President's Message
Do you remember how the Soviet government continually rewrote history, cutting since-purged leaders out of photographs and erasing or distorting past events to keep their citizens ignorant and maintain Communist Party power? America, just the opposite, was founded on the belief that free speech and a vibrant ecosystem of competing ideas are essential to an educated and empowered community. Only by understanding our past are we able to undertake the most sacred obligation of US citizenship: helping to create a more perfect union.
Well, if some local School Board candidates have their way, we’re moving toward the Soviet system of altering history taught in our schools. School Boards are the latest battleground for extremists, who are drumming up parents’ fear, anger, and anxiety to turn out the vote. They demand we remove any discussion of race from classrooms because, they say, it shames white children and encourages children of color to identify as victims.
What part of our history do they plan to hide from students? Do they want to hide slavery? Do they want to hide discussions about Jim Crow laws that kept our military and schools segregated and made it next to impossible for Black people to vote? Can teachers mention bank redlining that kept Black Americans, including World War II veterans who should have benefited from the GI Bill, from buying homes and building financial security for their children? Or how about the Trail of Tears, or the Reconstruction Era?
Without understanding that history, how can children understand our country’s progress? Throughout our history, people of all racial backgrounds fought and struggled so that we would live up to the promise within our founding documents; the then-radical idea that every person is created equal and deserves equal rights. What did our soldiers fight and die for if not this ideal? If children don’t learn about the struggles of our multicultural nation, they cannot be proud of our triumphs.
The people of Germany have somehow figured this out. In German schools, children learn about the Holocaust, despite the fact that many of their grandparents and great-grandparents served as Nazi soldiers or were part of the mobs attacking Jews. Germany doesn’t hide its extremely uncomfortable history from its children, because it knows that education is essential to ensure it never happens again. So, bringing this back home for us: what would we think about School Boards banning teaching of the Holocaust because they worry it will make Christian children uncomfortable and Jewish children feel like victims?
In the Black community and in immigrant communities, education has always been seen as almost sacred. It’s the key to rising and claiming our share of the American dream. The idea that we need to “protect” children from the facts of our history is a disservice to children of all racial backgrounds. American history teaches us that each of us needs to strive, as generations have before us, to build a more perfect union.
So check on your School Board candidates. Once they’re elected, they have the power to create informed citizens or ignorant hordes. Let’s make sure Bucks County schools continue to teach real facts, not distorted history, and prepare our children to build a brighter future.
Karen Downer
President
NAACP Bucks County Branch #2253
