Let me begin with a dialogue:
My child: Mommy, how could Benjamin Franklin own slaves? Why would he do that? I thought he believed in freedom for everyone. I thought he was a good man.
Me: Well, people are complicated. At first Franklin believed Blacks were inferior to Whites, but eventually, through exposure and his own education, he learned that this wasn’t true. He then freed his slaves and became an abolitionist.
My child: So, people are a little good and a little bad sometimes?
Me: Yes, we all are. The trick is rising above the bad and dedicating your life to the good.
Recently, the Texas Board of Education approved a social studies curriculum for public schools that sugarcoats, erases and falsifies history by kowtowing to conservatives in the state. Their efforts are an attempt to make conservatives look better in history and racial and ethnic minorities as well as liberals look worse. In effect, these curriculum changes empower Whites and further oppress minority children.
The re-writing of the Texas textbooks convinces me that, for some Americans, there is a fear of being critical of our nation’s past. Some Americans think that acknowledging past wrongs makes us weak and their remedy for that presumed weakness is to erase the wrongs from the historical record. But, in reality, owning up to our wrongs and righting them is what makes us strong as a nation—it’s what makes us strong as individuals as well.
