School boards keep making national news. These stories always pique my interest because I serve on our local school board and I’m always curious about what’s important enough to make it to CNN.
Four years ago, school boards came to blows over masking and CRT, now book banning, and renaming buildings for Confederate generals. This past May, a Virginia school board voted to rename their elementary school after Generals Turner Ashby and Robert E. Lee and their high school after Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. The NAACP is suing them for this decision, and I hope the NAACP wins.
I can’t imagine being a Black family in that district and sending my kids to schools named after men who fought to keep their forefathers in bondage. And I can’t imagine the stress these kids must feel, sitting next to white classmates who are happy about the decision, who think these men were heroes and their cause just.
Bryan Stevenson famously said, “The North won the Civil War, but the South won the narrative war.” He continued, “They weren't required to repudiate and acknowledge the wrongfulness of bigotry and slavery. They actually glorified that era…”[1] Yes, they glorified that era, and many continue to do so.
But not only the South. In a New Hampshire debate, a presidential candidate chose not to admit the cause of the War; she likely didn’t want to alienate those who stubbornly held fast to the narrative that the War was about states’ rights, not human bondage.
Stevenson, however, also noted that slavery rose from a deeper, more widespread, more malevolent idea, which was that Black people weren’t as good as white people, that they weren’t fully human. In other words, American slavery grew out of white supremacy. And white supremacy still permeates American culture and manifests in myriad ways all over the country.
One of the manifestations that troubles me is what we see and don’t see in school curricula. I can count on one hand, and still have fingers left over, the number of books by non-white authors my kids have been required to read. The same is true for the number of non-white heroes they have studied. In schools all over the country, kids can complete twelve years of education believing subconsciously that white people alone have written great books and done great things.
I recently spoke over dinner with a friend. She does not have children and asked what my kids’ schools taught during Black History Month. She asked if they learned the “basics” like Rosa Parks’ civil disobedience or King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. When I replied that they did not, she couldn’t believe it. King’s speech alone could take up several lessons as that largely improvised oratory masterpiece helped to change U.S. history.
But here’s the stark reality:
• Few adults, white or Black, learned about Black contributions when they were in school. Those of us who know some of them learned them on our own.
• Eighty percent of America’s teachers are white.
• Seventy-five percent of white people have never had a close Black friend.
Teachers didn’t learn these authors or this history in school. They are not required to teach them now, and when they do teach them, some make grievous errors (like conducting mock slave auctions, which also hit national news). Because so many lack close Black friends, what they know about Black people is from the media and Hollywood, which present Black people in stereotyped ways[2]. As a result, they don’t really know how to do Black history justice.
Many Black parents are afraid to request that it be taught because they don’t trust teachers to teach it well.
As a result, generation after generation of American kids graduate with the same educational deficits and the same subliminal false beliefs about racial superiority and inferiority.
As parents, we can do better, and here are three suggestions:
1. If we’re a person of faith, we can make sure our kids know that God created all people equally special, that all are part of the imago Dei.
2. We can supplement our children’s education by providing books and watching movies about people of color who have made significant contributions to our country and our world. We can also provide books about the great empires of Africa, Asia and Latin American that were successful, complex, and sophisticated. In this way, we will disrupt the false notion that Western culture is superior, and we will also reaffirm that each culture, just like each person, has a mark of the Divine. While you’re at it, attend school board meetings and ask, more than once, for more of these kinds of books to be added to required reading.
3. We can refuse to live segregated lives. If you are white, intentionally choose to worship, serve, eat, play, and work with Black people and other people of color. May your home be welcoming to old and young, Black, Asian, Hispanic, and Indigenous. Imagine the fascinating conversations you’ll have, the things you’ll learn, and the humility which will mark your character. Your life and your children’s lives will be changed forever as you all see how rich and multifaceted humanity really is.
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[1] David Morgan: “Bryan Stevenson: ‘The North won the Civil War, but the south won the narrative war’ on history of racism,” CBS Morning, June 24, 2019.
[2] In many television shows and movies, Black and Brown men are depicted abusing and selling drugs. In truth, white and Black people use and sell drugs at the same rate. (See “The Hamilton Project: rates of drug use and sales by race.” Also, see Elizabeth Sun, “The Dangerous Racialization of Crime in US News Media,” The Center for American Progress, CAP 20, August 29, 2018.)
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