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I believe I was in first grade when my teacher began class by playing John Lennon’s “Imagine” the day after he died, crying at the front of the classroom. It was a moment of silence for everyone there. This was in the small town of Mountainburg, Arkansas. Not exactly what we would think of as blue territory now, the state is governed by Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The classroom sat there and we took in a moment of tragic history. A sad moment, but a moment we all thought about and talked about.
It would be years later before I, along with numerous other students, gathered around a live feed of a space shuttle watch only to see the flight of the Challenger end early and in devastating fashion, leaving many of the younger students in tears and everyone, including teachers, shocked.
I was in high school when the Rodney King beating occurred in Los Angeles. These moments are all moments of U.S. History that are impactful parts of the world I lived within, signs of the times, that would build the person I would become. I would not be the only person to have them as a part of my life story.
U.S. History has been full of moments that are bound up in the times that we all remember or that we were at least close to, depending on where we were physically and emotionally. Being in Ferguson, Missouri, after Mike Brown was killed by police and watching the growth of the Black Lives Matter Movement. For older generations near me, watching schools integrate and, now, the fight to segregate them all over again.
Right now, throughout America, there is an attempt at local school boards to deny our students the ability to develop critical thinking skills they will need for the rest of their lives. We want to forget that the past is not exactly so distant. I’ve heard people say they wish things were the way they were in the 1950s, or for their great-grandparents; what they mean by that are code words for an era where segregation was easy, redlining was a reality, and bigotry was common. There were no “good ol’ days.”
In 1947, in response to what was happening around the world, a film circulated that deserves to be seen again.
Spend a few minutes and look at how we worked hard to push back on these ideas in the past. Recognize that history, full of faults. Moving forward is never about perfection.
Culturally, we hold fast to this idea that America was perfect from the beginning. The Constitution has Amendments, though, improving on the original work. Every day, our entire country works to be better than the country it was the day before. We work to pass on a better nation to our progeny.
This living in the past is desperate, and the way the conservatives continue to attack education is deplorable.
Understanding our past, and every one of the moments that have moved, improved, harmed, and helped our entire world, is important. Remembering that folks of color also built this country and have important history can not be ignored. Scaring education out of schools is a way to hobble our future. Is this what America aims for? An undereducated population that will have difficulty competing with wealthy students who can afford expensive schools?
Oh, wait, did I say some of the quiet parts out loud? What are you thinking about this week?
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