Ignoring The Sins Of The Past Isn't A Recipe For A Better Future

How long we will continue lying to ourselves about our racist history?

Critical Race Theory is not the traditional civil rights movement, which sought to provide equal opportunity and dignity without regard to race. Rather, Critical Race Theory, and the training to implement it, is a radical ideology that focuses on race as the key to understanding society, and objectifies people based on race….

An outgrowth of the European Marxist school of critical theory, critical race theory is an academic movement which seeks to link racism, race, and power. Unlike the Civil Rights movement, which sought to work within the structures of American democracy, critical race theorists challenge the very foundations of the liberal order….

Systemic racism, in the eyes of critical race theorists, stems from the dominance of race in American life. Critical race theorists and anti-racist advocates argue that, because race is a predominant part of American life, racism itself has become internalized into the American conscience. It is because of this, they argue, that there have been significantly different legal and economic outcomes between different racial groups.

The problem with instant experts on race relations and issues surrounding racism in America is that they think they KNOW what racism is and is all about. The truth is that if their skin is White, they almost certainly don’t. I may think I have a pretty well-developed understanding of the subject, but I’m well aware that I have no actual working knowledge or experience of racism.

I’m White. How could I understand racism when I’ve benefited from White privilege my entire life, often without even realizing it?

That’s not to say, of course, that a lack of melanin renders one incapable of empathy, compassion, or even understanding. But being White also means coming at issues of race and racism from a perspective of profound privilege and too often profound ignorance. Unfortunately, for some folks, the profound ignorance overwhelms everything else.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is merely an intellectual construct that argues that while “race is a predominant part of American life, racism itself has become internalized into the American conscience.” CRT holds that racism is both overt and subtle and that aspects are dangerous and must be exposed and purged from our collective subconscious.

And the controversial part of that would be…?

While CRT has become a flashpoint for many Conservative Whites today, they fail (or refuse) to acknowledge that CRT isn’t something high school students learn. Instead, it’s a symbolic match they can toss into an equally metaphorical jerry can full of jet fuel.

It would be humorous listening to so many White parents waxing indignant about CRT being forced upon their precious snowflakes- if they weren’t so dead serious…and utterly vacant.

And dead wrong.

One of the legacies of Trumpism is that it gave White Americans permission to be their absolute worst selves. Unfortunately, when it comes to race and racism, that’s literally what’s happening. From Charlottesville to Southlake to Huntington Beach, good, God-fearing, patriotic, Conservative White heterosexual Christians now have permission to let their freak flag fly proudly.

The question is not ‘did racism take place?’ but rather, ‘how did racism manifest in this situation?

• Robin DiAngelo, “White Fragility”

Of course, while good, God-fearing, White, Conservative, Christian, patriotic parents are losing their $#!& over their children allegedly being taught CRT in public schools (OH, THE HUMANITY!!), we should keep one thing in mind.

Repeat after me: Public schools DON’T teach CRT.

However, some public secondary schools are trying to teach the TRUTH of racism and racial history in this country, something that’s sent many White parents over the edge.

It fascinates me that parents expect schools to teach their children the truth regarding math, science, and foreign languages. Try teaching them the truth about the racial history of these United States, however, and you could be forgiven for thinking this is the second Bolshevik Revolution.

Interestingly, the attempt to clarify the history of slavery, racism, and race relations in America has proven to be controversial for so many White folks who want to continue to believe the myths.

In 1619 the first Africans who were captured from Angola were taken to Point Comfort, today’s Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia.  They were sold for food. Slavery was not legal in the colony when they arrived and would not become legal until 1661. So how were the first 20 and Odd Africans treated? They were treated as indentured servants but without a written contract. Because they did not have a contract their freedom was at the mercy of their plantation owner. Most of the first Africans had to work 15-30 years before their freedom was granted.  Once their freedom was granted they were able to start their own homesteads, marry white and Native Americans, purchase the freedom of their family relatives, own land, and enjoy the fruits of limited freedom. The first 40 years in Virginia was not typical of the next 200 years when slavery became legal. Slavery is a stain on America’s soul, but let’s not denigrate the legacy of Africans in America by calling them all slaves. Slave is a NOUN. Slavery was a condition. Our ancestors were humans were subject to the brutal condition of slavery. Today the descendants of those first Africans are proud of their heritage.  Let’s promote 400 years of achievement. We built this country.

There’s no example where this truth is more honestly celebrated than the 1619 Project. It first came to prominence when the New York Times spotlighted to project’s attempt to reflect an accurate history of what has transpired over the past 400 years.

Given the reaction of some White folks, you would’ve thought the Times had loosed the love children of Karl Marx and George Soros upon an unsuspecting and easily propagandized public.

(Uh, no; that would be Fox News Channel viewers and the Glenn Youngkin campaign.)

The truth is that racism DID take place, and racism continues to take place. One need not be the proud owner of a Ph.D. in a social science to recognize how racism continues to affect America and Americans on a day-to-day basis.

Denial of something doesn’t make that something any less real. Gov. Ivey’s denying Alabama public schools the right to teach CRT (they almost certainly wouldn’t anyway) only makes it easier to teach racial propaganda in Alabama. White folks don’t want their progeny to know the truth of what they and their ancestors have done to their Black neighbors for generations. Instead, they want their children to learn and perpetuate the same myths they learned.

Hey, if it was good enough for them….

When it comes to confronting one’s history of racism, things can get very uncomfortable very quickly. And who wants that?

There’s a problem with that attitude, though. If you’re afraid of your history, how can you ever hope to understand it fully? If you’re heavily leveraged in the denial of that history, how will you ever really know who and what you and yours truly are? And how can America move forward into a better future until and unless we proceed with a more honest assessment of our collective history?

History in and of itself is just one damned thing after another. It only becomes a threat when we choose to propagandize and weaponize it. And it only becomes valuable when we decide to confront it honestly to learn what lessons there are to be taken from it.

Ignorance of the past gives us little hope of an improved future. However, it certainly does make it easier for those with an agenda to control the obtuse and uneducated.

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