Healing the Wounds of Racism through Education

I am one of the few people I know who loves going to the dentist. I love knowing that I am taking care of my teeth, yes, but I also love the out of ordinary opportunity to sit in a waiting room, and then in a lounge chair reading magazines. My dentist office is notoriously slow, but I never mind a bit. I put myself at their mercy and enjoy the chance to catch up on my reading.

This morning, my son and I had back to back appointments at 7:00 a.m., and we didn't get out of there until almost 9:00. That means I finally got to tackle that National Geographic that has been sitting on my bedside unread for a month, and the feature story was on a subject near and dear to my heart, The Black Pharaohs.

All day long though I have been thinking about the concept of Black History Month and what we learn about it, why we study it, and what the big hoopla is about it. I am sure we have all heard the debate over and over again about whether or not we should recognize black history month at all, whether it should be a whole month, or why we don't study black history all year long.

It is true that you could never study black history in a month, much less a year, but too often we are starting from scratch every year on February 1st as it is. Educators and parents are suddenly, hopefully, reminded each February that, "oh yeah, there is a whole, huge, giant part of our collective history that we are forgetting to teach our children about."

When someone makes a decision that yes, they are going to embrace this time set aside to recognize black history, they are quickly faced with the question of where to start. I am glad to observe that we pretty much at least have Martin Luther King covered, but where do we go next? If we have a limited time to introduce Black history into our curriculum, how do we approach it?

There are many approaches to studying black history, and most of all of them are valid approaches, and are beneficial to all of the students who are exposed to even the most basic bits of knowledge.

One of the most common approaches I have seen is focusing the study of black history on the Civil Rights Era (1950's to 1970's) of American History. Students learn about the women and men who were most well known for their work in ending segregation, with Martin Luther King placed at the top of of the civil rights pyramid, and Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges, and maybe Medgar Evers following behind. Obviously, there is so much more that we can learn about the civil rights era, but for the most part our students are on their own to dig a little deeper for a real understanding of the events. At the end of the month we all sigh with relief that at last, blacks and whites can drink from the same water fountain.

Another trend in the study of black history tends to go a little further back and focus on the era of enslavement in the United States. Students might take the opportunity here to acquaint themselves with some of the more prominent figures in American History such as Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglas, W.E.B. Dubois, or perhaps Sojourner Truth.

This is all wonderful, factual information that needs to be passed on, but again, there seems to be very little substance taught on these subjects, and so much of our grasp of black history is still left trying to figure out what is missing. And frankly, often, the study of this part of our past is often subverted by the incessant need of educators to assert almost person for person a white abolitionist, or the kindly slave owner, and the quick assessment that Africans were just as guilty for participating in the slave industry as the Europeans and Americans were. So, at the end of the month, Lincoln has emancipated the slaves, and it's all good now. Except, we know that it still isn't all good . . .

When we talk only about either the civil rights era, or focus on slavery, we are still confining our understanding of black history into the slave and master framework of thinking, and that is damaging to us all as a people. I think that many well meaning educators, myself included, recognize this problem and try and come up with solutions to address it, but still have that feeling of knowing something is indeed still missing.

One approach that has been adapted by many educators is the "trivia" approach to teaching black history, especially focusing on famous African Americans who invented things that we use often, or those who have made a lot of money. This too is an important educational approach as we often need help in challenging the visual stereotypes we hold of what an inventor, or a rich person looks like, or what race/color they may be. Using this model, we round out the month thinking we know a little something about who invented Peanut Butter or who made a ton of money selling hair products.

The short comings of any of the above approaches, is that they emphasize the struggle of enslavement, or the struggle for civil rights, or the struggle to assert one race of people as being "just as worthy" as anyone else, and ignore the full spectrum of what black history has to offer us as a people.

I think that what we all struggle with together is the fact that very few people are willing to step back and listen. It is the lack of acknowledgment that we have all been robbed of a rich, wonderful, dramatic heritage of a people that have essentially defined huge segments of humanity. A major block of a human history has been intentionally kept from us for most of our lives, and we are only now as a people beginning to acknowledge some basic truths about where we all come from.

It is not until we are willing to take a step back, accompanied by a deep breath, and ask ourselves what we really believe about our human history, that we will ever begin to heal the wounds of our racist past. Until we all recognize what black history has to offer us, that it is a part of who we are as humans, that we will be even begin to fill the void that has been created by a system that has intentionally suppressed vast amounts of truth in order to maintain a culture of exploitation and oppression.

I came across this quote from Desmond Tutu yesterday,

"History, like beauty, depends largely on the beholder, so when you read that, for example, David Livingstone discovered the Victoria Falls, you might be forgiven for thinking that there was nobody around the Falls until Livingstone arrived on the scene."

The great challenge of this century will be in reaching out to one another as human beings, and accepting the inherent value and dignity of humanity, but also accepting and embracing the history of all peoples going back as far as we are able. We need to listen to the stories of all people, because, "all people matter". (quote from Xamon Song by Adam E. Stone)

We live in a time and age in which the truth is available for us all if we seek it out. There are things we will never know, and never understand, but there are many more things that we do know, and can learn from others if we just open ourselves to it. If we want to help heal the wounds of our racism, we can start by listening. We can start by learning, and embracing what should have been ours to begin with. And, if we have to start somewhere, it might as well be during Black History Month.



and p.s.
I think this might just have won the prize for longest blog entry ever. If you read all of this, let me know and I will gladly nominate you for a "good listener" blog award!