America's History Fibs

[Hermit]

I'm the sickest cunt around (other than laklak).

That's nothing. I'm, like, fully sick, dude.

[Cunt]

Hermit, you really DO know passive aggressive behaviour!

You remain, however, unconvincing about most things. Maybe you need more style to go with your ideas...maybe Trump yourself up a bit, instead of going for the bookish, often wrong elder schtick.

[Animavore]

So the episode on The American Revolution last night, eh?

[Hermit]

Hermit, you really DO know passive aggressive behaviour!

Yes, thanks to your posting style I certainly do.

[Hermit]

So the episode on The American Revolution last night, eh?

Living in Australia, I'll have to wait until some kind person uploads it to Youtube.

[tattuchu]

Could be interesting.
BBC4 - 17 Jan 2019 @ 21:00

Why would the BBC do an expose' like this on American history fibs? Aren't there enough British history fibs to last a while? Or, are BBC watchers not interested in learning about the bullshit they've been sold about their own history?

Because other countries, unlike our own, actually study and are interested in world history.

[tattuchu]

I find her enthralling. I love her sexy rhotacism.

I learned a new word!

[Rum]

I find her enthralling. I love her sexy rhotacism.

I learned a new word!

You should seek her out on YouTube. I know your kinks old chap. You’d get an immediate hard on when you heard her voice!

[Scot Dutchy]

She loves dressing up.

[Seabass]

That's absurd. Racism is very unpopular. To make open racist comments will easily get one fired from one's job, ostracized from one's friend-groups, and embarrassed publicly. ...
To say that American culture is "still very racist" is just silly, though.

Absurd! Racism is very unpopular!


Inside the GM plant where nooses and 'whites-only' signs hung

It took 14 months for the noose to show up.

Fourteen months where Marcus Boyd says he endured racist comments, slights, even threats in a hostile workplace run by General Motors.
A workplace where people declared bathrooms were for "whites only," where black supervisors were denounced as "boy" and ignored by their subordinates, where black employees were called "monkey," or told to "go back to Africa."
A workplace where black employees were warned a white colleague's "daddy" was in the Ku Klux Klan. Where white workers wore shirts with Nazi symbols underneath their coveralls.
In Ohio.
In 2018.
All those allegations are detailed in a lawsuit filed against GM in which eight workers say managers at the Toledo Powertrain plant did little or nothing to stop racism.
For Boyd, it began on his first day. He said he could feel the glare from white team members as if they were saying, "Who's he to be in charge of them?"
All the other supervisors, who were white, received training before their jobs, Boyd said. Boyd, an experienced supervisor albeit in a different industry, was given a clipboard and told to start.
But if he wondered if he was making too much of that, the situation crystallized when some of his juniors ignored him, refused to follow his directions and called him the N-word, though he could never see exactly who said it.
When he reported the insubordination to upper management, he said he was told to deal with it himself, to counsel his workers who'd used the slur.
The message he said he took from his leaders at the plant: Be happy you're here. Deal with it.

But it got harder each day to ignore, he told CNN in an interview.
A white employee Boyd oversaw told him: "Back in the day, you would have been buried with a shovel."
In his role as supervisor, Boyd reported that, too. The worker was taken to a disciplinary hearing with a union official and business leader where he freely admitted what he had said, Boyd recalled. But then Boyd himself was pulled aside and advised to let the matter go if he wanted to get along at the plant, he said. No disciplinary action was taken, Boyd said.
Boyd and other workers of color learned there was a coded language to talk about them, according to the lawsuit. White employees kept calling them "Dan." They thought some people didn't respect them enough to learn their names. But other colleagues told them it was a slur, an acronym for "dumb ass nigger."
The N-word was a regular part of life at Toledo Powertrain, where components are made for various Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac vehicles, Boyd said. A white woman seen walking with him later found "Nigger lover" written on her pizza box.

When Boyd and others reported the abuse, their leadership told them to handle it themselves, he said.
Even more violent situations were brushed away. Boyd said he feared for his life when a member of his team, irate about a vacation request, yelled and raised a heavy, metal clutch assembly as if he was going hit him.
Boyd said he reported it. This time the offender was punished by losing one day's salary. "One day!" Boyd repeated, frustrated. For what felt like a direct threat to his life. One swing with that clutch could have been deadly, Boyd said. He said he believes there's a simple reason why.
"You have management people in high places, and union officials in high places, that work together to protect people ... that are white," Boyd said.

more:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/16/us/gm-to ... index.html

[Cunt]

CNN...that's like InfoWars for progressives, isn't it?

[Forty Two]

It's the plaintiff's description of a civil lawsuit. I searched for the case, but, naturally, the major media reports on this decline to inform us of which court it's filed in, and what the case number is. Wouldn't want the readers to be able to go read the documents for themselves.

So, it's a CNN article describing some egregious, shocking allegations. These are not common. That's one of the things about it, and the article implies is -- the article says - "In Ohio.... In 2018" -- to put emphasis on the fact that almost all readers would react with shock that such things would not only happen, but would be supported by management and human resources of a major corporation. the reason why it's surprising is that such things are not normal, and people react with disbelief that they could even be happening in the current year.

