so my sons in second grade and as far as I can remember the first piece of history that he is taught is about the underground railroad.  Are we teaching about how the enlightened the north east is compared to the rest of the civilization?  embedding the seeds of animosity between the north and south?  are we teaching that black people are different?  I am sure that I am behind on his history, but, this seems to be a bad place to start. 

Is it that it is a simple part of history to understand? 

Outrage After Communist Party Official Rewrites Paper’s Editorial

Outrage After Communist Party Official Rewrites Paper’s Editorial

By Hsin-Yi Lin
Epoch Times Staff Created: January 6, 2013 Last Updated: January 6, 2013

Related articles: China » Society

A photo posted on the Sina Weibo microblogging website purportedly shows two reporters with the Southern Weekly saying they will quit unless the newspaper stands up to a Communist Party official who manipulated one of its editorials. (Weibo)

Dozens of former editors and reporters of Chinese newspaper Southern Weekly published a letter asking for a Communist Party official to step down after he manipulated the front page of the New Year’s Day edition, making it align more closely with the Party’s propaganda.
In the incident, the Guangzhou-based publication’s New Year special edition was secretly changed at the behest of a government official during the rewriting process. Newspaper reporters complained about the change via their personal blogs and their messages were later removed, but not before other media workers in China took notice.
Luo Changping, an associate editor of Caijing Magazine, disclosed this incident in his blog on Jan. 2, saying that the Southern Weekly was finished and would be sent to be printed, but it was reviewed by the Guangdong Ministry of Propaganda and was changed.
The official in charge of the change was Tuo Zhen, the local minister of propaganda and the former deputy director of Xinhua, one of the Chinese Communist Party’s official mouthpieces.
Apparently, Tuo was upset about the publication’s New Year’s messages and removed content about sensitive issues and changed the theme to praise the Communist Party, which was not included in the original message.
The Southern Weekly’s top reporters were on vacation when Tuo altered the New Year’s message, according to Luo’s blog post. More than 15 reporters at the paper, who were angry with the change, “were gagged,” according to the blog.
Two reporters said they would resign after the incident. “If my dreams are rejected, then I will not work. If Southern Weekly cannot stand up for itself, then I will resign,” reads a slogan that two reporters held on pieces of paper in photographs online. 
At the same time, 51 former reporters and editors at the paper released a public letter, calling on Tuo to resign.
Other changes include adding more than 100 characters to the front page news that contained serious factual errors, changing the typesetting of the front page, and deleting mention of “patriots” who took part in an anti-Japan parade.

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After making the changes, Tuo then signed the paperwork to print the publication without the paper’s editorial review, even though he had made a number of errors.
The Southern Weekly’s New Year’s editorial is considered an important measurement of sentiment in China’s political climate. The newspaper usually reports on sensitive matters and sometimes tests the Communist Party.
The case underscores the pervasive lack of media freedom and rampant censorship throughout China outside of state-run media, which are subjected to the Communist Party’s meddling on sensitive topics. According to media watchdogs including Freedom House, China is among the worst violators of press freedom in the world.
The Southern Weekly’s editorial statement was supported by a number of Chinese academics and media workers. According to the Wall Street Journal, two-dozen prominent academics signed a similar letter calling to fire Tuo from his position.
“We’re concerned allowing people such as Tuo Zhen to remain in office, and witnessing their ill-doings, will bring about many more negative impacts for the Guangdong provincial party committee,” their letter reads.
Shanghai-based scholar Sun Huaping said he believes the New Year’s edition was rewritten because it included information about the constitution during the end of the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China.
The original article reads: “Only if constitutionalism is honored and powers checked can citizens loudly voice their criticism of power, and only then can every person believe in their hearts they are free to live. Only then can we build a free and strong country,” according to the Journal.
Beijing-based lawyer Zhou Ze suggested that the Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection should intervene and investigate Tuo for abusing his office.
With research by Jack Phillips.

In China, furor over censorship is spreading

Wu Wei/AP - A man wearing a mask with words "Silent" holds a banner reading: "Let's chase our dreams together, go Southern Weekly newspaper" during a protest outside the headquarters of the newspaper in Guangzhou, on Jan. 7, 2013.

