This show is pretty good once you sift the chaff. My main complaint is when the commentary strays from the facts. I realize there is such a thing as living history, but when you start the bleeding heart commentary then it just corrupts the information.
For example, there was an episode about a German POW camp in Texas and Gwen kept saying things like, "OMG, there were Nazis in a German military prison camp?!"
I also found it funny when she was doing a story about how most cowboys were actually latinos. In the story she talks about how real cowboys differed from the traditional studio cowboys like John Wayne and Heath Ledger.
shareYeah, the show never misses an opportunity to wave its flag of diversity and pluralism. Or to trumpet anything involving non-whites. It's a pity because, as a lover of history and old objects, I think the format has a lot of potential.
Something I found out about Marcus Garvey, the guy who started the Black Star line. Turns out that Jim Jones based the People's Temple off many of his ideas and Jones even visited Garvey several times before his death.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/jonestown/peopleevents/p_jones.html
Does this sound familiar? "promoted economic empowerment for his flock through redistributive cooperative enterprises" Maybe somebody should tell our new president that the Black Star Line went bankrupt, so that redistributing wealth type of change didn't work out too well.
It would have been pretty hard for Jim Jones to visit Marcus Garvey since he passed on in 1940 about the time Jones would have been a young child. He actually visited Father Divine who was Black. Jones may have used some of Garvey's ideas but visiting him? No way. Jones used his people and took everything they had and brainwashed them to beleive it was all good. How do I know? Jones was a subsitute teacher of mine in 8th grade and several of my teachers died in Jonestone.
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Nobody said anything about having exclusively white content. I realize the history of the US involves a lot of non-whites, so I have no problem with stories featuring non-whites. What I do have a problem with is when a show that is ostensibly about general history (rather than "ethnic studies" like that Gates show) goes out of its way to feature stories on and make pointed comments about non-white history. I'm not just being sensitive or falling for confirmation bias. It's obvious the show has some sort of mandate to highlight diversity. The fact that it's so transparent and the hosts make such naive statements all the time only makes it worse.
Blacks did contribute to the building of the South, but they didn't do it all themselves. Same thing with the Chinese. You weren't required to be Chinese (or Irish, Italian, etc.) to build the railroad so don't treat it like an ethnic accomplishment. Native Americans were "marginalized" to some degree for as long as they've been in contact with whites. And while the country has had a diverse population throughout the years and many cultures contributing to what we have become, it wasn't built ON diversity and pluralism.
I'm not a Teabagger or some culture warrior. I'm actually a bit left of center, so don't pretend like this is a right-wing complaint. As much as I dislike the disinformation on Fox News, I have a history degree so am more than a little familiar with the "other side". Don't pretend there isn't also a slant among many in the insulated academic world. Much of history comes from those who lived it, so a good part of it is subjective by definition. However, when bias is present, no matter to which side it leans, corrupts and pollutes the message.