Do We Need to Teach Gay and Lesbian History?

One of our radio stations, which I don't usually listen to, just had a commentator talking—negatively—about a bill in California to introduce the teaching of gay and lesbian history in that state's schools.

There was a phone number for listeners to call with comments. I didn't phone, for a variety of reasons, including my lack of confidence in my ability to organize my thoughts in anything like a persuasive manner while speaking. That plus—this needs to be mentioned--the fact that I stutter.

One of this guy's points was that history largely includes bad guys, like Hitler. So he said, "Okay, if you want to find a gay marauder to include. . . ."

But I thought he missed the point. History and other courses in our schools have been tilted and slanted to favor sort of a majority, history-gets-written-by-the-victors point of view: male, white, Euro-centric, and of course heterosexual. As just one example: We might learn about Jane Addams and Clara Barton. But there were lots of very fine woman painters. How many can you name? Possibly, at most, these three who are very well known: Georgia O'Keefe, Frieda Kahlo, and Mary Cassatt. And it's not a coincidence that two of those are pretty modern; earlier ones never got much attention.

In the last few decades women and African-Americans have become vocal in pointing out how their contributions have often been overlooked or downplayed. It's a similar story with the contributions of countries and civilizations outside of those which, for several hundred years, have conventionally been thought to be in the path of the transmission of civilization from East to West. In other words, it's been Mesopotamia and Egypt, then Greece, Rome, Europe, and the U.S.

As just one little example of how wrong this is: It's been found that bronze smelting and casting was done very early in Vietnam. Is Vietnam and its contributions to world civilization included in our history?

Now, as to gay and lesbian people: In many fields there have been contributions by people who were gay or lesbian. Leonardo, Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, E.M. Forster, Noel Coward, Tennessee Williams, and so many more. Their sexual orientation has usually been very deliberately omitted from discussion when these people are discussed in our schools. Forster was not free to publish a homoerotic novel he'd written. Whitman was forced to change the pronouns in his poetry, changing them from talking about love of males to females. When history is thus "cleaned up" or sanitized for consumption by our students, not only is an injustice done but we find ourselves in the business of dispensing half-truths which are masquerading as truths.

So it's just a case of how far we feel we need to go to redress the balance. In a way it's the same issue as with affirmative action: Do minorities who have been overlooked, suppressed, discriminated against, now need special emphasis or consideration? They would not, if they had been getting a fair shake all along. And, your answer to that question might just reveal what your prejudices are.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

As if We Didn't Already Know

Florida and Texas are backward.

www.dailyfinance.com/story/media/filming-in-florida-so-wholesome-only-a-5-year-old-could-enjoy/19397043/

www.aolnews.com/nation/article/texas-removes-thomas-jefferson-from-teaching-standard/19397481

And yes, what Texas specifies it wants in textbooks, it gets; and it not only may influence textbooks for the rest of the country, it definitely does. Because Texas has state-wide adoptions (that is, a state body specifies what textbooks are acceptable for the entire state), and textbook publishers can't afford to make different versions for Texas and for the rest of the U.S.--what Texas will buy pretty much dictates what the books are going to be like--what they may or may not contain--for the whole country.

Trust me on this: I've worked in textbook publishing.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Richard Stein