White Folks? Yeah, All We Wanted Was To Improve Life For The Masses, Knowhutimean?

When history becomes propaganda to make White folks feel better about themselves, we all lose

Jesus ... It sounds like these guys would be filed under Assholes Who do Evil Shit in My Name.

• Kevin Hearne

The road to tyranny, we must never forget, begins with the destruction of the truth.

• William J. Clinton

As someone who used to teach history- and used to be able to teach it, warts and all- it’s sad to see American history being reduced to cheap propaganda intended to make White folks look like scions of all things kind and virtuous.

No matter how you consider it, history can be and often is ugly- and American history is no different. History is war and conflict, death and suffering, slavery and repression. It’s not pretty. To fully understand how America became what it is today, one needs to be able to learn about the journey that got us here. And that odyssey wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine.

Establishing America as a nation that stretches from the Atlantic to Pacific Oceans can only be told as a story drenched in bravery, blood, suffering, starvation, and disease,- for there were large servings of all those things. Black people were sold as property, Native Americans were regarded as subhuman, and White Christians believed themselves superior to everyone.

THAT’S the honest version of American history. It’s not all of it, of course, but it’s undoubtedly a large portion of it, and you can’t teach the history of America honestly if you leave that part out. And yet there’s a powerful movement in this country to do just that because parents, politicians, and even some educators don’t want students to be “ashamed” of being White.

The Louisiana Republican Party has gone so far as to argue that examining “inglorious aspects” of American history is “too divisive.”

Louisiana Republican Party officials want state lawmakers to forbid the study of racism at colleges and universities, arguing in a resolution approved Saturday that classes examining "inglorious aspects" of United States history are too divisive.

The resolution, passed by voice vote with no discernible dissent at the state party's quarterly meeting in Baton Rouge, asks the Legislature to pass laws removing diversity, equity and inclusion departments and agencies "within any institution of higher learning within the state." Without citing evidence, the resolution asserts that these programs have bloated budgets and inflamed political tensions on campuses.

The move comes amid efforts by Republican lawmakers nationwide to exert more control over educational materials and curricula, including books containing LGBTQ+ themes and classes about racism. They hope the effort will endear them to the GOP’s grassroots base as the party recovers from its 2022 midterm losses and prepares for the 2024 presidential election.

It’s not about education; it has nothing to do with scholarship. It’s about sucking up “to the GOP’s grassroots base as the party recovers from its 2022 midterm losses and prepares for the 2024 presidential election.” It’s about votes.

There’s no evidence that teaching diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) creates tensions on campuses, certainly not to the degrees claimed by Republicans. But this allows them to latch onto a growing movement on the Far-Right to make education more White-centric.

In approving Saturday's resolution, state party officials urged the Legislature to take steps similar to those of other conservative states that have considered curtailing programs deemed to increase tribalism and hostility on campuses.

The resolution targets both classroom content promulgating critical race theory and efforts to improve diversity in higher education staffing and campus programming. It criticizes LSU and University of Louisiana System programs run by Claire Norris, a UL system administrator, for dedicating money and staff to diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, offices.

The measure argues that "DEI bureaucracies" act as "divisive ideological commissariats" and that critical race theory makes students feel less rather than more welcome. 

I’m not sure what “DEI bureaucracies” are, but I’m fairly certain they’re not “divisive ideological commissariats”- whatever that may mean. And critical race theory makes White students “feel less rather than more welcome” only if they choose to interpret it that way.

White Conservative Christian heterosexuals need to recognize and accept that most of American history doesn’t paint them in a very positive light. That reality can’t be changed. It is what it is and needs to be taught for what it was.

That doesn’t mean the present or the future needs to mirror the past, but that’s mainly up to White people. They can continue trying to whitewash history- and ensure that it will be repeated- or they can accept and admit the need for it to be taught to all students honestly and forthrightly.

That’s not to say that anyone living today will be blamed for what their ancestors did or that children will or should be made to feel ashamed of being White. However, they need to understand the actual and factual history of the United States, which was often ugly and nasty.

Only by understanding history can this country move forward into the future. We can’t consciously walk a mile in someone’s shoes until and unless we know where those shoes have traveled before we step into them.

The resolution drew a rebuke from University of Louisiana System President Jim Henderson, who in a written statement called the depiction of life on campuses "so foreign to the reality at our institutions it defies comment."

"We make no statement on the inner workings and platform development of political parties. That is their business," Henderson said. "That said, the naming of an invaluable member of my staff is unnecessary and inappropriate. She is an exemplary professional and an asset to Louisiana and higher education."

Louisiana Commissioner of Higher Education Kim Hunter Reed said in a statement that the Board of Regents stands by its programming.

"Programs that support student success and strengthen a sense of belonging on campus and in the wider community are important and impactful, yielding positive results in student completion," Reed said.

Republicans seem to think that if everyone acted White, things would be easier for everyone. That’s great if you’re White, but that won’t work well if you call another culture home. To expect Black, AAPI, Native Americans, or others to assimilate and play by the rules and expectations Whites live by is neither fair nor realistic.

Institutions of higher learning have long recognized the need to meet students where they live. To expect everyone to now “play White” is absurd.

Critical race theory is a lens through which racism is seen as systemic in U.S. institutions, which function to maintain the dominance of White people in society.

Many Republicans view the concepts underlying it as an effort to rewrite U.S. history and to persuade White people that they are inherently racist and should feel guilty for their advantages. But the term also has become something of a catchall phrase to describe race and racism concepts to which conservatives object.

CRT is merely an attempt to view racism honestly and critically instead of through a White-centric lens. If that makes White Conservative Christian heterosexuals uncomfortable, that says far more about them than it ever could about the people teaching material based on CRT.

Conservatives are reluctant to honestly consider the role of their forebears in the slave trade and the repression of Blacks throughout early American history. They’re afraid that might reflect poorly on them. It has nothing to do with CRT or any alleged attempts to rewrite history and/or persuade White people to feel guilty for their advantages.

What it should be doing is prompting White people to look for ways to help dismantle systemic racism, something all of us- myself included- have benefited from. In an ideal world, the color of one’s skin or country of origin wouldn’t matter, but we all know we don’t live in a perfect world.

Saturday's anti-DEI measure is similar to a plan backed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and being considered by the legislature there to block state colleges from having programs on diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory. GOP-controlled statehouses in Iowa, Missouri, Texas and elsewhere are also scrutinizing higher education diversity initiatives.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives aren’t the enemy. DEI curricula aren’t meant to exclude, denigrate, or embarrass White people. Instead, they’re meant to find ways to help minority students find their way in a system not constructed with their benefit or future in mind.

It’s White Conservative Christian heterosexuals that are the fragile ones. People like the ones in the Louisiana GOP who want to prevent state-funded schools from teaching the study of racism are afraid of the truth. They want children to learn that White people were benevolent and enlightened leaders who wanted nothing but the best for all Mankind. What will happen when they graduate and go to graduate school in a blue state and begin to learn they’ve been lied to for years?

The truth won’t kill students because it can’t be changed. But we can’t hope for a better present and future if we don’t understand where we’ve come from. If red states expect teachers to blow sunshine up their students’ asses all the way through college, they’ll be doing them a grave disservice. Ultimately, they’ll be doing ALL of us a grave disservice.

Propaganda is not education. Propaganda will NEVER be education.