North Carolina Republicans have been trying to censor schools to prevent them from teaching uncomfortable truths about our history. In Texas, we can see where it leads. A school principal there told teachers that they need to find balance. If they have a book in their classroom on the Holocaust, they need to have one that has an opposing view.
That’s right. Texas is entering into Holocaust denialism. It’s the result of Texas’ anti-CRT legislation that passed earlier this year. Conservative legislators want history taught that doesn’t tell the ugly side of the story and never casts blame on White Americans, or Germans, apparently. It’s where other Southern states could go next.
The “facts don’t care about your feelings” crowd is worried that teaching the facts of our history is going to hurt the feelings of their kids. Critical Race Theory is just the red herring of Republicans who want to control the narrative of our history. They want to downplay the role that slavery and Jim Crow played in creating an underclass of African Americans and that the impact of those policies still reverberates today.
The neo-Confederates in the GOP argue that the Civil War was not about slavery but about states’ rights. It’s a bullshit argument that has been debunked for years, but still lives on in the minds of the right. The so-called “Cornerstone Speech,” delivered by Vice-President of the Confederate States of America Alexander Stephens, laid out the reasons for secession and the belief in the superiority of the White race and inferiority of the Black race is foundational. It’s not up for debate and no alternative should be taught. An alternative would just be a lie.
In the wake of the Civil War, the collapse of Reconstruction allowed the secessionists and their descendants to establish White supremist governments that systematically denied African Americans the franchise, stripped them of their property, denied them access to justice, capital, and education, and forced them to live as an underclass denied the rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness .” The social structure was enforced by extrajudicial means, including terror, and had broad support among White citizens in the South.
Over the next 100 years or more, Black communities that gained economic or political power were frequently destroyed either through vigilantism in late 1800s and early 1900s or through development in the mid- and latter 20th century. Massacres like the ones in Wilmington, Tulsa, and Rosewood, Florida, were all too common and their purpose was to keep African Americans in their place—away from the fruits of the American Dream. After World War II, African American communities were often divided or destroyed by the construction of freeways, landfills, and other developments. These actions occurred because Black communities lacked the political power to stop them while simultaneously destroying any economic clout they may have been building.
I can go on, but the result of this systematic discrimination left the African American community lagging in economic, educational, and political power. They are more likely to be treated harshly by our justice system than their White counterparts. They are more likely to be suspended from school. They are less likely to get loans, jobs, or even apartments.
That’s what the people shouting about CRT don’t want taught in schools. Their political allies, whether they admit it or not, are blatant White supremacists like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. And that’s how we get to teaching an alternative history of the Holocaust. Nobody in the Republican Party is willing to stand up to bigots. Instead, they normalize them the way they are the January 6 seditionists and Mark Robinson. Ignoring history allows them to repeat it.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
CRT is not history. CRT is a theory that all law and society in the USA is racist and set up to benefit only one race.
Which on its face is absurd.
As to history, I know of no movement anywhere to deny our history except in democrat circles but only because of the strange leftist fetish of self flagellation and of course to hide their own part in it ( Jim crow and the KKK for instance)
Yes bad things happened, and we did bad things, some we chose to do (trail of tears) some we inherited (Slavery) but in every case we corrected course and did our best to fix it. Sometimes at a great cost Civil War for instance
That is the Human condition.
CRT is laying the foundation for a race war. Keepin alive the barely glowing embers of what is left of racism in this country ( its largely DEAD) But the left needs and loves an ax to grind. CRT is exactly that.
Acknowledgement of history from an unemotional state isn’t.
