By learning about racism, children are learning the real, accurate history of the U.S.

HISTORY OF RACISM

During my childhood in Dover, Del., in the 1960s, I remember the movie theater in historic downtown Dover. It was an old white building with the old-style theater signage, and many times my parents took us to see the latest, greatest movie. What I didn’t know at the time was that during my early childhood years, only white people like us could sit in the main seating area on the first floor; Black people had to sit in the balcony.

What should I have been taught about those policies and the ones like them that permeated a large portion of the U.S.? In his opinion piece from the June 16-July 15 NH Business Review, Robert Clegg suggests that we not teach about pain, discrimination and inequality, that instead we should “talk about our differences as if they were the successes of our ancestors.” This would ignore more than 200 years of enforced enslavement, very much harsher than the indentured, temporary servitude of some Irish immigrants mentioned by Mr. Clegg, and 100 more years of legal discrimination via Jim Crow laws — a span of time extending some 15 generations into our past and for many of us into our lives.

In the same issue, Dr. Sindiso Mnisi Weeks and her husband, Dan, lay out the very current and ongoing systemic barriers that persist today from our threecentury legacy.

Mr. Clegg and others should understand that “critical race theory” is not taught in schools to children. It is a legal theory taught in some universities. Mr. Clegg fears teaching about racism “… force(s) us to live in the past rather than reach out to a brighter future together.” But are those mutually exclusive? Can we not learn both? In fact, isn’t the most compelling story of America our history of continuing to make progress while acknowledging our shortcomings? Don’t we revere Thomas Jefferson’s moral brilliance in writing our Declaration of Independence and also acknowledge and seek to understand how he could so immorally enslave hundreds of human beings?

By minimizing and “whitewashing” a large part of our long- and near-term history, aren’t we doing a disservice to students? By learning about the existence of racism, children are not being taught to hate; they are learning our real and accurate history — the good, the bad and the ugly. What should be taught to children in New Hampshire schools are both the inspiring stories of overcoming barriers and the real ways in which those barriers have impacted people’s lives. When we are able to look fully at our past and present, then and only then can we ground ourselves in our good intentions and best hopes and continue to write this country’s story of progress.

Mark Kaplan of Boscawen is the author of “The Inclusion Dividend: Why Investing in Diversity and Inclusion Pays Off ” and “Set for Inclusion: The Underlying Methodology for Achieving Your Inclusion Dividend.”