A couple of weeks ago I said I was going to steer clear of any political stuff; but a writer writes what is in the head and the heart. So, contrary to my words, here goes.
The arguments pro and con addressing the issue of how history should be taught in public schools are myriad; you have as many experts as you have opinions. My personal view was if it happened it should be revealed as accurately as possible with all aspects included so that students don’t have to relearn later in life when a more in-depth study of any historical period or event is offered. According to reports, many others have come to believe that a position of full disclosure at the elementary school level can have a negative impact on one segment of the campus population, the white students.
The term white, when applied to what anthropologists refer to as races, is not easy to define. The categorizing of races limits each of us to only one segment even when that race can include various ancestral backgrounds. The New World that would eventually become the America we live in today was a magnet for many of a single race who would naturally spawn new generations of mixed ancestry. A look at any current document asking nationality shows many boxes one may choose from, when not many years ago there were only White, Black and Other.
Here is an example of real history. The Allied invasion of Normandy, D-Day, was the major turning point of World War II and American servicemen were greeted in France as knights in shining armor come to save the French people… especially young damsels in distress. Such was the portrayal promoted by the U.S. Army; an army whose main contingent were young white men far away from home and female companionship. The natural result was, of course, many young American soldiers, to use today’s parlance, “hooked up” with French ladies and, just as naturally, some marriages resulted; but also, many children were born never knowing who their father was. This has happened in all wars since wars have been fought. And then there are the cases of rape. By August of 1944 a French newspaper in Cherbourg reported “rapes and murders instilling fear in families across the countryside,” a matter not unknown to Top Brass in London and Washington, D.C. To maintain a high public opinion of their heroic forces, a plan was set in motion to show French civilians the occupying powers could be trusted to deal with such matters. So, they blamed Black soldiers.
And by “they” I mean the top authority made up of white males of either Protestant, Jewish or Catholic sects. They could take the blame off white soldiers by selling the stereotypical belief that Blacks were hypersexual and violent; and it worked. Some hastily put together trials were conducted and 152 soldiers were tried for rape, of which 139 were Black; at a time when Blacks made up only 10% of American forces. Of the 29 soldiers included in public hangings in France, 26 were Black. How many were innocent is not known. Many Black service personnel who served their country in that war, men who freely drank champagne with French ladies in sidewalk cafes, came home to places where they were not permitted to drink even water because of their skin color. Many of the men who made the decision to blame Black men for white men’s crimes returned to their families, their jobs and their houses of worship.
Why am I only learning about such historical facts at 72 years of age? How many students across this land know that part of our history? And, if we believe history is important as a learning tool, at what age should such information be revealed? That question is the germ of what is referred to as white guilt. And those who are concerned with this issue raise some points that are not without merit.
I have to ask myself if the history of America includes Africans stolen from their native lands for use as unpaid slave labor, of the eradication and decimation of Native Tribal lands and cultures, of the treatment of Southern Blacks after Reconstruction and Chinese immigrants during the railroad building era, and Japanese citizens during World War II along with the treatment of Mexican field workers and other acts of racial bigotry allowed by governments, legislatures and councils made up of almost exclusively men of white Western European/Judeo-Christian ancestry, were introduced to students at, say, the fourth- and fifth-grade levels of the public school system, would such factual information have a negative impact on young white males? My answer would be hell yes, it is going to have a negative impact; how could it not?
Just how awakened, or “woke” if you prefer the ungrammatical, do we want young people to be to the negative aspects of our country’s history and at what age should such information be meted out or if indeed should it be revealed at all, ever? One argument is that an overload of information to minds yet unmatured enough to process such information will engender guilt feelings; they will feel less of themselves because their ancestors committed acts many would label as just plain evil. The argument holds water when looked at from the historical record to a time when Blacks, so beaten down by white society, avoided eye contact with whites out of both fear and shame. We should not want that type of society again: we are a country of too many backgrounds and languages and religions to revert to a time when a whole segment of society is negated. Let us hope wise people in the field of public instruction make the right decisions for our young people; all of them.
Take care. Peace.
