John F. Kennedy once said, “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” It seems that over half a century ago people understood that change wasn’t a bad thing, but Mr. Buchanan didn’t seem to get the memo. Although, maybe he does think that people were smarter back then, as he is basing one of his main arguments on a textbook that is older than my parents. Making this argument, nonetheless, in an era when textbooks are considered out of date after one semester of classes, let alone 51 years. Mr. Buchanan’s argument continues to fall apart as the article continues. Firstly, stating how this book only mentions one sentence of Harriet Tubman but five chapters of Andrew Jackson, …show more content…
No matter how much Andrew Jackson accomplished you cannot leave out someone like Harriet Tubman and, moreover, what she represented. Harriet Tubman is associated with the battle to attain equal civil rights for everyone in our country, a battle that lasted a long time, and honestly is still going on today. This may seem ugly to talk about in history textbooks, but as Loewen tries to demonstrate, if we fail to accept and discuss the problem than we will never be able to fix it. This whitewashing may help to give us things that are easier to embrace, however in order to get a future we all want to embrace, we must face the ugly things head on. Speaking of ugly things, as Buchanan continues his article he talks about all the things Jackson did throughout his life. Things that have been heroified. Loewen discusses how history tends to heroify the things people do in order to make people appear