Will We Be Here For You?

Blacklisted Series, #6

Disclaimer: Our living history programs are not political. We have been forced to discuss First Amendment Issues because Cancel Culture is threatening our livelihood.

For that matter will anyone?

Riley’s Farm may not be here in a few years if we’re not allowed to teach American history.  Will you help us beat back our enemies in court?

One of my correspondents on Facebook lectured me this week about “sticking to apples.”  She didn’t want to hear about politics.  I reminded her that our very livelihoods are being threatened, that we might not be around to provide apples if our primary income (living history) is blacklisted or regulated out of existence.  She didn’t care.  Like so many younger Americans, she doesn’t know how cruel history can be to those who can’t be bothered with it.  One survey indicates 63% of Gen-Z doesn’t know 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

I keep putting this in terms of a “warning” but the “history purge” has already begun.

One school district wanted me to re-write the “Gold Rush Adventure” to feature cross-dressing gays and lesbians prominently — for a 4th grade audience.  The same school district asked me not to show my face outside of my own home on the grounds here, because I compared the sins of Columbus to the sins of the Aztecs.  Never mind that the topic wouldn’t even be discussed here; they just didn’t want students anywhere near someone with “unapproved ideas.”

At St. John’s University in New York, Adjunct Professor Richard Taylor, in the process of teaching about 15th century globalization asked about the trade-offs of world exploration.  What?  Imply that there might have been anything positive about European and Pre-Columbian cultures coming into contact with each other?   He was promptly removed from the classroom.

What’s next?  The dank cell and the interrogator?  “Comrade, you were guilty of humanizing Columbus.”

If you are still reading, it’s probably because you know that if a culture doesn’t know its history, it can be enslaved.  If we don’t remember that courage and bravery and sacrifice once existed — that our ancestors loved us enough to risk everything for us — we assume the worst about ourselves and the worst about our future.  We need what any child needs — the promise that the world has meaning, that good things come from learning our triumphs and our mistakes.

Our enemies today can’t stand the entire picture, the entire man.  For them, it’s not “warts and all.”  It’s “only the warts, please.”  Or “only your warts and my identity-based virtues — OR YOU’RE FIRED.”

Please DO NOT LET THESE PEOPLE WIN.  Some of you have the means to give generously.  If you can, do so today.  If you can’t please share and pray. We can win.  We can create a country where those small souls who are afraid of our history don’t abuse their power.  In fact, we can take that power from them.  WE MUST WIN.

Teaching history not permitted: St. John’s bulldozes academic freedom, punishes professor for posing question about ‘Columbian Exchange’

Categorised in: Blacklisted

This post was written by Jim Riley