Alternative History
I have theorized that the current state of America’s racial
affairs are largely tied to our teaching of race. While our basic ideas of
identity are taught in the home, students are exposed to and taught a variety
of concepts throughout their basic education. Throughout the middle of the
twentieth century, when mindsets were open to change and racial and social
integration were hailed as a national priority, schools were able to make
inroads in changing perspectives.
However, times have changed. We live in a faster paced
society where children are bombarded by all types of unrestricted information.
Efforts that were once pioneering require wholesale revision. The elements of difference currently introduced
in primary schools are far too simplistic to serve as a foundation for future
conflicts. In essence we are consciously under-preparing children to allow their
first constructions of identity to remain unchallenged. America, indirectly and
willingly, is supporting systematic racism. By the time America’s students reach
high school or college new ideas and concepts provided by teachers and peers
may or may not easily conflate with what they have previously learned.
We are beginning to abandon the once common belief that school
integration would solve the nation’s most visible problems. Instead our school districts have been turned
into corks to contain the boiling tensions that have recently erupted in our
streets and in political forums. The
nationwide increase in segregated communities has led to vastly segregated
schools and now more students of color are attending public schools with
students who look like them than students of other races. Likewise, legal
rulings have weakened Brown v. Board of Education to the point where a future
Supreme Court could overturn the landmark decision. On the left and the right
there are battles about what should be taught in our schools as well as the
proper details that can be shared with young minds.
Many, if not most, college students have constructions of a
racialized world that are filled with vast inaccuracies and gross
misconceptions. White students have been processed with strong ethnic teachings
and a silent bond to whiteness. In contrast, students of color often downplay
white ethnicities and promote whiteness alone as the dominating trait. At the same time they struggle with their own
identities because critical historical information is not taught in their
schools. As a result, classrooms are rarely places of unified agreement, and
often groups in the minority silently reject what is being taught.
In my role as a history professor and instructor of future
teachers, I encourage my students to avoid the pitfalls of previous generations
who were either too lazy to explore existing documents or plead ignorance to a
fuller account of the historical past.
Students have ignored centuries of Anti-Semitism, colorism or racism,
because their instructors failed to place it in context. Unfortunately, it is only when a novel or
movie exposes something that does not seem quite right that audiences criticize
and demand the truth only to learn that their truth was always a falsehood.
For example, one of my professors, a renowned white scholar
of Ancient History and the Middle Ages, discounted the presence of Africans in ancient
Europe and promoted the idea that their arrival was a more recent one linked to
the slave trade. Not only did he alienate
a segment of his class, his views contradicted what was being taught in another
academic department. His comments overlooked the works of contemporaries like
Harvard and Oxford educated Frank Snowden and journalist/historian Basil
Davidson who placed Africans in the Crusades and in various royal courts
throughout the Renaissance. These men,
among others, in this professor’s estimation were obviously biased and creating
false narratives.
That such narratives were lies or hopeful dreams have
supported the distorted history that we currently define as quality teaching.
It has encouraged the subliminal support of white supremacy and subsequently
legitimized violence against Jews, African Americans, Asians, Native Americans,
Latinx Americans, and others. It has promoted a Eurocentric based ideology that
favors narratives that reveal parts but not the entire story, equally giving
support when needed to white ethnic groups who strive for greater legitimacy.
Illustrations of this example include the great sea captains
of the age of discovery, like Hudson, Cabot, Magellan and Columbus whom were
mercenaries working for nations other than their own. Columbus, for example, is
hailed as a hero by Italian Americans, even though his discovery occurred long
before the birth of Italy. Magellan, who left Portugal and volunteered his
services to Spain, is credited for circling the world even though he and a good
third of his crew did not survive the voyage.
Lost in these conversations are the efforts of men like Leif Ericson who
reached the New World in 1000, Admiral Zheng He who reached the New World in
1421, and Juan Sebastian Elcano who captained Magellan’s mission back to Spain
in 1522. Poorly framed teaching fosters
questions such as since Sir Francis Drake captained and survived his worldwide
mission (1577-1580) should he replace Magellan and/or Elcano?
In not addressing the possibility of a Leif Ericson or Zheng
He, it then becomes difficult to discuss more complex historical issues. Events such as the widespread murder of Jews
claiming that they were the source of the Black Death, the true impact of the
Grand Inquisition, the mistreatment of free blacks in America’s Northwest
Territories, peonage in the South during Reconstruction, the destruction of
Black Wall Street, the legacy of the Spanish American War, Operation Wetback,
or the details of Japanese-American internment during World War II are given
cursory or no coverage in most school districts.
Shouldn’t education allow students to make informed
decisions instead of reinforcing lies and mistruths?
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