Thoughts on NC H324

House Bill 324, recently passed by the NC House of Representatives, seeks to prevent teachers from incorporating Critical Race Theory in the classroom. The Theory, as summed up by Raleigh's The News and Observer is "a view that holds that systemic racism has been and remains part of the nation’s history."

This bill, if incorporated into law, would limit or prevent discussions of systemic racism: the forms of oppression embedded into our laws and government structures. Lt. Governor Mark Robinson has expressed his belief that the bill is necessary because America's systems of government and the American experiment should not be viewed as "shameful."

…I have some follow-up questions.

...Are we supposed to take pride in the fact that in framing our constitution, slavery was not only endorsed, but that slaves were legally recognized as 3/5ths of a person? Should we add a verse in the national anthem about legal segregation, Jim Crow laws, and voter suppression? Or should I stand up and salute the Confederate flag as well as Old Stars and Stripes, both being a part of the American experiment, after all?

Advocates of this bill would tell me that I am being hyperbolic and that they fully support teaching the history of our great nation. In their version, however, racism was the result of some bad people (but not that bad! they were a product of their time!) but that's not who we are now. They're really keen on that idea: racism used to happen. But we're through with all that.

This is ridiculous, of course. A few bad apples didn't create racism; the people and their representatives legislated and fought a war to try to keep it. And those issues didn't disappear when Martin Luther King Jr. gave a memorable speech (which should be pretty obvious, given that he was murdered by a white man shortly afterwards for expressing those ideas.) Black citizens are still incarcerated at more than five times the rate of white citizens for the same crimes and are likely to serve longer sentences. Even influential, successful black citizens can be discriminated against on a national stage for transparently racist reasons.

There's an idea that talking about racism will make white students feel bad for something they didn't do. What this doesn't account for, however, is the idea that it's possible to benefit from a racist system without meaning to or even realizing it.

For example: Schools in predominantly black neighborhoods and towns are often underfunded all over the country, because school budgets come in part from property taxes. When white families move to white neighborhoods for the best possible school, their children, who don't have a say win where they live, are not stealing textbooks or sports equipment from those underfunded schools, nor are they attacking or belittling those students (or at least relatively few are). But they are reaping the rewards of a system that is perfectly content to give the best and often superfluous educational resources to richer, whiter schools when some institutions could desperately use them. And those kids grow up and pass those advantages on to their kids. Parents who could afford college are likely to have children that can afford college, homes, and extra security.

Here’s a more high-budget version of that explanation, from two people with better hair than I have ever had.

That's systemic racism: a system that perpetually advantages some racial groups over others. And I'd like to say that you could fill a library with everything that the NC House of Representatives doesn't know about it, but quite frankly I'm worried they might try to find it and burn it down afterwards. But to reiterate, you don't have to be a bad person to benefit from an unfair system. But, certainly, striving for fairness is a step towards being a better person.

Let me stress, that I am not the best person to expound on the history of systemic racism. For starters, I lack the lived experience to present the continuing (not lingering, mind you, they're still going strong) effects of systemic racism. Second, my own education on American racism has been limited by curriculum controlled by white politicians and educators in much the same way this bill has. So much so, for instance, that despite living in North Carolina and attending North Carolina schools since elementary school, it was only in my junior year of college I learned about the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, where 2000 white men led an armed revolt against legitimately elected biracial government. The death toll is estimated between 60 and over 300 (people don't always keep tidy records of treason and hate crimes). Even then, this historical event was a footnote to a novel we spent two days discussing, before we were on to the next topic. Finally, despite being an educator, I have had very little interaction with the political machines. There are groups better staffed and better informed than I am on how to prevent politics from censoring, undercutting, and generally diminishing the education of our students.

But in spite of all that, I needed to get these thoughts out. And I don't want to take words out of anyone else's mouth, so I'll just end with this: America has been teaching an incomplete version of our racial history since the beginning of public education. Ignorance has had its day. I think our kids deserve something new.