I first heard of the Ku Klux Klan when I was in school when I was 14 years old. In my memory, my eighth grade teacher told us in English class that KKK was not that bad at the beginning. It was originally a self-defense force for unarmed southerners and they were rebuilding. Of course, this is not true. The Ku Klux Klan is always about racial oppression and white terrorism. This is not what we learned in rural public schools in Alabama.
Incredibly, during the six years I spent in middle and high schools there from 1999 to 2005, this was not the only wrong or outright racist remark I heard from educators. I was also taught that there was no “civil war” but the “Northern Expedition”. The purpose was not to abolish slavery, but to “end state rights.”
From all these alternating facts and distorted narratives, I did learn something real: history is replaceable and can be shaped according to the needs of any region. It is this fact—and a correct understanding of American history—that has led many people across the country to try to ban school and stubbornly resist the harsh facts about race and American history. The culture wars surrounding critical racial theory—a loose academic framework that exposes systemic racism—have caused many whites to be upset because their children learned that the United States is a racist society.
This is the critical racial theory: another view of American history, focusing on what this country has been trying to bury: helping to establish its systematic racial hierarchy.
And this is exactly what many people oppose. Republicans Recently in more than twenty states Propose a motion This limits the educational discussion of race and racism in the United States—and may even kill such conversations before the school starts.
As a person born and raised in the Deep South, I totally disagree with these attempts to stifle the interpretation of racism in the United States in the past and even now. For people like me who go to small public schools in rural or remote areas, in-depth study of the CRT curriculum will help combat the overwhelming culture of deliberate ignorance of our own history.
Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images
Boy, is there a lot of ignorance? In addition to the English teacher who “taught” the Ku Klux Klan, I still remember a history teacher in the same school who said in the Civil War class that most slaves were treated well because the abused slaves just escaped or refused jobs. He talked about slavery like cruelty to animals, and even compared beating humans to beating a dog that would “flee from the owner”.
At the time, no students questioned these claims, even those of us who knew they were lies. When I was fifteen, I dared not say it because I didn’t know how many people my age felt the same way as their families. I did not have the courage to question this teacher, who is also a respected pastor in our community.
Fortunately, I have a family with different ideas. They questioned or undermined the parallel reality narrative I encountered in school; as the only Jewish family in a conservative town of less than 2,000 people, we are always a little alienated. But in these isolated rural communities, how many people have never heard of challenges to white privilege or white supremacy? How many people go to school and hear the same voices from prejudiced parents and racist family members or friends from educators?
For many people in poor or rural areas, high school or middle school critical racial theory courses may be their only exposure to a different perspective of American history, a perspective from the oppressed.
Growing up in the southern hinterland also made me understand that the vague language of racism is not only spoken in a southern accent, but that CRT will benefit schools and universities across the United States. In this country, racism and apartheid are often divided and discussed. It seems that they are regional issues-southern issues or conservative issues-but in fact racism is not only a national issue, but also a global issue.
If we are to break or change the vicious repetition of history, then we need to honestly explain how we have come to today as a country-part of which is teaching and accepting critical racial theories.
Jeffery Dingler has written for The Washington Post, Huffington Post, Salmagundi and Saratoga Life. He graduated from Skidmore College and worked as a teacher, guitarist and tent worker.
The views in this article are those of the author.
