When “Critical Race Theory” first became a conservative talking point last year, the left was quick to note that the concept, which originated as a graduate-level academic framework, was not actually being taught in public high schools anyway. But focusing on the right’s misuse of language sidestepped the broader issue of how many white people—no matter what terminology we use—often want to avoid thinking critically about race and racism.
As a white woman growing up in central Pennsylvania, I learned this lesson early on. In my community, talking about race was considered taboo—except when it wasn’t, like when it came to who your daughter, niece, or granddaughter should or shouldn’t date.
Now, as a high school humanities teacher, my job is to teach history to young adults. I don’t tell my students what to think about history; I simply give them the facts and ask them to draw their own conclusions. Earlier this year, for example, I taught a U.S. history class for high school juniors where, throughout the course, the students choose essay topics related to the era we were covering that week.
What they came up with speaks to the omnipresence of race and racism in U.S. history.
What they came up with speaks to the omnipresence of race and racism in U.S. history and how it has been erased in standard textbook accounts of how we came to be where we are today.
“If we didn’t know about the Iroquois Confederacy,” one of my students, Re’Kal Hooker, wrote, “we wouldn’t have the U.S. Constitution.” With few, if any, examples of functioning democracies in Europe at the time, it was through observing Native forms of political organization, Hooker learned, that figures like Benjamin Franklin were able to devise a model for the founding document—a fact that is not often brought up in popular accounts of the Revolutionary War era.
Another student, Jua Mills, looked at the mistaken view circulating online in fringe groups that the indentured servitude of white debtors in early colonial America, such as in Jamestown, was just as bad or even worse than African enslavement. Indentured servitude “was such a vast leap from the chattel slavery of Black people,” Mills wrote, “because of the sheer brutality and disparagement of freedom.”
The Civil War—and the lionized view of Lincoln as an anti-slavery advocate in particular—came up in my student Iniko Nick’s essay. “Lincoln just wanted what’s best for the Union. He didn’t care whether slavery gets abolished in the process or not,” Nick wrote, highlighting the letter that Lincoln sent to New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley, in which he explained that slavery was a secondary concern for him.
Another goal of our class was to recognize the continuity of themes and mindsets over time. Students covered topics ranging from the role of protest art, to segregation in schools, to the marginalization of people struggling with mental health. Many students followed the throughline of race in these essays as well.
On the legacy of the “white savior complex,” Kerry Santa Cruze wrote, “This idea of Black people being helpless in any state has continued since the era of the Civil War, still living strong in the modern day. . . . As someone who grew up in the heart of West Philadelphia, I’ve met many people who think they can save Black youth just by stepping into their lives for about five weeks.”
None of my students left the class this year harmed by thinking critically.
Kaia Preston noticed the recurring presence of the Ku Klux Klan during moments when white supremacy gets challenged by protest. “In many places,” Preston wrote, “the KKK has sabotaged the people’s intentions,” citing the example of the hate group’s rally against the Confederate flag’s removal from the South Carolina state capitol in 2015. “The Confederate flag is their battle flag,” Preston added.
None of my students left the class this year harmed by thinking critically about U.S. history. From the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee of the civil rights movement to Lydia X. Z. Brown and X González, young people have always been involved in and led movements toward justice.
Conservatives aren’t afraid that students can’t handle uncomfortable truths about the past—they’re afraid of what they’ll do about it.