It seems that the PC bunch in Texas is recommending that the word "heroic" be struck from the curriculum when Texas students study the Alamo.
A panel advising the Texas State Board of Education on curriculum is recommending that the word "heroic" be dropped from study materials that describe the defenders of the Alamo.It is indeed, a value-charged word. And entirely appropriate for those brave men who gave their lives in support of freedom. None of them wanted to be there, but all of them knew it was necessary. The men of the Alamo knew what awaited them, but intended to stand to the last, to give Houston time to build an army. That is heroic.
The reason? Apparently, the panel believes that the word "heroic" is a "value-charged word."
"Many times the Alamo gets boiled down, as it often does in movies, to the Mexicans are the bad guys and the good guys are good Anglos in coonskin caps," Buenger said. He noted that many Mexicans fought alongside Texans in the siege.Only cursory students of the Texas Revolution would believe that. In fact, many patriotic Hispanics fought with the Aglos to free Texas. One of the most prominent was Juan Seguin, Seguin was at the Alamo during the seige, then was chosen to carry a message to Houston. After delivering the message, he tried to return to the Alamo, but found that it had already fallen. He t hen led a cavarly company screening Houston's retreat during the Runaway Scrape, and fought with Houston at San Jacinto. Juan Seguin is truly a hero of Texas, and deserves to be remembered as such.
The men who fought and died at the Alamo, and the others during the Texas revolution are all heroes, and striking that word from the curriculum is political correctness run amok.
The great sin nowadays is to state that some people are BETTER than others, hence the elimination of words like hero. We used to understand that some people are of more value, to society, to themselves, and to others than others. Not everyone IS a hero (and that's OK), but we've lost the idea put forth in Shakespeare's St Cripin's Day speech:
ReplyDeleteAnd gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
Mark D