Thread by @ashtonpittman

Amid hysteria over the idea of Mississippi teachers teaching CRT, I'm reminded of the history coach* who, in front of Black students, said Black people would start turning against Mexicans for taking all the welfare money.

*he didn't want to teach, but was required to as a coach

Amid hysteria over CRT in Mississippi classrooms, I'm reminded of my high school American Law "teacher"/coach* who taught us that the Civil War was fought over state's rights, not slavery—a key Lost Cause myth taught since the early 1900s to rewrite the history of the Civil War.

Amid hysteria over CRT in Mississippi classrooms, I'm reminded of another history coach* who asked the only Black boy in the room if he'd support Colin Powell for President, then asked the only Black girl if she liked Condi Rice.

Then said: "Republicans ended slavery, you know."

Amid hysteria over CRT in Mississippi classrooms, I'm reminded of the school counselor who, while subbing one day, very fervently told us that America is "a republic" and not a "democracy."

I much later learned where that comes from: nymag.com/intelligencer/…

Amid hysteria over CRT in Mississippi classrooms, I'm reminded of a woman teacher who told a Black girl not to be upset by a white boy's Confederate flag belt buckle because it wasn't racist.

She had a Bill Cosby quote about personal responsibility hanging on her classroom door.

And these are just the instances of racism and racial mythologizing in classrooms that I, as a conservative evangelical white high school teen who watched Fox News in 2004-2008, noticed enough to store in my memory.

Who knows what all else I missed?

It's interesting to me that most of the examples that were obvious enough to my absolutely not "woke" self at the time involved white male teacher-coaches (or the counselor acting as a substitute).

Amid the hysteria over CRT in Mississippi classrooms, I also now recall the high school American law teacher/coach who brought up interracial relationships & said:

"I don't have a problem with it, but I feel bad for their children because neither race will accept them."

Long story short: Mississippi teachers aren't teaching CRT, nor is there some uncontrolled epidemic of them teaching anything particularly enlightened about race and white supremacy either (which is the real concern, not CRT).

I remember being quite angry in my 20s when I took a Civil Rights Movement class & realized that in high school I'd only been taught about Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks.

But not Mississippi's own Fannie Lou Hamer. Not Victoria Gray Adams (who lived 25 mins away!).

I remember feeling like high school really failed to teach me the true history of America in a way that emphasized the role of white supremacy. I wasn't taught about things like redlining. Or lynching. Or how truly awful segregation was.

The failure to teach high school children these things—which, yes, are all examples of how systemic racism works—allows the white supremacist narrative that racial disparities exist because white people are superior or that Black people are inferior to thrive.

But that's the goal, isn't it? To survive, white supremacists need the myths that support and uphold white supremacy to continue. Teaching people actual history in a way that shows how systemic racism works undermines the foundations on which white supremacy rests.

The true fear isn't that kids will learn CRT (which is taught in college law classes, not K-12).

It's that kids will learn about real history and American reality. And when you learn all that, systemic racism isn't a controversy. It's just an obvious facet of American society.