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Date: | Sun, 25 Mar 2012 11:07:35 -0400 |
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> The state has an obligation to provide as full an account
> of the past as is appropriate to the age group of the students.
I once phoned Cathy Lewis's Norfolk NPR "HearSay" talk show and asked
Professor Carol Sheriff herself a version of this question: Should
schoolkids of any age be taught anything about Sally Hemings, and if so,
what should they be taught? (She ran for the hills, by the way, and I didn't
really blame her.)
Forum moderator, if you judge that you must leave this message
undistributed, I'll understand -- though I note that the Smithsonian's truly
marvelous "Jefferson and slavery" exhibit is engaging and challenging
visitors concerning the need to remember the enslaved as individuals with
dignity, and that this has meant that that institution has had to answer a
version of my question. If you do leave the message undistributed, I hope
you'll e-mail me to say you've done so.
I would add, "Fellow forum participants, please don't take this as the
starting gun of another of those Hemings brawls that led to forum moderation
in the first place." But in fact, I'm not sure that Americans can answer
this particular question without at least a hint of raised voices. Too bad,
too. For a paternity agnostic, it's all so bizarre. Everybody's so confident
about a two-century-old sex mystery that has only wispy evidence for either
side.
Steven T. Corneliussen
Poquoson
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