I was totally planning to talk about something other than race and racism today. But then I read this post about residential schools and the subsequent fallout in Canada. And it got me thinking about the long term impact of racism on our community and the half life of such a virulent disease. (Some of the comments also pissed me off, but again we’re back to context and respect and I’m just not in the mood today.) And the fact that even though reparations for the descendants of slaves has been a hotly debated topic for years now, no one seems to be willing to make reparations for the effects of racism itself. I’m not even talking about cash (or the famed 40 acres and a mule) moreso I’m thinking of steps being taken to heal the damaged thought processes that have become such a part of our society.
Obviously we can’t change what’s being taught at home. But, what about investing in teaching history properly with all the facts from K-12th grade instead of letting college be the place where people (those who take the right classes and pay attention in them) get a clue about race relations throughout history? Or spending less money on jails and weapons and more on targeted social programs and funding quality schools for all? Access to quality medical care and decent food couldn’t hurt, especially if we stop criminalizing poverty and start trying to eradicate it. There is so much that could be done to actually level the playing field and benefit everyone. Racism (and the other ‘isms) will destroy society if left unchecked so let’s vaccinate our children.
Mind you, none of these ideas are new and none of them are going to fix what’s wrong right here and right now. But, if we took a long term view and we set a stage for our kids where diplomacy and respect trumped “Those people are all X” and “We have to protect our way of life” then just maybe 200 years from now there won’t be a need for conversations about whether or not people forced into schools dedicated to destroying their culture and their language were abused “enough” to qualify for reparations. Possibly we could be a society that doesn’t think assimilation is the key to success. Maybe (and I know this is a big maybe) we could stop bigotry before it starts and really turn this into a post-racial, post-classist, post-sexist society?
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I couldn’t agree with you more. I feel the same way about the First Nations here in Canada, where the residential schools and laws against expression of their language and culture existed until well into the 20th century, a shame to our country. So much good could be done with the money thrown away in Afghanistan by Canadians and in Iraq and Afghanistan by American to rectify present needs of clean water, health care and education.
But, what about investing in teaching history properly with all the facts from K-12th grade instead of letting college be the place where people (those who take the right classes and pay attention in them) get a clue about race relations throughout history?
From what I have seen, people from more progressive school districts and states often do get more facts about race relations throughout history. But because public education curricula are set at a local rather than federal level, conservative states can refuse to cover information that a majority of residents don’t want their kids to be taught.
I grew up in Texas and my AP Biology teacher told us he didn’t believe in evolution, while my AP Government & Economics teacher felt free to proselytize us on the virtues of Reaganomics (something I didn’t get corrected until I went to college). You can imagine how (un)sophisticated the U.S. and World History classes were.
So long as public education is only what the biggest loud mouths in a school district are OK with having children exposed to, it’s going to reflect local prejudices more than it does the most current and complete knowledge of a given subject.
This is an excellent post – when I was in university, many years back, my then-partner did a good deal of anthropological work helping a village of Cree people on James Bay, establishing genealogies and so on, to help arrange their compensation claims about the residential schools.
It’s mystifying to me how people can’t understand that even if there wasn’t any sexual abuse going on, the very existence of the schools, wherein First Nations people weren’t allowed their own language (they were beaten for speaking not-English or not-French, as the locale may have specified); where they were forced to adopt Euro-Canadian culture; where they were taken from their families without a choice, indoctrinated with a religion they hadn’t asked for, and generally treated appallingly…all of that counts as intolerable abuse too.
Just imagine for a moment, the government comes along, says that because you’re a certain colour, they get to take you away from your parents, force you to learn a new language, religion and culture, and beat you regularly if you try and rebel against any of the forced behaviour. Would the absence of sexual abuse make it “alright”? Appalling.
It’s such a waste, not teaching people these truths when they’re all in school, rather than waiting til they reach post-secondary education (if they do), and hoping they might run across it, or not, y’know, whatever. :/
yes, great post.
It reminds me of the lyric from a song in the musical “South Pacific”:
You’ve got to be taught
before it’s too late
before you are six or seven or eight
to hate all the people your relatives hate
you have to be carefully taught.
The lyric implies that if you are NOT taught racism at a young age then you’re a lot less likely to be racist (which is hopeful, I don’t know if it’s true). When I was a kid I listened to this and got alarmed that there was something important I was supposed to learn and was not being taught. I even asked my mom about it.
But, it does kind of seem the point of our education agenda . . . delaying talk about racism and social justice untill after kids’ senses of who’s in their “tribe” and who’s out are initially established.