PUTNEY — We are witnessing a unique and horrible phenomenon: the total denial of the story of American colonialism and the importance and horrors of the slave trade.
The Republican party has made a decision that white children and youth (who seem to be the only children and youth they care at all about) are not to be exposed to any materials that might make them aware that our ancestors were not models of moral perfection, that might make them feel a twinge of discomfort with or maybe even question the racism that is the Republican daily diet.
The books that these school boards are banning run the gamut from classics telling unburnished history of the Jim Crow era to books like The Hate U Give, an amazing young adult novel probing a police shooting from all angles.
Any book that might try to normalize the Black family, to make Black history real for kids, is absolutely out - out of the library and the classroom.
These boards are also trying to censor teachers. The same corrupt lawmakers who take lots of money and advice from corporate lobbyists are demanding to have cameras in public school classes. (Can we watch the lobbyists at work?)
They want to use the “don't say gay” bills being passed in so many red states. They want to find and out any teacher who might have the audacity to express empathy with the little girl whose two moms are struggling economically or with the boy whose affect is not sufficiently masculine.
These same cameras might pick you out and get you fired for being too honest with your description of the beatings of enslaved people, or of the truth of the cruelty to Native Americans forced to march on the Trail of Tears.
The issues that arise when I think about this censorship are many.
But I always think of the kids of color or kids who live in nontraditional homes. Do they not deserve to be exposed to materials that reflect their lives and realities?
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When we arrive at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, we are transported to the lowest floor, where we witness the graphic and terrible cruelty of the Middle Passage, the brutal kidnapping that defined the slave trade.
Appearing in very subtle lettering is the name of each slave ship, with the number who were kidnapped and then the number who survived. The death toll is staggering: of 540 human beings loaded onto one ship, 134 survived. The exhibit goes like this for hundreds of ships. A regular genocide.
As you walk up the ramp, you arrive at a reconstructed slave cabin, with details about the slave era and the rebellions, the beatings, and the amazing escapes.
You immerse yourself in the Civil War and see the tens of thousands of Black soldiers fighting for an end to chattel slavery. You see the Emancipation Proclamation, the era of Reconstruction, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, the emergence of Jim Crow laws. You recognize the heroes of the Civil Rights struggle. And so much more.
You learn that Black Americans built the city of Washington, D.C. Their labor provided a huge base of wealth for old white families in the United States - and that wealth inequality persists today.
In this museum, you see the stories of amazing courage, from Harriet Tubman returning again and again to help others escape from slavery to the Atlanta washerwomen's strike of 1881.
It breaks my heart to think that this rich and vital history will be missing from the education of millions of our youth.
Will they grow up actually believing that slavery was just peachy for the ignorant Blacks who were unable to care for themselves? Will they really buy into the lie that all who were lynched were criminals?
Teaching that Black folks face no obstacles, no barriers, and no hate in this country will only lead to a greater divide between those who believe hate radio and websites and those people whose ideas are based in reality.
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What can we do?
We all have an obligation as Americans to learn our history. And then we must act upon this understanding.
We must support those Black folks who are brutalized by the police and the criminal justice system, and speak up every time a racial slur or comment is made.
Those of us living in blue states need to support our teachers when a small minority of parents or agitators try to accuse them of teaching what they label “critical race theory” (that real legal theory is something never actually taught in public schools) or of damaging their ultra-sensitive white child's feelings by teaching honest history.
It is vital that the United States government and the conservative states not rewrite the events that created the best and the worst of this complex nation.
We must help educate all our children about our real history.