August 2021 Blog: “Back to School on Teaching Racism”
As children go back to school across America, hysteria over Critical Race Theory (CRT) continues. This academic theory, which few really understand*, has been banned from school districts and led to firing those who continue to teach it. Some parents are enraged that their children might have to learn a more complete truth about racism than they were taught in school. Egged on by reactionary politicians seeking political leverage, people are, frankly, freaking out.
It doesn’t worry Kristin Luebbert who teaches in a Philadelphia public school. She’s embraced the educator’s revolutionary role. As bell hooks said, “The classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy.” Besides, Luebbert knows that as a white teacher she is challenged less often than Black colleagues for “having an agenda.” She wants to use her privilege to overcome both white mistrust regarding Black people, and the denial that masks this mistrust. James Baldwin told an ABC interviewer in 1979 that while people “don’t know what the Black face hides. They’re sure it’s hiding something. What it’s hiding is American history. What it’s hiding is what white people know they have done.”
Los Angeles Times reporter Virginia Heffernan offers some historical parallels to explain the hysterical backlash. In her August 20th article, “How to stop worrying that CRT will corrupt your kids,” she points out that parents have always “freaked out” when children learn world-views offering more complete knowledge than they were taught. Socrates was condemned to death for “corrupting the children of Athens.” John Scopes was put on trial for teaching evolution in the 1920s. Today some schools have banned teaching about the near-genocide of indigenous groups. While Heffernan has some sympathy for parents who feel it’s risky to expose their children to the whole truth, she concludes, “an intellectual provocation like critical race theory is not a trauma. It’s education.”
General Mark Milley’s recent congressional testimony offers a valuable defense of open-minded liberal education that doesn’t hide unpleasant history. Milley framed the study of CRT as part of being a well-read, educated citizen and officer. Rather than becoming enraged, he suggested we learn more. After all, Milley concluded, “I want to understand white rage, and I’m white.”
I understand how learning more deeply about racism in America can lead White people to feel traumatized and freak out. I’ve been freaking out since I began learning this history. When I read about it, it hurts, but I keep reading. Why? I’d rather feel the pain and disturb my ethical equanimity so that I might know the truth and more fully embrace the struggle for racial equity. If we don't teach the full history of racism in our nation, we will perpetuate racism.
So, I’m working through the pain I feel personally, as well as the collective trauma unleashed on descendants from Africa. Obviously, my pain is exponentially less visceral and deep than those who have lived under racial oppression - it’s secondary trauma. But I am coming to understand the embodied nature of this pain, even as a white person. When I read narratives of people of color from Frederick Douglass to Patrisse Cullors, I feel a wound being opened again. But it is necessary to open the wound to clean out the infection. (As I quoted in my last blog and many other times, Martin Luther King Jr. explained that, “Like a boil that must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed to the light of human conscience before it can be cured.”)
So, I commit to doing this work of healing, both myself and our country. I do so to honor the millions of people of color who have already shared their own written version of racial oppression through narratives, sociological studies, and award-winning historical works we should all read. I do this work to thank friends of color who have shared their wisdom and support of my efforts. I do so to help others like me who consider themselves “white,” believe systemic racism exists, and commit to working to dismantle racism. Let’s accept responsibility for healing ourselves so we can work better to empower people who have been historically marginalized.
Further actions:
*1) Learn more about Critical Race Theory and share your understanding with friends. You can read a bit more about at these links that I shared in my July blog - Critical Race Theory – or in the articles mentioned in this blog by Kristin Luebbert and Virginia Heffernan, or this report from Brookings.
2) As I’ve mentioned before, read Resmaa Menakem’s My Grandmother’s Hands and work on healing trauma caused by racism. For an introduction to this work, try this interview by the Center for Compassion Studies at the University of Arizona.
3) Get involved with your local school board to assure that complete history education is offered in public schools. Work to assure that history is taught in a developmentally appropriate but honest fashion.