Speaking to American Family News, Julie Pickren, who is a member of the Texas State Board of Education, lamented the recent approval of a school course that will teach mind-blowing progressivism.
"The Texas State Board of Education approved an innovative course, an ethnic studies course called the Native American Indian Studies course that teaches woke indoctrination, thinks like that George Washington was a terrorist, was the leader of a terrorist organization, that his army were terrorists. It’s just a whole bunch of woke indoctrination that does not belong in the state of Texas."
She further explained the woke ideology behind this course.
"It also teaches that Christian churches and missionaries were sending missionaries into Indian lands to kidnap children and put them in reeducation camps. So, a lot of this course is woke indoctrination that will build resentment in our children against America, against our founding fathers and against Christians."
The course teaches that Congress paid U.S. soldiers to scalp Indians, Pickren wrote on X.
Fourteen of 15 board members voted with the course passing 9-5. Republicans have a 10-5 majority on the board. Four Republicans voted with all five Democrats.
The State Board of Education suspended board rules to approve of the far-leftist course. The public was not notified and therefore could not object, ToddStarnes.com reported.
"The fact that they're accusing George Washington of being a terrorist leader is so absurd. They are trying to promote an anti-American hatred. The problem is, what they don't seem to realize, or they don't care, is the long-term consequences of teaching citizens to hate their own country,” Laurie Higgins, culture-education writer for Breakthrough Ideas, told AFN.
Inappropriate at all levels, Higgins says
The course is inappropriate even at more mature levels of education, she said.
“The college level is where you're starting to get into teaching more comprehensively about history. But even at that level, to call George Washington, a terrorist leader, is absurd and beyond the pale, and it is no longer education. It is indoctrination,” she said.
Portraying Washington as a terrorist isn’t breaking new ground for the Left.
John Freivalds, a left-leaning author and opinion writer, referenced Michael Smith’s “When Patriots are Terrorists” in this piece for the Duluth (Minnesota) Tribune in 2020:
"George Washington was a terrorist,” Smith wrote. “Were he a citizen of the United States, which did not then exist, he could be convicted of a felony and given life imprisonment. We know that Washington was a terrorist and not just a patriot because of an act of Congress fittingly called the Patriot Act.
“That tells us the revolutionary army was a Tier III non-designated terrorist organization. … Any group of two or more individuals, whether organized or not (Washington's army was not always organized), which engage in or has a subgroup which engage in terrorist activity … in the use of explosives, firearms or other dangerous devices with intent to endanger directly or indirectly the safety of one or more individuals to cause substantial damage to property."
“Ergo the Boston Tea Party.”
The Freivalds piece that terrorists should not be branded as illegitimate fighters because of their non-traditional methods.
Terrorists vs. Freedom Fighters
There are distinctions between terrorists and freedom fighters taking on a larger, better-funded sovereign military.
“Freedom fighters do not need to terrorize a population into submission. Freedom fighters target the military forces and the organized instruments of repression keeping dictatorial regimes in power,” former President Ronald Reagan once said.
Pickren emphasized that teaching Indian history in America is very good, but teaching woke ideology is not.
“This woke indoctrination in this course, this falls very short of teaching the richness of Indian history in America.”
