Stan Tetenman

Recently many parents have chosen not to trust school boards, administrators and teachers to educate their students. This has not been limited to a particular district or school.

Some parents have also demanded to have particular books banned. The books are primarily by authors of color, or the LGBTQ community. These parents fear their children will feel bad about themselves by reading these books.

Many people have complained about what they say is the teaching of critical race theory. Wikipedia defines CRT as “a cross-disciplinary intellectual and social movement of civil rights scholars and activists who seek to examine the intersection of race and law in the United States to challenge mainstream American liberal approaches to racial justice.”

The word “critical” is used as an academic term referring to the process of critical thinking. It’s not about blaming or criticizing others. CRT is generally taught at the college level and not in K-12 grades. Those who speak against CRT do not define the term, so it is difficult to know exactly what issues they are talking about.

For many years American educators taught a whitewashed version of our history. We did not learn how cruelly Christopher Columbus treated indigenous people.

We were taught about the founding fathers who wrote our wonderful Constitution but did not learn that some of these men also enslaved people, or that the document they drafted had racial overtones.

As part of a compromise, enslaved people were counted as three-fifths of a person, giving southern states one-third more representatives and Electoral College votes, even though those who were enslaved were not allowed to vote.

How many know the first enslaved people were brought to our shores in 1619? In school we didn’t learn that their names were taken from them and they were given names by slave traders and owners. Enslaved people were treated as property to be bought, sold and traded.

In 1857, the Supreme Court ruled that a Black person couldn’t be counted as a citizen.

Did any of us know native American children were taken from their families and forced to live at schools to learn to become more like white people? Their native dress, language, names and customs were taken from them. The government determined the indigenous people could not care for themselves as they had for thousands of years. The government decided it should look after them on reservations on land that once belonged to the indigenous people.

In 1873, the University of South Carolina was the only state college in the south to be fully integrated. When former Confederates regained power, it was changed to whites only. That stood until court-ordered desegregation in 1963.

In 1880, troops were pulled from the South, ending reconstruction. This gave root to segregation.

In recent years the Supreme Court struck down part of the voting rights act and within a few days many states introduced legislation to make it difficult to vote. These laws primarily affect people of color.

Until recently, few people knew of the massacre in Tulsa in 1921 that destroyed a large Black middle class area of the city. This massacre prevented generational accumulation of wealth for these individuals and their ability to share it with their families.

The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act was the first and only major federal legislation to explicitly suspend immigration for a specific nationality.

During World War II people of Japanese descent — including American citizens — lost their homes, businesses and jobs and were forced to live in internment camps here in this country. These actions were clearly based on racism and fear.

In 1939, Madison Square Garden was packed with Nazi sympathizers to celebrate George Washington’s birth. As with many events, it showed the fragility of our democracy.

Black veterans from World War II were not given the same access to veterans’ benefits as their fellow white veterans.

Students should have knowledge of these issues and events and have critical discussions about them.

As late as 1970 Virginia used a history book that included comments about the wonderful life enslaved people lived and how well their masters treated them.

Racism continues today. Industries that pollute are located in poor areas. Voting districts in many states are drawn along lines of race.

Teaching our true history is not about making children feel bad about being white. It teaches them what white people have done well and what we have done poorly. Students should know that much of our early prosperity was based on the forced labor of enslaved people.

To say they shouldn’t learn things that make them feel bad is disingenuous. It’s a false history. If all students are taught the truth and learn to discuss that truth using critical thinking, they can and we can work together as one society to improve on what we have.

Stan Tetenman of Poland is a member of that town’s selectboard as well as a previous board member of the Ricker Memorial Library.