There are no easy answers to difficult questions.
This may seem like a no-brainer to most people, but many folks like things broken down into easily digestible sound bites, which they are spoon-fed on a daily basis by the social media or broadcast outlet of their choice. They then regurgitate this mess at every possible opportunity when an applicable subject arises; as though their words are the legitimate offspring of actual research and thought — usually it doesn’t even rise to the level of considered opinion!
Although it is really nothing at all new, this is where we find ourselves in the world circa 2021. Seemingly, it has always been easier for humankind to accept what passes for popular wisdom amongst those in their immediate tribal circle — us good, them bad — than to run the risk of actual self-discovery which often results from stepping outside the safe confines of personal and group identity; to actually go and learn something about that tribe on the other side of the river you’ve been shaking your spears at since time out of mind.
This entire preamble brings us, finally, to the topic of today’s column: that being the current brouhaha over another hot button topic, namely critical race theory. As per usual, I was pretty much clueless there was even a button, let alone it was of the hot variety. I guess I really started taking notice when reports of angry parents disrupting school board meetings — and one such meeting which devolved into physical violence — began filtering through the miasma of minutia typically marinating in my grey matter. How was this not on my radar? Was there more to this than met the eye?
After some in-depth journalistic investigation involving hours-long Google sessions and polling of friends and neighbors, this is what I discovered: As a reason for white angst, it’s a nonstarter. It is what can best be described as a wedge issue, cynically trotted out by political pot stirrers solely to keep tensions running high on both sides of the ideological fence. Critical race theory, also known as CRT, has been floating around in the rarified realms of academia since it was first put forth over 40 years ago. In simplest terms, CRT began as a movement of scholars and activists within the legal community attempting to uncover and address how racism has been codified into law and thereby impacting government and civil policy at all levels. It is NOT being taught in our public school systems.
Various and sundry theories aside — including the specious one that teaching our children about our national history in a more inclusive and honest manner is in some way detrimental to their development — the truth of the matter is simply this: For far too long, we have focused our educational efforts on elaborating and elevating the accomplishments of those of us in the majority at the expense of our fellow brothers and sisters of color. And not only have we failed to give them their rightful place in the history of this great nation they helped build, but we are systematically working to erase that very history from the written record, and from the minds of current and future generations.
Granted, my generation did learn about such stellar Black figures in history as George Washington Carver, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, writers Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin and of course, Crispus Attucks, the first Black man to die during the Revolutionary War. We even read “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stowe, which to some extent addresses the evils of slavery. But we did not — at least in school — learn about the racism alive and well throughout our country. This we learned on the nightly news watching police clubbing, tear-gassing and arresting peaceful civil rights demonstrators in cities throughout the South; their only real offense, wanting to vote.
Those of us who cared to, read to learn more about the dismantling of post-Civil War reconstruction and Jim Crow; about lynchings; about the peonage system of forced labor. We cheered each tiny step forward taken to provide our citizens of color with the same rights and opportunities in education and employment afforded whites, all the while ignoring the pernicious racism embedded in the daily fabric of American life.
How can teaching our children the full extent of the Black experience in this country possibly be a bad thing? It is simply an effort to teach the complete history of this great nation. It will not be an easy lesson to teach, or to learn. It is at times shameful and sad; some of it is horrific and downright terrifying in its cruelty and inhumanity, but it is the truth. And as we all know, the truth shall set us free.
