Here are some facts about World Wars I and II:
- Had we not entered either war, the Allies would probably not have won. Yet there was significant isolationist resistance to both wars that nearly kept us out of them.
- Our war productions were overwhelming, but partly because we had a clear advantage in raw materials. Besides, our location relative to the rest of the world, and its relative inaccessibility at the time, kept our production centers from being destroyed.
- We entered partly for economic reasons and economic benefits resulted. But the Congress investigated war profiteering not only after World War I, but also while World War II went on.
- We also had high ideals in mind and tried to guarantee a safer and freer world in conclusion of both. The first effort not only failed, though, but in a sense brought on the second, wider war in which racism played a major role.
- The Allied counterattack begun with D-Day had as its partial goal the freeing of the horrible concentration camps that the Nazis utilized to murder millions. Hitler justified the Holocaust, though, by comparing the very thoroughly pursued genocide of our Native Americans, reducing their numbers, too, to an insignificant level.
- German-Americans were horribly treated during World War I, and Japanese-Americans were actually put into internment camps during World War II. Both groups were just as patriotic as you and me.
- Blacks in our own armed forces were segregated on purpose throughout our participation in World War I, and through nearly all of World War II. As policy, it was changed only afterwards. When released and allowed to do so, Japanese-Americans fought with distinction.
None of these are deniable. They are all documented. Some show that we were enormously generous and in a sense idealistic; some show that our own society needed improvement, indicated glaringly. Some show that we were flat-out lucky, which also factors in. But the good always comes with the not-so-good.
What they don't show is that we were morally superior people, something which bothers some of us. People have their biases no matter where they're from. Ours were well-established quite some time before we were called upon to save that part of civilization that we considered preferable, the one in which democracy looked possible if imperfect. It's a more realistic view, one that isn't absorbed so easily.
If sifted together, they make us look more than a little hypocritical. And the blacks caught that when they returned to a Jim Crow society that didn't seem to care that they, too, had put their lives on the line and some had lost them. But the civil rights movement, which began less than ten years after World War II, resulted in no small way from this unfairness and prejudice (another undeniable fact).
Okay, now: Should any of these be excluded from being taught to our children because they make America look bad? Or should they be explained in terms of what had happened in our country leading up to it? Shouldn't the good news, and the bad, be put into proper context?
Is this what the paranoid nonsense peddlers mean, that we should dispense with the clear and damaging prejudice and selfish profiteering? Is this the "critical race theory" that is being carted out as a threat to our acceptance of our country as great and all-encompassing? Or should we face our history squarely and clearly, reviewing the good and bad with equal attention?
The frenzy machine that is now the Republican way of life has ginned up a mentality of new fears, this one deeper and perhaps longer lasting than anything it can assume about Dr. Seuss. They've been trying to get at K-12 curricula for a long time, and they may have found it, although contrived from higher education, which is where "critical race theory" resides, as it should.
People are now asking for e-mails from school district files to see if it has been discussed. They are campaigning to recall liberal school board members who do not object strongly enough or who, rightfully, consider this a mindless temper tantrum. Those same members are asking for police escorts to reach their cars after meetings. This is crazy.
Nobody's going to stand up in front of a bunch of, say, 7th graders and announce that they're about to begin a study of "critical race theory." Neither are they going to suddenly downshift their curricula and change its direction sideways. There's too much to cover, and standardized tests lurk. "Critical race theory" isn't going to crowd out all that.
George Floyd's murder and its volatile aftermath deserve comment, as does Black Lives Matter. Those things are happening and there isn't a child who hasn't heard of them. Kids are going to wonder how their teachers feel about all that. But comments do not and should not indicate a massive change in offerings. And today's news arrives in tomorrow's history books.
Some teachers anticipate that and have for decades. If they're at all competent, they should. It keeps the kids on their toes and piques their interests. But that doesn't mean they've caved in to teaching and extolling about minorities. Neither does it mean that there's nothing else to like about the United States of America. That would be absurd. Administrators should be there to remind them of that.
There isn't a wide, subterranean conspiracy about advancing liberalism in our K-12 public teaching. If there would have been, I'd have known about it eighteen years ago, when I last taught a class. But that wouldn't have been fair, either. The kids have to be exposed to a realm of ideas and make their own choices.
In our class discussions, I got so good at taking both sides of an issue that I got the kids genuinely confused. I was proud of that. "What do you think, Mr. Cebulski?" they'd ask. "It isn't what I think," I'd say. It's what you think that matters."
Besides, all this is assuming that ex-'s election, presidency and defeat haven't been discussed, that they've been somehow excluded, that they no longer matter. As uncomfortable as any of that was and still is, it's still our government. It still has to take precedent. It still has to be put into context and perspective. But with that description will come what ex- has done to our politics and culture, and that can't be candy-coated. It will be lasting and won't be pretty.
I wrote something not long ago that said that in the end, this trend toward paranoia and senseless attacks will fade. And it still probably will. But it might also leave a mark on schools that make them more susceptible to mobocracy. As in other aspects of our public life, the truth is becoming a far more ephemeral matter.
That can't be allowed to happen. Teaching, especially in history, must be grounded in verifiable fact, or it cannot be taken seriously. And if there's ever a time we need to take the past seriously, it's right now. But it doesn't fit into any particular package. It shouldn't. It won't. Not if you take its teaching seriously, too. Because the good always comes with the not-so-good.
Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
No comments:
Post a Comment