History is what it is. Trying to reinvent and dress up historical events to give a different appearance or meaning defeats the purpose of teaching history. A clear and factual disclosure allows folks to critically evaluate and reach an informed conclusion. If I taught you the British did not invade Washington DC and burn the White House down that would be a lie. If I told you those invaders wearing British uniforms were native Americans pretending to be British Troops, that would be a lie. But the fact Trump and his marry band are trying to convince folks that the 1/6/21 insurrection was conceived and carried out by liberal organizations or did not occur is fully accepted by numbers of Americans. Of course, all the evidence and testimony from those involved clearly points to Trump and members of his marry little band. The same principles apply to the CRT. A history class that fails to point out the conduct of those involved in the Holocaust or American Slavery is presenting a view of history that lacks a full disclosure. Should those who did not participate feel a sense of shame for the conduct of others, no. Anymore then a juror should feel guilt for being empaneled to hear a case and decide based on the facts.
If we are afraid of our own history, then we should also be terrified of this country’s future. When we see what happened under the Trump administration, we can see a glimmer of our past and that past was not pretty for non-white Americans. His phrase “lets make America great again” scares me terribly because I personally remember segregation at it’s worse growing up in rural Alabama in the 40s and 50s. Making America great again signals that those type of days will return.
Does that Texas principal also demand that if we teach math we must teach the opposing view that 2+2=5? If we teach that the world is round, we should also teach that the world is flat? If in science class we teach that people breathe air we should also teach that people breathe water?
Did he admit that he was promoting holocaust denial or did he leave it at “opposing view”?
The opposing view appears in Hitler’s attempt to justify his insane delusions by a sloppily written book entitled “my Struggle”. Trump, who is notorious for covering his tracks, allowing others to suffer the consequences would never put his thoughts in writing. He operates on the principle never become involved allow the suckers and losers to stick their necks out. Several Holocaust researchers have noted an absence of written evidence connecting Hitler to the atrocities he brought into existence and encouraged.
Unfortunately, the high degree of hate and bigotry currently existing in this country, makes this approach feasible as it did in Germany in the years leading up to the holocaust.
It is ignorant and irresponsible to look the other way when there is indisputable evidence of seven
million human beings having been murdered to further the twisted political objectives of an insane
individual. Moreover, where men, women and children are sold and treated as personal possessions
in a country founded on the principles of human rights and dignity. The CRT is a plausible or
scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered up to explain these phenomena.
It is not a political tool to encourage and nurture further conflict in this country.
I saw this story on several different sites yesterday, and as the kids say it appears to be “trending”. My hope is that it reaches as many eyeballs as possible to call out the sheer idiocy of the whole CRT Hysteria. My cynical side, though, says that roughly half of the eyeballs that see the story will belong to people who will think this is a FINE idea, and we need more of it.
You have to be a special kind of snowflake to be so ashamed of your history that you don’t want your children to learn about it.
Ignorantia Abundat
It is good you bring this topic up regularly and weave it into today’s political activities. Making those involved famous in an infamous sense is necessary.
They both represent man’s inhumanity to his fellow man. It is imperative that we should make every effort to enlighten folks from an early age.
Make the operative facts part of our US History, Civic classes starting in grade schools all the way through college. Not so much of the notion they (themselves) were bad people because their relatives willingly engaged in these acts. But the social order they create never survive. Never.
Make them aware of the Trump sponsored inhuman behavior at our boarders, did not exist before Trump put an individual lacking in human respect and self-dignity in charge of the forces that guard our boarders. Placing women and children in cages, remove all self-respect for themselves, then breaking the family unit up is unconscionable. The person who did such a thing deserves a special place in hell reserved for such characters as Hitler, and other German war criminals.
If we truly want a society where we all have the same opportunities, we need to learn about the past, what laws and what actions brought us to where we are today. Thank you for not beating around the bush. We need to face facts and not try to give credence to fringe elements that hijack us under the guise of being fair.
It’s important we learn about and face up to what actually happened in the past. If we truly want a society today where we all have the same opportunities, we need to see what laws and influences have brought us to where we are now. Thank you for calling “a spade a spade”, not beating around the bush, and giving a rational rebuttal to the Republican efforts at censoring and changing facts.
Secession, not succession.
Love your opinion pieces. Thank you for speaking out on important issues in our state. May we resist becoming Texas.
Fixed it. I caught it but late.