Facing Our History
Mount Rushmore - Built on land that was illegally taken from the Sioux Nation in the 1870s.
The sculpture, Gutzon Borglum had ties to the Klan, who helped fund the building of the project.
Facing our History
Recently, my husband shared an article from a friend who lived in Atlanta with the headline, “Within 12 hours, 14 young people were harmed by gun violence in Georgia.”
It’s hard to settle with the statistics related to the impact of gun violence in the United States. Each day, there is a report of the shooting in the local news. It saddens me that freedom looks like the right to carry an automatic weapon.
This article prompted a question: How can we cease to find a way to curb gun violence but continue to be riled up against a curriculum in schools that shares all American history? I was always taught that reading and education were freedom.
Recently, we have seen a surge in groups believing a fuller coverage of American history as indoctrination. Some lawmakers have worked to make sure students are not taught “a distorted view of history.” In Florida, Governor DeSantis is concerned about students being indoctrinated into a “woke” culture.
It's not just in Florida but throughout our nation.
To deny a high school student the chance to have a deeper understanding of our history is denying them a chance to think critically and to learn. To understand our politics, economy, and society we must study and understand the history of who we are and how we got here.
Also, the push to decimate what is and what is not taught in schools is also a chance for those in power to erase people who have contributed much to our country. People that look like me, like my Hispanic or Filipino friends, have all contributed to this country and we need to see ourselves represented in the American tapestry. An attempt to deny that seems arrogant.
Just two years ago, I read up on the Chinese Exclusion Act after the shooting of six woman at three different massage parlors in Atlanta. Watching the news, convicted me to learn more about the roots of the Asian American experience in this country to better understand what these killings meant to that community. Trust me, my history book didn’t cover this moment in history or the timeline of it. I challenge you to take 5 minutes to read up on it. It is mind blowing.
Today’s high school students are smart enough to learn from our history and have a chance to create a more diverse and inclusive world for the future. That was most relevant in the Summer of 2020 when we saw various hues of young people standing shoulder to shoulder peacefully protest against the police killing of George Floyd.
If they can handle all the sex and violence available to them on the internet and in video games, our youth can handle American History from a diverse palate of scholars.
As we live in a season of erasing history, I learned of an initiative created to make sure recent history is not lost. The project, “History Makers” a digital archive started by president and CEO, Julianne Richardson is an archive with over 3,000 first-hand accounts of African Americans who have contributed to all aspects of our country and the world. The digital archive resides in the Library of Congress alongside the WPA Slave Narratives recorded during the great depression.
I believe the loudest voice gets the most attention and I think those voices are few. I believe most Americana want their children to live in a diverse world and not a divisive one. But for that to happen, we must learn to trust our young people and their intellect to learn and understand our history. They may be our answer for a better future than the noisy mess we are in today.
Florida Gov. DeSantis takes aim at what he sees as indoctrination in schools
The HistoryMakers: Documenting Black history through first-person accounts | 60 Minutes
