught well, shows us how to improve the world, but history, when taught poorly, falsely claims there is nothing to improve," the 'Last Week Tonight' host said on Sunday's show.that U.S. schools need to do a better job of teaching the nation's history and that state standards need to be uniform.
He also argued that, for those who think rewriting textbooks would get too political, the teaching of history has, in fact, "always been political." After the Civil War, there was much debate over how history books would be written, with one group, dubbed the United Daughters of the Confederacy, campaigning to ensure that textbooks would "accord full justice to the South.
Oliver also showed a CBS News report citing a current Texas history book that reads: "Some U.S. settlers brought slaves to Texas to help work the fields and do chores." In the clip, historian Ibram X. Kendi noted, "I don't think we should describe slave labor as 'chores.'" "Just imagine what it would feel like to be a Black kid in that classroom, or, if you don't have to imagine, remember," Oliver said. "Because it's not just the history that hurts here, it's how you're being made to feel while you learn it."
— First, "we don't fully acknowledge white supremacy" in the U.S., both from its founding to present day. For example, the U.S. Constitution should be taught as both "revolutionary and racist," because it includes such provisions as the "three-fifths clause," stating that slaves were counted as "three-fifths" of a free person.
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