By Keith B. Richburg, Updated: Monday, January 7, 6:57 AM

BEIJING — Hundreds of supporters of the reform-minded Guangdong newspaper Southern Weekly staged a rare public protest against state censorship outside the paper’s offices Monday, while prominent business tycoons, opinion makers and film stars used their microblogging accounts to demand greater press freedom in China.
Meanwhile, several of the newspaper’s editors and reporters said they were going on strike, which would be the first such action by journalists against official press restrictions in more than two decades.

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China’s internet censorship: Click through to see a few recent high-profile topics that provoked censorship.

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“This is actually something pretty amazing,” said Hung Huang, a publisher, writer and blogger. “It’s the first time the media is protesting against censorship. This is the first time they took action and said, ‘We’re not going to take this anymore.’ . . . Somehow, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
Cheng Yizhong, a television executive who is a founder and former chief editor of the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper, called the protests “an explosion that was a longtime coming, and with good timing.” He added, “This could be an opportunity to push forward freedom of speech.”
The highly unusual protests sprung from what is being called “the New Year’s Day incident,” in which Southern Weekly’s journalists say their front-page New Year’s message to readers — expressing a “dream” for a constitutional government in China — was substantially rewritten and watered down, without the knowledge or consent of the editors, by Guangdong province’s top Communist Party propaganda official, Tuo Zhen.
Tuo has not spoken about his role in rewriting the piece and could not be reached for comment. Several journalists and media executives said that even under China’s tight, long-standing control of the print media, it would be far out of the ordinary for a propaganda official to so blatantly interfere in the editorial process without telling top editors.
The incident grew more confusing Sunday, when a statement appeared at 9:20 p.m. on the Southern Weekly’s Sina Weibo account, the Chinese version of Twitter. The post said the New Year’s message published Jan. 2 was written by the paper’s management team, and it denied the online reports that it had been rewritten.
About an hour later, angry Southern Weekly editors and staff members used a separate microblogging account, for the paper’s economic news sections, to charge that Southern Weekly’s official Sina Weibo account had been forcibly confiscated by the government and that the statement posted on it was untrue. Dozens of Southern Weekly editors and staff members later signed an online statement saying the paper had been forced to give up the password to the official account.
An estimated 400 people heeded an online call for protest Monday, according to witnesses and online reports . People showed up holding roses and white and yellow chrysanthemums — the traditional flower of mourning in China — and some wore masks covering their mouths. Others held handwritten signs calling for freedom of speech.
“We laid flowers at the gate to Southern Weekly,” said Song Bingyi, a protester. “But once we put down the flowers, plainclothes police came to confiscate them all.”
“I wore a mask to express my anger at being ‘shut up,’ not because I was afraid,” said Ran Xiang, a protester who said she used her weibo account to persuade others to show up at the protest with flowers. She said she brought chrysanthemums because, “I hope to pay tribute to Southern Weekly, which is dying.”
The protests spread online, too, with an increasing number of journalists, students, bloggers and public personalities taking to their microblogging accounts to express support for Southern Weekly and call for an end to censorship. The microblogging sites have become an alternative, independent source of information that the Communist Party is trying desperately to rein in.
Among those advocates were the Shanghai race-car driver and popular blogger Han Han; well-known actresses Chen Shu, Li Bingbing and Yao Chen, who has more than 31 million followers; actor Chen Kun, with more than 26 million followers; real estate tycoon Ren Zhiqiang; and Zhang Xin, chief executive of Soho China, Beijing’s largest commercial real estate developer, and her husband, Pan Shiyi, the Soho chairman.
Those speaking out on weibo have said that the “New Year’s Day incident” is getting widespread publicity, despite increasingly frantic-sounding edicts from the central government’s propaganda authorities prohibiting the official media from publishing any information about the event. Censors have banned several terms on weibo, including Southern Weekly’s Chinese name, and even the word “lump,” which in Chinese is Tuo, similar to the name of the Guangdong propaganda chief at the center of the storm.


Wang Juan and Liu Liu in Beijing contributed to this report.