Thread by @michaelharriot

Thread: Because I was home-schooled, I am always genuinely surprised to learn about how and when people learn certain things, ESPECIALLY history.

I have been thinking lately how white supremacy is instilled in us and I really think that MOST of it has to do with our education system.

Here’s what I mean:

I didn’t know, UNTIL THIS WEEK, that students aren’t taught that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and most of the Founders were slave owners when they learn basic American history in the first grade.

I found this out YESTERDAY and it explains a lot. How can you teach “all men are created equal” and the then LATER teach about slavery?

My mom would somehow get her hands on school textbooks and I LOVED reading the stories in literature books and reading books. My mom did this weird thing where she would scratch out the white-sounding names in the books and replace them with the names of our family members

I didn’t realize what she was doing until years later. I can’t imagine that I would grow up loving to read if the names and faces were unrelatable. To this day, unless the author specifies it, I imagine a character is black in most books.

This is the crazy thing: I was probably 14 or 15 years old when I realized that there were more white people in America, even in my town, than black people.

I have never thought of white people as smarter, more beautiful or even richer.

There is nothing about whiteness that I have ever desired or aspired to.

It’s not because I know more. I think it’s because I never had to UNLEARN white supremacy. But people often make me aware of one shortcoming in my education:

I don’t know how to talk to white people.