It's hard to really summarize the mix of feelings I have after watching this compilation of videos that showcase how non-whites have been discriminated against and humiliated over the decades of American history. I'd like to think that this is of the past, but clearly it is not in the rearview mirror. It's our current view of reality and people of color have every right to be angry. I have never been that enraged that I would be destructive but I absolutely can understand how people can lose control and loot during protests. When I think about how people have been criminalized and systematically dehumanized, I can appreciate this level of outrage that makes folks tear down statues and other artifacts of this kind.
This time last year I was engaged in an educational leadership course at Harvard and I remember complaining at first about how much emphasis we had placed on race in our readings and conversations over equity. By week 3 of the course, I was beginning to see how egregious our systems were and how we, as educators, are some of the biggest perpetrators of disseminating white supremacy ideals, whether we are conscious of it or not. I agree with Angela Davis' quote that it's not enough to be a "non-racist", we need to be anti-racist. It's not enough to teach this history, we have to change this narrative so that we have a different future. Everyone, no matter their skin color has a right to be treated humanely. Period.
And as a few have mentioned that they are realizing that the history they learned in school was a cleaned up version or one more compatible with American exceptionalism
I believe it was the great American author James Baldwin (who I should have learned about in school but never did) who said that Black history IS American history. I agree that our schools need to stop treating Black history and culture as something irrelevant to the white community or something that only matters in February.
I have NEVER thought I would say this in my life but after watching these videos I actually had the thought/impulse that I wanted to become a history teacher, for this very reason.