What We Once Were Told Was Fact- Is Now Being Challenged
White supremacy is crumbling, and they are fearful that the old bastions of racism are being pulled apart brick by brick. Almost every TV station, regular, satellite, and cable, has blacks, browns, or Asians in the commercials and on the shows themselves. Even though we have a long way to go with the higher positions of ownership and authority, blacks are on shows from comedy to news, to soaps, game shows, talk shows, TV series, sports of all kinds, documentaries, history, etc. Blacks and people of color have a strong presence in the flow of things on these programs. This must feel to a racialized-minded zombie that their world is falling completely apart with blacks and other people of color on shows like Star Trek Discovery, Star Trek Picard, the Good Doctor, General Hospital, Scandals, and cartoons. What a difference from the past, where seeing a person of color on any show was a shock; where almost every cartoon, Bugs Bunny and Popeye, were as racist as could be. Blacks are taking a knee at sporting events and Black Lives Matter commercials are all over the place.
We no longer have to celebrate just one black actor because he or she was the only one allowed in Hollywood. We are seeing many people of mixed ancestries together, a blow to the racist conception of relationships. However, we should stop to think of the indigestion that racists feel from seeing different ethnic groups in a loving relationship. Columbus Statues and Confederate ones are being toppled (literally and in the books). This is what makes these right wing racist militias so dangerous. If Trump loses they are sure to have some sort of severe stomach pain. The racially metastasized walking dead are already showing more and more signs of convulsions.
Education comes in many forms. It is what we learn in an academic setting and well as in life. We learn from what we see on TV and read in the newspapers. What we once were told was “fact” is being challenged. White supremacists taught us about European heroes and never heroes of color. We were never taught about the slave owner Alamo defenders and the central reason for the Civil War—slavery, about presidents that owned slaves, and intellectuals whose brains were masticated with racism. A new generation of educators is being trained to tell the truth about the killer Christopher Columbus and brutal savagery of southern slavery and their confederate leaders.
Educators have a responsibility to uncover the lies that are touted as facts. This is why African American Studies, Mexican American Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Women’s Studies are super important. A new generation of learners and teachers question why black lives never mattered in this country. They bring to light the millions of black refugees that had to leave the South to keep from being murdered and worked to death by racialized business and plantation owners after the Civil War. We are learning about mass incarceration, and educators committed to tell the entire story of the blacks that fought for the British against George Washington and the slave owners during the 1776 and 1812 wars. We know that black women were forcibly sterilized by insane doctors at Yale, Harvard, the University of Virginia, and other medical schools, while black graves were robbed for medical studies at these universities. We are learning that the police murdered and beat black men, and still do, because of their skin color. Things are changing at a rapid pace and the forces of white supremacy will not be able to stop it. Welcome to the 21st Century and the war against racism.
