It is February 2022 and throughout the United States of America there is a renewal of the old conservative trend of banning books. We even had a preacher hold a book burning rite.
Along with this we have several states proposing or even making laws that restrict what public school teachers may talk about with students, particularly if the lessons reflect badly on the ancestors of some of those students. Typically the white ones.
From the absurd banning of teaching Critical Race Theory in K-12 schools (which isn’t done anyway, and would be as ridiculous as teaching Gravitational Wave Theory to the third grade,) to banning any teaching that might make white children uncomfortable about history; these are all racist, and white supremacist reactions.
As I say this I am aware that many of the folks behind this do not consider themselves racist or white supremacist. But it stands just the same.
The idea that one should feel they hold superiority to others because you were born in a certain skin color, or ethnic identity, or in a certain country is pervasive. I have seen it throughout the world, though not in all countries. And the obvious response from those other groups is to take pride in their own color, ethnicity, and birthplace. It is February in America, which has for many years been recognized as Black History Month. It is a time to highlight the overlooked black figures in history, both to aid in promoting equality, and for black Americans to take pride in the great accomplishments of people of their own race.
A nice self-test would be to honestly answer how you feel when you hear that it is Black History Month. If you bristle at the mention and ask when White History Month is, you are probably a racist.
But few want to think themselves racist. But still there is that pride of color, ethnicity, and place that are in our psyches. Many do believe that their color makes them better, and they look around at how much better their race profits from the wealth and comforts of the country, and wish to think of it as a natural outcome. White people do better because we are superior, goes the thinking. It isn’t racist to just be better if it is a natural result of color. But for this to hold true, whites would not have had to enslave, oppress, abuse, and deny rights to blacks.
But in fact we did all of those things. We enslaved blacks, we oppressed blacks, we abused blacks, and we did, and in too many places we continue, to deny them their rights whenever and however it can be done.
In order to square these opposing positions, many white people are trying to minimize the history of the black experience in America. And teaching white children that their ancestors owned black people in the same sense as owning livestock doesn’t make their ancestors look good. That they beat, starved, worked, raped, murdered them, and tore them away from their families as a matter of profit, for hundreds of years; denying them the basic dignity of becoming educated, or choosing their own mates. And then after we fought a national war to end that practice, the nearer generations of the white children’s ancestors continued the oppression and discrimination against blacks with numerous laws that prevented them from advancing themselves. And that the discrimination racism continued even after the Civil Rights Act, and even to this day, stands in start contrast to any claim of natural superiority.
Again: Why do these things if race makes you naturally better?
Many people in this great country, of all races and colors, want to see a national reckoning of this past, with the hope that it will lead to racial harmony and true justice. To do that we must confront the truth about our national racism. We must learn about it and we must teach about it.
But for those who resist that test. For those who wish to maintain their belief that color has some bearing on the inherent quality of a person, they cannot allow that national discussion. They cannot stand for their children to hear the facts of our collective past. So, they gather together and take over school boards, and gerrymander districts, and pass laws, restrict teaching, and ban books that tell these truths.
For all the excuses offered, the reality is that these efforts to stop the teaching of history are meant to sustain the notion of racial superiority.
Why do these things if you are naturally better?