How history is taught in public schools is now a battleground in the culture wars.
(It shouldn’t be overlooked that political interference with lesson plans is now also spilling over into public universities, but that’s beyond today’s topic, and won’t be covered here.)
As always, ignorance has a powerful lobby behind it. Case in point:
“On June 15, the campaign of a candidate for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates promised voters that his first bill ‘will ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project in Virginia’s Public Schools.’ The candidate’s website offers no evidence that he is aware of what is actually taught in the state’s public schools. The specifics of his proposed legislation suggest he has barely a notion of what critical race theory is, and that he has not actually read the text of the 1619 Project.”
In an essay published by The Hill on Monday, July 5, 2021 (here), a group of scholars wrote:
“As historians with a combined five decades of experience teaching in universities across the United States, we’re gratified to see so many politicians interested in what historians teach. But to legislators, we offer the same advice we’d give our own students: do your homework.”
This is highly aspirational, to say the least. In politics, these days, asking if people know what they’re talking about is almost irrelevant. Because it’s beside the point. Politics has never been an exercise in rationality, and certainly isn’t today (see, e.g., evangelicals’ fawning worship of a profoundly immoral politician).
Today’s political turmoil is about change. Conservatives, by definition, like things the way they are. People you derive their tranquility from the status quo don’t have to understand change to feel threatened by it. Hence, you get angry mobs screaming at school boards about what’s taught in schools when they haven’t read the curriculum. They could care less what’s in it. The offense against their sense of well-being is the act of tinkering with it, not the substances of any changes made.
This also goes a long way to explain why people in Kansas feel their lives will be destroyed if two gay guys shacking up in Vermont are allowed to get legally married so they can own property together, access each other’s medical records, and inherit from each other (marriage in our society, if you didn’t know, is a legal relationship). It’s a change from how things have been done, and what they grew up with, and that’s enough to set them off. A lot of people are uncomfortable with change, because the status quo has worked for them, and all they see is downside from tampering with it.
Understand, though, that mobs screaming at school boards don’t materialize out of thin air, any more than the Capitol insurrection did. Sure, an instilled sense of grievance is essential to assembling a mob, but even organizing a riot requires leadership, a plan, and work. By way of illustration, the now-infamous “Loudoun County [school board meeting riot] was organized by Heritage Action, which is the advocacy arm of the Heritage Foundation.” (See sample video here, if interested.)
Of course there’s no thinking involved. If you listen to Republicans, they sound like a flock of parrots. There’s nothing original about what they think or say. They just repeat what they’re told to believe. In other words, there’s no discussion of substance, which would be impossible anyway because they don’t even know what the substance is. All they “know” is what the sign says (photo below; I put the word “know” in quotes because otherwise I couldn’t type it with a straight face).
Summing up the situation,
“None of this has anything to do with history education … the goal of these efforts is to suppress teaching and learning about the role of racism in the history of the United States.”
Partly because they don’t want to admit this country is racist, or they’re racist. But I think it’s a mistake to attribute this blind resistance to teaching the real history of America to the next generation entirely to squawking white supremacists afraid of getting pushed off their perch. Inertia is a powerful force not only in nature, but also in human nature. A lot of this is people simply not liking change, without even knowing what the change is, or whether it’s good or bad — they just assume it’s bad simply because it’s change.
I could toss something in here about conservatives having no problem with white cops murdering black people, but having a BIG problem with protesters demanding that white cops stop murdering black people, and use that to argue this isn’t just by racism but also a reaction against tampering with the status quo, to reinforce that point. But I don’t think I have to.
The fact these people don’t even know what it is they’re so vehemently against speaks for itself. Educating the public, something you always have to do to get any change accepted, is not the answer, because they don’t want facts. For them, ignorance is bliss, and they want you to leave well enough alone. They wouldn’t be conservatives otherwise.
Ask them to “do your homework”? Good luck with that.
Related story: A Nevada conservative group wants teachers to wear body cameras (read story here).
Related article: For a look at the complex battle over what kids are taught in a St. Louis school district, read article here.
There are problems with the critical race theory as it is put out. It does not cover the greater United States. As the United States expanded there was racism. Though most of that racism was directed at American natives. Later we acquired western lands that included more natives and Hispanics. We also acquired Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Philippines, Guam, ect. In fact in 1940 the United States largest minority was not blacks, but Asian and Pacific Islanders. The reason Hawaii and Alaska did not become states until after WWII was due to racism. The reason Puerto Rico and the Philippines did not become states soon after occupation with the majority of both populations wanting to be part of the United States was racism. This racism did not involve slavery; though there was some slavery in the Philippines in some areas, but the fear that states where the majority were different and would put different people into Congress certainly played a significant part in the delay of them becoming states. It plays a part in Puerto Rico not being a state.
The fact it shows that blacks are not the largest minority group in America pushes against the story we hear, and the fact that slavery plays a much more minor role or no role in Alaska or Hawaii is a story that some minority groups don’t want out there. The fact racism played a large part in the United States being unprepared for WWII, because it had been unwilling to put money into preparing for a coming war with Japan or place guns in the hands of Asians, Natives, ect played a part. We certainly paid for this with Pearl Harbor, the destruction of American bombers in the Philippines, Japanese occupation of Philippines and part of Alaska, ect.
Racism can be costly to national security and that is a story that should be told. It is also meaningful and impactful, but is not spoken about in the mainland (the 48 contiguous states).
To get to first base in a serious discussion, the first step is getting the facts right, and you haven’t done that. Your statement, “As the United States expanded there was racism. Though most of that racism was directed at American natives.” is correct in the strictest literal sense, in that the expansion was westward, and there were very few blacks in the West then. But to gloss over historical racism against blacks is, well, the precise deficit in our standard educational curricula that the “1619” project seeks to overcome. You want to count the Philippines as part of the U.S. for demographic purposes, but it was not part of the U.S. for those purposes. You can read 1940 official census data here (page 9 of download). At that time, the “Negro” population of the U.S. was more than 20 times all other races combined. I won’t dwell on your other questionable statements, other than to say blaming the failures at Pearl Harbor on racism seems very far-fetched. Suffice to say your effort to downplay the significance in our history of racism against blacks lands with a thud.