Would you rather your children be lied to OR taught the truth?
As a child, I was fascinated (read: obsessed) with the Civil War. I read books, watched documentaries, collected pewter figures and was even something of a reenactor for the briefest of moments. Gettysburg was my favorite movie. I even wrote a poem about history! Yes, of course, I was a tremendous nerd.
On the rare occasion that I found opportunities to discuss (read: lecture) people on the Civil War, I would explain, with no small degree of condescension, that the war was not actually about slavery, it was about States’ rights. I might have argued that the real issue in the war was what power should be held by the Federal Government and what power should be retained by the States. I do not remember if this was something I was taught in school. I do know it was something that I had read in multiple books. The idea is even mentioned a couple of times in Gettysburg (movie).
At this point, you might be wondering why I am spending paragraphs establishing my geek credentials. Well, it’s because I was wrong. I learned an incorrect white-centric version of history and I repeated it. Even if one accepts the idea that the Civil War was about State’s rights, what right was it that they were willing to fight and die over? Slavery. The “right” to own another human being was the principal issue behind the Civil War. Someone, somewhere lied to me. As a child I lacked the capacity to critically examine those claims. I was reliant on my books and teachers to mold my views and sometimes the wrong things were taught.
It is said that history is written by the victors. It is more accurate to say that history is written by the powerful, the oppressor and/or the wealthy. History, like anything else, is recorded, taught and interpreted with an agenda. It is natural, even useful, to interpret history and try to distill the necessary lessons. But when a version of history is taught that excludes uncomfortable truths and inconvenient facts those lessons are lost and we lose the opportunity to understand and grow.
There is a movement afoot to teach our children a more robust version of American history. This version of history considers and accounts for the history of enslaved and marginalized persons. It examines the sociological, economic and cultural consequences of a people being owned. It provides a more nuanced understanding of our hallowed founding fathers. George Washington owned slaves, that is a fact. He was also quintessential in winning the Revolutionary War and as President secured the process of peaceful transitions of power, also facts. Errors are being corrected. You hear less often that Christopher Columbus discovered America. Because, he didn’t. There were civilizations all over the Americas long before a European set foot here. The myth of Thanksgiving is being reconsidered. We must acknowledge and reckon with the destruction European colonists wrought on Native peoples.
Conservatives have labeled this movement as Critical Race Theory (it is not), and used it as a political bludgeon in election campaigns all over the country. Most recently, Sen. Ted Cruz leveled this attack against Judge Jackson during her confirmation hearing. Never mind, that as a judge she has no role in education policy. It was a shameful, silly, theatrical and ridiculously off topic. It was political theater at its worst.
Sen. Cruz did not care what Judge Jackson thought about Critical Race Theory. Instead, he wanted to show off his conservative credentials to a national audience with an eye toward 2024. Sen. Cruz was weaponizing identity politics. It is no coincidence that he aimed this silly attack against a black woman. The unsubtle implication was that because Judge Jackson is black, her judicial decisions will be not only influenced but controlled by her race. Never mind her incredibly distinguished resume and legal acumen.
The reprehensible political theater is only the latest venue for this policy debate. It is worth considering what the fundamental debate is about. Grade school education on history has traditionally been focused on telling a great American Story. The Cliff notes might sound something like this: The brave pilgrims fled an oppressive English King in order to find freedom in a new land. Thereafter, more freedom loving Europeans joined their ranks and began to build a new world. But while this new world flourished it remained subject to the whims of a dictator across the Atlantic ocean. As a result, the greatest political minds came together to shake off foreign control and form a new nation based on equality and freedom.
Of course, that is not the whole story, it is hardly even truthful. Instead, it is a viewpoint. It is a story crafted to support a narrative of American Exceptionalism. A more robust cliff notes version that is not controlled by traditional narrative might be this: Small groups of European colonists began landing on the shores of North America in the early 1600s. Upon arriving on the shores of America they found the land already populated by natives. Over the course of the ensuing century, more European colonists arrived. The first group of slaves were imported in 1619. Through violence, biological warfare and trickery the European colonists pushed the natives from their lands. The colonies prospered through trade in furs and resources unique to the Americas. An agrarian society developed in the South on the backs of slaves imported from Africa. Southern plantations flourished because of the brutality of slavery. All the while, England continued to tax its increasingly wealthy colonies. The colonists revolted and formed a new sovereign nation. The colonial elites, wealthy and war heroes came together to draft a new constitution. This constitution guaranteed political rights to white land-owning men. For the purpose of distributing congressional representatives’ slaves were counted as 3/5ths of a person. Women were entirely excluded from the political process and denied the right to vote. Even white men who did not own land were denied the right to vote, thus disenfranchising the poor.
