And the Truth Shall Set You Free…

Racism is like a Cadillac, they bring out a new model every year. Malcom X

As a resident of Texas I love with the beautiful skies, the amazing food, and tons of space. Texas is a magnificent state with many friendly people who readily engage in conversation. Recently I was having coffee at one of the many coffee shops in Austin.

I was wearing a Black Lives Matter shirt and a couple behind me asked me about the shirt, they asked, “Don’t you think all lives matter?” (I wear these and other shirts in order to have these conversations and Texans do not disappoint!)

I responded, “Yes, all lives do matter, but white lives have always mattered and based on outcomes in health, home, education, employment and the law, it is clear that black lives are not held with the same value.

They stated, “That just isn’t true! We are in a “post-racial society” and added,  “We have had a black president, a black person has every opportunity that a white person has.”

I wanted to push a little, and asked, “Why then is the teaching of critical race theory, CRT, banned in all K-12 schools as well as universities? They responded that they didn’t think that was necessary either as we should, “leave the past in the past.” and “it would just create problems.”

Apparently, Texas politicians feel the same way. Lt. Governor Dan Patrick issued this statement after passing a bill that banned the teaching of CRT in universities. He stated, “Last session, we banned CRT in kindergarten through 12th grade because no child should be taught that they are inferior to others due to their race, sex, or ethnicity. In 2023 this should be common sense but the radical left’s drive to divide our society is relentless. This session, there was no question that we would ban the teaching of CRT in Texas universities. Liberal professors, determined to indoctrinate our students with their woke brand of revisionist history, have gone too far. I thank Sen. Hughes and the other Texas Senate Republicans for standing with me to ban this divisive and ugly practice in our universities.”  Ugh!

Texas is not alone, it is one of 41 states that has legislation to outlaw the teaching of CRT. Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law that would ban diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at public colleges. Additionally, the bill will limit how teachers can talk about race. Virginia’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, signed an executive order to remove critical race theory from the state’s education system. Missouri Republican lawmakers are seeking to ban schools from teaching lessons on the role of systemic racism in the U.S. while also creating a program to promote American patriotism. The list continues to grow and I am terrified and outraged. CRT will not further divide American citizens, but rather help us come together and become more compassionate and understanding human beings.

The definition of critical race theory according to the Legal Defense Fund,  is, an academic and legal framework that denotes that systemic racism is part of American society — from education and housing to employment and healthcare. Critical Race Theory recognizes that racism is more than the result of individual bias and prejudice. It is embedded in laws, policies and institutions that uphold and reproduce racial inequalities. According to CRT, societal issues like Black Americans’ higher mortality rate, outsized exposure to police violence, the school-to-prison pipeline, denial of affordable housing, and the death rates of Black women in childbirth are not unrelated anomalies.

What puzzles me is, what are we afraid of? The argument against teaching CRT is that it unravels the fabric of America and could hurt white children’s feelings.

Being a teacher for over thirty years, I have to disagree. Children are more empathetic than adults. They are not delicate snowflakes that can’t understand that when harm has been done, it needs to be addressed, recognized and healed. In Toni Morrison’s book, The Bluest Eye, every chapter is titled with a sentence from the old Dick and Jane primers. This sentence shows the character Picola’s pain at being black in a world that loves blue eyed white girls.  

Since America was built on a Slaveocracy, it is the fabric of our foundation as a country. White landowners needed slaves to farm the rich land of America. They had a hard time getting Native Americans and white indentured servants to do the job. The imported black slaves were an answer to their economic prayers. They justified the unimaginable, inhumane treatment of slaves through creating scientific “facts” through pseudoscience. Stating that the slaves were not like white people, they were lesser in all ways. Therefore, beating, depriving, enslaving, breaking up their families, cutting of limbs and lynching was justified. Since all the power at that time was in the hands of white men, laws and beliefs were built around their beliefs.

This fabric NEEDS to be unraveled. Not to make white children feel badly, not to create children to hate America, but because it happened. It is part of all of our history, they are facts that can be proven and from which we can learn. It is our country’s shadow side, and until we bring it out into the light, until we stop denying it, systemic racism will live. Denying it is feeding it, denial is the water and fertilizer to help it grow.

Finally, what about all the black and brown children? Historically, education has been reading books centered on white people, written by white authors and history told from a white perspective. Are we not concerned about generations of black and brown children’s feelings? While even more damaging, the aforementioned education inculcates into the minds of every child that black children are inferior and dangerous. CRT allows all children to develop empathy and to see all people as valuable for who they are.

Michelle Alexander’s, The New Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness should be required reading for all Americans. As a white woman who married and became a part of a black family, I thought I understood racism. However, after reading her book I realized how little I really knew about what it is like to be black in America. And what I learned did not cause me to hate America nor did it hurt my feelings. What it did was let me see was what it was like for people who did not look like me. What grew in me was not hate, but empathy and openness

Knowing the culture of that time and the beliefs held by the majority of white Americans opens our minds to the deep damage that was caused. Teaching of CRT is essential education to heal our great country and finally be a country where “all people are created as equal,”

Rather than being feared, CRT should be embraced.