Pity the White Folks

Tourists in the Capitol!  

This was Georgia Representative Andrew Clydes’s characterization of the fine folks who visited Washington D.C. on January 6th.  It might have been a tad more understandable if Clyde were a Florida Congressman.  I did see some slight resemblance between the merry marauders in the Capitol and some scenes from spring break in Fort Lauderdale.  But really . . .

That example of false equivalence (insurrectionists=tourists) is absurd enough that even the other deniers won’t repeat it.  Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson came close when asserting that he didn’t feel “threatened” by the tourists.  Had they been tourists from the Black Lives Matter region, however, he would have been mighty scared.  Or Antifa, which the fascists are rightfully worried about because, well, they’re anti-fascists.

But I digress from my primary purpose.

The most breathtaking and dangerous inversion of reality comes in the nationwide campaign against diversity and inclusion programs, aka “the leftist, socialist conspiracy to indoctrinate our lovely white children into a vicious, racist, self-hating view of our completely fair, meritocratic and generous nation.”

The group Parents Defending Education has filed federal civil rights complaints against a number of school districts that discuss systemic racism.  They claim the schools are thereby admitting to a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Schools and colleges discussing such things should be stripped of federal funding.

Up is down and down is up.  The oppressor is the oppressed.  The insurrectionists are the tourists and the mostly peaceful BLM protesters are the insurrectionists.

There are an ocean of red herrings in the arguments advanced by Parents Defending Education.  They claim that little white children are made to feel guilty.  I’ve been involved in many years of anti-racist work and education.  I have never witnessed a child being “accused” of being an oppressor or being intentionally “made” to feel guilty.  Now I don’t doubt for a second that some white children take the truth of racism to heart and feel empathy.  There are many truths in history that should invite children to experience empathy.  

While not wishing to craft my own false equivalence, my former school’s students heard from Holocaust survivors every year and there were no parents of non-Jewish students who complained that their children were being made to feel guilty, yet many kids sobbed uncontrollably.

No, the problem with Parents Defending Education is that they don’t believe in systemic racism.  They are not (quite) the equivalent of Holocaust deniers, but they are the equivalent of those who begrudgingly accept the truth of the Holocaust, but deny the present-day reality of anti-semitism.  Sure, they say, slavery was horrid, but now get over it already.

The inversion of reality is also found in opposition to affirmative action or other efforts to address systemic and historic bias.  “But what about darling Chloe, who worked so hard and had HER place at Harvard taken?  Isn’t poor Chloe the victim here?”  The capitalization of HER is not a typo.

The problem in American education is not that white children are being exposed to the undeniable, quantifiable, verifiable truth of race and racism.

The problem is that generations of Black, indigenous and other minority children were denied the opportunity to have their lives, their experiences and their rich culture represented in their schools.

They, and I, learned that Columbus discovered America.  That Indians were primitive savages that impeded white destiny.  That all the great intellectuals were white men.  That all great writers were white.  That all the presidents and nearly all other “leaders” were white men.  Until relatively recently, nearly all the characters on television or in movies were white.  Every smiling face pitching success and glamor was white.

These generations of children went to underfunded, inferior schools.  Their parents were unable to buy homes and worked longer hours for lower wages.  They were taken to school early so their mothers could go take care of other people’s children.  Their parents - fathers - were locked away for years after committing drug “crimes” that the white kids’ parents call recreation.   They saw their ancestors portrayed as Aunt Jemima, Amos and Andy, minstrels or the rare athlete or musicians whom they could admire, but not, God forbid, date or marry.

It is goddamn infuriating to watch these entitled people suing schools for trying to tell the truth.  Generations of families of color should be suing the schools for lying to their (and our) children for generation after generation after generation.