Rosanny Lora
Professor Young
AFAM 2100
8 Feb 2017
Why Must Our Minds be Fed Garbage?
Many of the events that took place in the earliest years of my schooling have now become a blur, but of the things I still happen to remember is the first time I was introduced to the topic of the American Civil War. The teacher stood at the front of the classroom and told the class that it was a war that was fought between the Union, which was comprised of 23 free states and 5 border states, and the Confederacy which was made up of 11 slave states. After the teacher implanted that piece of information into our brains she moved on to briefly discussing why the Civil War had even happened in the first place. It was the answer that I’m sure was recited over and over to the millions of students that have been cheated by the American educational system throughout the decades: “The American Civil War was fought because the Union States to the North wanted to abolish slavery, but Confederate states to the South wanted to keep in existence for as long as possible.” After giving the terse explanation the teacher swiftly moved onto another topic.
At that stage in life neither I nor my fellow classmates had been in a classroom that had helped develop or nurture our critical thinking skills, so, more often than not we just took that information at face value. That, paired with a public school system that was in shambles, didn’t really lead to a birth of critical scholars that questioned the history curriculum being taught in search for the real truth. Honestly, until I started attending college--yes, college-- I completely underestimated the importance of the events that acted the catalyst that started the Civil War.
After reviewing the information in the Prezi presentation and comparing into to what I already know I realize that: a) I have so much to learn and b) what I have been taught over the years were fallacies that were put in place to distract learners from the truth about how crucial events in the mid-nineteenth century actually unraveled. One of the most important things that the there wasn’t just one spark that led to the immense wildfire that was the Civil War, but rather multiple sparks (i.e. disputes and violent outbreaks regarding complex entities such as the institution of slavery and the government, and those who fought nail and tooth to end slavery). My brain is currently in the process of digesting all of these juicy bits of information, but there is still one thing that isn’t clear to me. I understand that there were to blame for the start of the Civil War but what was the last straw on the camel’s back? What event prompted government leaders to say,“That’s it! We will now wage war until we get what we came for”?
