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Teach kids the real story about race

Eugene Kane
In My Opinion
Feb. 02, 2013
Feb. 02, 2013 0

It's hard to teach students about the concept of "white privilege" - particularly at a time when many people don't feel very privileged.

But that doesn't mean it's not an important part of the American story.

Delavan-Darien High School became the subject of a national furor recently after complaints from white parents about a curriculum that taught students about the history of white people as "oppressors" of nonwhite minorities. In the context of historical fact, it's pretty much a no-brainer that whites did subjugate various groups including black slaves from Africa, Native Americans who were the original residents and various other immigrant groups that had to struggle to gain acceptance.

It's an uncomfortable subject for some white folks who don't see themselves as being any better off than anyone else in these troubled economic times, and certainly not "privileged."

Complaints about an "American Diversity" course at the school that purported to help students "better understand oneself and recognize how feelings, ideas and beliefs interact with the ideas and beliefs of other individuals and gropes" became a hot button issue after one unnamed parent told Fox News she thought the class was akin to teaching students to feel guilty.

"They're teaching white guilt," said the parent, according to reports. "They're dividing the students. They're saying to nonwhites, 'You've been oppressed and you're still being oppressed.' "

After a spurt of national attention, Delavan-Darien School District Superintendent Robert Crist announced school officials were evaluating the course and that it wouldn't be taught again until after a review.

It's an old story for some African-American educators in a city such as Milwaukee that has attempted a controversial Afrocentric approach to teaching black students about the often ugly reality of racial relations. Many black public school teachers in Milwaukee struggle with giving students an unvarnished account of the racial history of this country that includes slavery for hundreds of years along with subsequent decades of Jim Crow segregation that survived until a civil rights movement in the 1960s brought real change in the lives of most African-Americans living today.

It's kind of hard to just erase all that time just because it makes some people uncomfortable.

In the past, I've been invited to speak to new teachers about race and white privilege by education groups who recognized the need for white teachers in particular to learn how to interact with minority students. Most times, the definition was similar to what was used at Delavan-Darien where class handouts described white privilege as "a set of advantages that are believed to be enjoyed by white people beyond those commonly experienced by nonwhite people in the same social, political and economic spaces."

Examples of white privilege can be found in the fact there is no such thing as "Driving While White" and that it's harder to get bank loans, insurance or even groceries at a reasonable rate if you live in a predominantly minority neighborhood.

I understand that for many white Americans in a down economy who might be unemployed or strapped by financial problems and health issues, there doesn't seem much difference between their lives and their fellow nonwhite citizens. And they certainly don't want their children being taught that guilt over historic injustices needs to be carried around as a personal albatross.

If America had dealt honestly with these issues in the past, nobody would be freaking out over telling students that blacks used to be denied not only the right to vote but to use public restrooms and water fountains. The litany of "first time ever black" achievers over the past few decades or so represents not only progress but signals the absence of opportunity in previous years.

We've come a long way, but there are still miles to go.

In these partisan times, some people have been brainwashed to believe that none of the history of race matters because we're all in the same boat now.

But when a Wisconsin school is trying to educate young people to open their minds, I think it should be encouraged, not stifled.

The main privilege of living in this country is being part of a free and open society willing to face up to its past.

That's a privilege that extends to people of all races if they're brave enough to do it.

Follow Eugene Kane on Twitter @eugene_kane; read his Raising Kane blog at www.jsonline.com/purplewis; contact him at Ekane2829@gmail.com

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