What's most ironic about white folks criticizing antiracist history teaching for "making white students feel bad" is this: if we, as white folks, had picked BETTER white role models for our kids -- not enslavers but abolitionists -- this wouldn't have been an issue (1)...
If we had held up John Fee and Ellsberry Ambrose and the Grimke sisters, over the founders and other apologists for slavery -- thereby debunking the "they were just men of their day" excuse -- our kids would never feel shame bc they would know they could be antiracists (2)...
If we had held up antiracist white allies as examples of a different way to live in this skin, we'd never worry about white kids coming to think they were "inherently oppressive," bc they would know they had a choice, and have examples of what that choice looks like (3)...
But no, we didn't hold up those real s/heroes bc to do that wold require us to be honest about the evils they were so brave in challenging, and THAT would implicate too many of our ancestors, too many of US...so we buried the names of those white antiracists...(4)...
Not just those above but Lydia Marie Child, Jeremiah Evarts, Virginia Foster Durr, Bob and Dottie Zellner, J Waties Waring, Anne and Carl Braden, Will Campbell, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, and many others...most don't know these names (5)...
As such, the only white folks we see are those who did, in fact, oppress, and enslave and go along with segregation, silently if not actively...and we wonder why our kids feel bad? It's because we CHOSE to not tell them the truth. There have always been whites who said no (6)...
Not enough, to be sure, but some...and if we taught about them too, alongside the brave Black & brown folk who have always led the struggle for justice, no white child would have to "feel bad." They could feel empowered. The fact we don't give them that tells us something (7)...
...and what it tells us is that some people are more committed to maintaining existing power structures -- and the narratives that uphold them -- than they are to education and justice and equity.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
