Tonight's post is inspired by a post by Ibram X. Kendi, anti-racist educator, author, and activist. Earlier today he posted "It is so unfortunate that when teachers educate their students about racism, some parents call it "indoctrination" -- and when teachers DO NOT educate their students about racism, those same parents call it "education."
Those of us in education (or as former educators such as me), especially those of us who have taught in communities of color or have educated ourselves in racial and social justice, know that our history has been written from a certain vantage point - that of the white man. Our constitution, our government, our formation, and history have all been authored through, and from, the perspective of white men. "All men are created equal" did not apply to women, did not apply to people of color - it only applied to white men. The history we were taught and raised on is all told from this perspective but we have been indoctrinated to accept it as truth, to accept the belief that these men are telling things as they were, and they inform who and what we are today. Today, trying to bring different view points, trying to tell the true story of how we got to today, is being called "indoctrination."
We might also call this white washing. It means that the authors, the tellers of this history, were all white, that the history of white people in this country is the history we learned in school. While there may be some reference to the "trail of tears" and slavery, the true atrocities of the genocide and enslavement committed by white settlers is downplayed by these narratives, downplayed by our focus on "explorers," downplayed by our indoctrinated narration of the rugged individual that braved the elements and succeeded at western expansion - rugged individualism that is a hallmark of white culture and neglects to acknowledge what we did to the indigenous people of North America. I will never forget the white 5th grade teacher who insisted to me, while teaching his all white students about Native Americans, that European settlers never intentionally committed genocide. That is what he taught his all white students (for many years) and that is the history they believe and will carry forward - this has happened for generations and continues to happen today. This history of white history as truth continues to live on generation after generation even today.
So it is true when people say "liberals" want to indoctrinate the youth, want to rewrite history, want to change the narrative - we do because history has been written to make the white person out to be the explorer, the settler, the champion while the true atrocities that got us to this place are hidden from view, not told in our story, white-washed away.
We cannot continue to educate our children in this way and expect that our country lives up to her ideals. We need to teach all aspects of our history for that to be true and for our country to be "by the people, for the people" because we are not all white people and this country was built on the backs and the genocide of black and brown people. We need to teach about the Trail of Tears and the largest mass execution in U.S. history in Mankato, MN. We need to teach about the true atrocities of slavery (as well as stop saying that Africans were to blame because of "selling their own" into slavery). We need to teach about what white America did to decimate thriving black communities in places like Tulsa, Rosewood, Atlanta, and so many more. These are not pretty chapters in our history but they are chapters in our history, chapters I was never taught in school and neither have my children. We have to start being real about our history if we are ever truly going to realize our promise, our purpose, and if we are to thrive as a nation for all.
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