I can't refute the person's allegations, but it's not as if I have ever said that racism is nonexistent. Of course there are racists out there. What I said was that the general culture in the US is not to tolerate that stuff, and to look down on racists, and to fire racists, and hound them out of positions of authority. We just had Watson stripped of his honors and position because he said he thinks that intelligence is partly genetic and that certain races have different IQs.

Things that stick out at me about the allegations in the CNN article include the notion that employees at a General Motors assembly plant would somehow be shocked that a black man is supervising them, and that "who is he to supervise us?" or words to that effect. GM promoted him or hired him in as a supervisor, managing white guys. So, management at the plant obviously didn't care he was black when they hired him. And, General Motors has an affirmative action program that has been in effect since 1983, and managers at GM have to undergo training to conform to the policy of "meeting or exceeding diversity requirements under the Affirmative Action Program...." -- having black coworkers and black supervisors and black managers is not a surprise to anyone at General Motors.

GM has even defended and won lawsuits like Plott v General Motors where white and male employees claimed the affirmative action program was illegal sbecause it discriminated against white people, and they claimed that General Motors "exceeding" the diversity requirements of affirmative action plan was itself discriminatory against whites and males. That was 25 years ago.

I'm not sure what happened here, but I can find many examples of racism existing in every western industrialized country. Those examples don't prove or show that racism in general is culturally acceptable and tolerated in western countries.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/spor ... acism.html

Racial Abuse, Then a Beating, on a French Soccer Field
France’s men’s national team is the world champion, but current and former players say French soccer at the amateur level is marred by racism and discrimination.

And before you accuse me of tu quoque. That's not tu quoque. I'm not saying racism in the US is o.k. because there is racism in France. I'm saying that you cannot use a specific example of allegations of racism and racial abuse as proof that racism is tolerated and supported in a given culture. Nobody denies there is racism and racial abuse in France. However, when those incidents are publicized, most people are shocked by them, and most people strongly oppose them and condemn them. Not just most people - the vast majority of people. The culture is against racism.

[Scot Dutchy]

American History’s Biggest Fibs review — Trump would put Lucy Worsley up against the wall

The historian unravels all the lies about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Top marks!

[Sean Hayden]

...these guys don't actually know what's taught in US schools.

It's not the first time I've encountered this either. We often get Europeans who think Americans understand American/Indian relations at about the kindergarten level for example.

Why is that?

[Forty Two]

American History’s Biggest Fibs review — Trump would put Lucy Worsley up against the wall

The historian unravels all the lies about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Top marks!

This is the problem with this kind of "so-and-so ruins everything" show...

Paul Revere's ride is not taught as simplistically as "Paul Revere was the only rider ever and he did it all alone" -- Paul Revere's ride mythos comes from a poem. The history books in the US do not preach the myth. Saying that Longfellow's story is what "stuck" is simplistic. It's like saying that Henry the V really won the Battle of Agincourt by saying exactly what Shakespeare said he said on St. Crispin's Day! -- "Once More! Once More! Once More into the breach dear friends.... and fill the wall, with our English dead!" Is that the "story which stuck?" It's certainly the story that is most known and famous - but if you do an episode saying the real history was much different and Henry V never really said that, are you debunking a fib? Blowing the lid off "lies?"

Similarly, there is no evidence the liberty bell rang out to summon Philadelphians to the town hall for the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence, but novelist George Lippard published a story in 1841 in which it did and so it has rung ever since

Has it? In my high school history class, we talked about the mythos surrounding the liberty bell and its crack.

You know, one of the features of art and literature has been the idea that the Declaration of Independence was itself signed on July 4 in a meeting with all the colonial leaders present. In reality, Independence was formally declared on July 2, and the actual document was not signed until August 2. July 4 is the date the Continental Congress approved the final version of the text. Debunked! Fib! Liars!

There are different things that different people know about history, depending on their level of education. Naturally, some legends and myths become mixed with history. But, to imply some nefarious plot and cover-ups is unnecessary.

No, the War was not won by a ragged band of American colonial militiamen, fighting indian-style from behind trees and hedgerows while hapless tory soldiers in bright red coats lined up like sheep to the slaughter. The British army and navy was the best in the world in the late 18th century. They conquered 1/4 of the world with those hapless redcoats, and what won the American independence was help from France, German mercinaries, and the British need to pick and choose where they dedicated their forces. France entered the War in 1778, followed by Spain and the vastly superior forces of the NetherRegions. The Brits shifted focus from the north to the Southern Strategy, which they thought the South would be more loyalist friendly and allow them to keep their Navy closer to the Caribbean. They had to shift their focus to fight off the plunder of its shipping and other interests by it's competitor Colonial Empires in France, vastly superior Netherlands, Spain, etc. So, the Brits were extended over the West Indies, India, Gibralter, and the Mediterranean.

Once France entered the War, war broke out in India with the East India Company (which had its own private army) and the British warring with France over colonies in that region. The Crown sent forces that could have gone to the Americas over to India.

The history is fairly complex, and it seems to me very clear that the American colonies would have lost if they didn't have the help they got from Britain's rivals. And, the British knew how to fight and weren't defeated because the Americans adopted Native American fighting methods. But, in large part, the general "myths" in this regard are known about, just like the myths and legends of British history are also known about.