mekka okereke Jun 15, 2023

Juneteenth (June 19th) is not a "holiday celebrating when news of the end of slavery finally reached Texas." No. Just no. Y'all make it sound like network latency! Like we were playing Fortnite, and all the Black players were lagging.🤡

Juneteenth is when the racist state of Texas took another very public L. Texas did everything it could to keep slavery going as long as possible. They gave up land to Oklahoma, so they could be below the slavery line. The Alamo was a victory for abolitionists.

Show threadmekka okereke Jun 15, 2023

Texas should look like Kid's hair. But it looks like Play's hair. Because Texas wanted to hold onto that racism just a little bit longer.

The Alamo was also a fight to preserve Texas's right to keep slavery going. They lost.

You can't just keep lying and changing how history is taught to hide the shamefulness of racism. If you want to be remembered as the good guys, maybe try being the good guys!

Otherwise, you'll just be embarrassed when your kids and grand kids learn the truth about you.

Show threadCurtis "Ovid" Poe (he/him)Jun 15, 2023

@mekkaokereke Born and bred Texan here. I learned about this as an adult. They never taught me any of this in school.

Of course, I grew up in an age when the n-word was casually used. I think I was around 10 or so before I finally realized how awful it was.

That's how ingrained this stuff was in the 70s. Not sure it's much better today, but I certainly hope so.

Show threadJPJun 15, 2023
@ovid @mekkaokereke i too grew up in Texas in the 80s learning state history that never mentioned the slavery motivation for secession. the texas revolution was considered a heroic underdog struggle against the evil mexicans (which of course transmuted easily into present day anti-latinx racism). and of course, the anti-CRT movement is about burying this blood soaked racist history; they don't want younger generations to learn the truth either.
Show threadTim FredeJun 16, 2023
@jplebreton @ovid @mekkaokereke n=1 here, but my daughter did her 4th grade Texas history last year and they talked about slavery and how it related to the founding of Texas and the Alamo.
Edit: it gives me some hope that there are still teachers in Texas wanting to teach actual history.
Show threadAaron
@frede @jplebreton @ovid @mekkaokereke That's a real surprise! I grew up in one of the few Texas counties that voted against secession, and there is a yearly grudge match between our football team and that of the neighboring town that voted for it, and yet none of us heard a peep about racism in our history during school. I'm learning about this stuff now, in my 40s.
Jun 18, 2023 at 2:32pmWeb