The first version is political propaganda that serves to instill pride in the Country we live in. It is also a viewpoint designed to ignore the mistakes and violence of our past. The first version is a lie by omission. The second version tells the exact same story but without excluding the marginalized persons who are also part of our history. The second version accepts and accounts for the errors of the past. There is little doubt that the Revolutionary War, the drafting of the Constitution and the First Ten Amendments were a turning point in the history of the world. As Americans we can look to those events and take pride. However, as rational human beings we should also be able to look at the mistakes and understand the nuances of our own history. We lionize the colonists and founding fathers, but they were only human. They were limited by their own biases, prejudices, and self-interests. We should be able to take pride in our history while simultaneously accepting and learning from the terrible atrocities of our past. It does not need to be one or the other. It can and should be both. We can tell the story of what democracy looked like in its infancy (hint: it looked very little like democracy) while also telling the stories of those persons who have been omitted or minimized in our retellings.
There are countless examples of this phenomenon in the American classroom. Consider how we teach and understand WWII. For a great many reasons, the Allies fought a righteous war. The holocaust was, arguably, the most terrible atrocity of modern history. What about the Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Traditional American history says that the bombs, while horrible, saved lives by bringing a swift end to the war. That is the perspective of the victor though. That is an “ends justify the means” perspective. Does killing civilians, particularly children, justify a swift end to the war. And what lives were saved? It was not the 130,000-215,000 Japanese who perished in the bombings, it was American soldiers. Yes, the war ended, but we also ushered in the nuclear age and an arms race that continued for decades. Traditional American education teaches that the bombs were justified, but that is viewpoint, not fact. Let us not also forget the Japanese internment camps. Our hands were cleaner but certainly not clean.
Every American history course will spend some time on the Civil Rights Movement. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream of peace and equality. Nonviolent protests from the Black community and their white allies lead to momentous changes. But the violence perpetrated upon black people before and during the movement is considered only in passing. Is the shameful history of extrajudicial killings/murder/lynching fully taught? Are events like the Tulsa, Oklahoma massacre even taught? The Civil Rights Movement is taught with an emphasis on “I have a Dream”, the Million Man March and bus boycotts because those are uplifting moments. The horrible oppression and violence is minimized.
Ultimately, the question is: should we lie to our children? Should we tell our children part of the truth because it is easy and convenient? Should we lie and say that colonists arrived to a new world? Or should we remember that there were already humans here and they were violently removed from their lands. Should we lie and say that America was founded on freedom and equality? Or should we explain that while the founding of this country was a great step toward representative democracy, women, minorities and the poor were intentionally excluded. Should we tell the truth and explain that slavery and its ongoing legacy is quintessential to understanding the United States, its history and modern institutions?
Personally, I want my children to know the whole story. I want my children to know the triumphs as well as the defeats. I believe they should be taught our prideful moments, but also those for which we should feel shame. It should not be an “either/or” but instead always a “both/also”. With context and nuance, we can better understand ourselves, our history and progress into the future with eyes wide open.
I do believe in American Exceptionalism, but not the white-centric, lie-by-omission American Exceptionalism pursued by Ted Cruz and the radical right. Instead, my American Exceptionalism is rooted in the astounding diversity of this country. I have been fortunate enough to visit cities in Asia and Europe. When traveling abroad it is always our habit to use public transit. What I have noticed is that on trains in Istanbul, Athens and Hong Kong the majority of riders are native Turks, Greeks or Chinese speaking the prevailing language. Compare that to my experiences on public transit in Chicago, New York and DC. Contained in any and every train car is a rainbow of skin colors, and a chorus of languages. There is no other place in the world where such diversity exists. The entirety of the world’s races, ethnicities, cultures, languages, religions, sexual identities and gender identities can be found living openly and freely here. To be sure, much work is needed for justice and inclusivity. But nowhere else in the world can such an exceptional mix of humanity be found.
