This opinion piece in the Houston Chronicle by Alice Lively in Kingwood, Texas, is so critical. I wish more were necessarily opened-minded, as she displays here. Teaching about race as interpreted in this country is essential at every age in the appropriate form.
Regarding “Democrats are lying to you about critical race theory,” (Nov. 14): Reading two columns in the paper on Sunday — Thiessen’s and “How young is too young to teach white children about race?” by Pitts — I took away several important points. From Thiessen, I read that Republicans interpret teachers’ learning about elements of critical race theory as automatically transferring CRT verbatim to young children and they intend to use this assumption and misinformation as a political bludgeon against Democrats in the coming elections. From Pitts, I understood that there is no control over when and where race becomes an issue for a young child.
I just recently watched a documentary about the Tulsa Massacre of 1921, a horrific event that I had never read about in any history textbook I’d had. I have come to realize how most of the history I learned in school was, in fact, incomplete. Most of my teachers and my parents did not want to dwell on the blatant acts of racism in my country when I was in school. That said, I read “The Diary of Anne Frank” when I was in 7th grade and learned about Germany’s racist actions towards their Jewish countrymen. It is easy to call out racism in others but it is often difficult to recognize it within ourselves. Let us enable our teachers to teach a more inclusive curriculum and to better deal with racist ideas in the classroom. I would also encourage today’s parents to better inform themselves about the history of our country and be prepared for those questions their children will most certainly ask.Source: Opinion: Our middle schoolers learn about racism in Germany but not at home
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My early education was on military bases. When I started into the 7th grade I began attending a standard public school. I did not learn anything new until I was a Junior in high school. After the revolution, that occurred on college campuses during the 1960’s and 1970’s, school systems began using funding as a rationale for removing art, music, and civics from the curriculum at schools. The intelligence of the youth that brought about the reaction to Viet Nam, the Black Experience in America, Farm Labor, and the Women’s Movement had to be stifled and the schools is where the dumbing down occurred. Until today this dumbing down of American children has been done under the guise of funding, or teaching to a test, or some other rationale I am not aware of.
The racist push to end the history of the experience of the historical minority in America looks to me to be an attempt to remove history from the curriculum of the American schools. The Third Reich took control of the educational system in Germany under Hitler and the youth were molded into good Germans and accepted the killing of millions of innocent human beings in the Death Camps of Germany. As the demographic changes occur in America and bring the historical majority, the controlling white “race,” becomes the minority there is a sense of loss of power for the power elite of the white “race.”
By allowing the school systems to only teach the racism of other countries the school system is also teaching the American children to not look at their own history and the American children’s place in history. Making the American children more malleable to being controlled in their thought processes, in the way the children of the Third Reich were controlled. Turning the present day American children into citizens of the future who will be more deferential to the desires of the power elite.
Presently it appears as though, through gerrymandering of the voting process, a minority party in America is attempting to take control of the United States of America. The republican party membership is primarily comprised of white “race” individuals. The desire to keep their control over the American political, economic, and educational systems is the basic underpinning of systemic racism. It is also a basic tenant of White Supremacy. Where the white “race” has power all other “races” that are less powerful. I find today to be a time of history repeating itself because the white “race” has studied the history books of the rise of the Third Reich and they appear to be following the play book.
The glimmer of hope I see today was in watching, I am old and no longer physically able to attend protest gatherings, the beautiful mixture of what America looks like. During the 1960’s and 1970’s the protests were segregated, the same as the country. Anti-war gatherings tended to be populated with predominantly white skinned Americans. The Women’s Liberation gatherings tended to be populated with female individuals. The civil rights movement gatherings tended to be populated with negro individuals. The separation of these distinct groups of Americans seems to have evaporated into the amazingly colorful groups at the Black Lives Matter gatherings. The separation of these distinct groups of Americans seems to have evaporated into the amazingly colorful groups at the Women’s Marches. The present day Anti-War gatherings are an amazing display of what America looks like in skin tone and gender.
I think the republican party has failed to factor in what America looks like in its attempt to foist power into its grubby hands as that power appears to be slipping away as its membership becomes a numerically demographic equal part of the humanity of America. It is now upon us, who look like what America looks like, to join the Democratic Party. When the Democratic Party looks like what America looks like it may finally become what American Democracy needs. The power to refuse corporate dollars, thereby no longer corporate control of the party. Vesting control of the American government into the hands of the American voters. The beautiful humanity in what America looks like.