Day 2: The historical Lens Was Cracked!

"Everyone thinks they're the good guy - no one thinks they're the bad guy. Even Al Capone thought he was misunderstood."

 - Amaryllis Fox - former undercover CIA operative

Amaryllis Fox
Memoire - Life Undercover. Coming Of Age In The CIA

As an adult, I realize why my textbooks in history were so skewed and strange - 

The people who wrote them had a world of internal biases that were seen as "truth".

1, Western Society is the pinnacle of civilization

2. Europeans did terrible things to almost every other group of people on the planet brought civilization to every other group of people on the planet.

3. Americans are all descendant of Europeans - 

4. Americans fought the indigenous people because they were attacked.

5. Manifest Destiny was imperative. There was no other way this could have happened.

At university in a Women's Study Course, I was intrigued by the concept of "The Male Gaze".

source

Though the term came into being around gender issues and sexuality, I realized that it had been the main problem in my history classes! Not because of sexuality but in terms of who is looking at the scene and who is making the choices about what I learn and see.

Compound that with teaching America the Beautiful, Free, Bold and Magnificent, and the lens you are staring at history through is cracked!

How I'd Reframe It!

Instead of teaching about European cultures as if they were the obvious way cultures should develop or as if they represented "civilization" and everybody else was "less civilized" I would have liked there to be a foundation for how we talk about cultures in general. 

Why were they different?

What forces shaped them?

With that as a background for talking about different kinds of people, we could compare the various cultures as they interacted to understand why the outcomes were as they were.

It would make what happened when Europeans encountered different civilizations more understandable, and it would have given me as a student more of an appreciation for different ways of thinking about the colonization of the world. 

HISTORY REFRAMED

source

1. All human beings, every single person alive, your ancestors and mine came from Africa. Africa produced the first modern humans. Human beings left Africa in waves and settled all over the world. 

2. As cultures developed in different parts of the world, their environment shaped the melanin content of their skins, the way they developed languge, what they valued, how they lived on the land, what sorts of shelters they needed, what was important for survival, and how they dealt with strangers. They created different traditions, had different sacred beliefs, and made different choices about right and wrong. 

3.  For Europeans, owning and controlling land (space) became the most important commodity. Europe occupies a very small amount of land. The more land you controlled, the richer and more powerful you were. 

4.  Western European civilizations had a high proportion of herd animals that would readily accept a human as their leader. Zebras can't be ridden, Bison are hella difficult to domesticate, and will revert to "wild" behavior if startled. Western Europeans also had a very small number of large, dangerous carnivores. This is due to a fluke of latitude, and where these animals settled out after the last Ice Age. This meant that Europeans lived in close quarters with animals. A number of diseases that infect animals jumped into the European population. These zoonotic diseases became common, and the longer they lived with them, the more tolerant Europeans became of the effects.

 

(Yes, I know. This is a basic lift from Guns, Germs, and Steel, but man, I wish textbooks had used that model to teach history instead of the confusing one they had when I was a kid!)

5. Western Europeans had a very definite belief that the Christian God had chosen which people were going to be wealthy or poor, held in high esteem, or dismissed. Your status in life was Heaven Ordained.

6. When Europeans encountered other cultures, many of them were culturally and philosphically ill equipped to view these "other" peoples as full human beings or anything approaching equals. Humans in general did not know how to deal with "different" people when they first encountered them.

Why does it matter what lens we use to teach history?

The biggest problem in  America right now? Much of the suffering we are still dealing with can be traced to the last two points!

America is still a strong reflection of the Western European Cultures that settled here. We are still treating people as if they somehow "organically" matter less!

Until we face the reality that points number five and six are sung into our bones from the time we start learning the history of who we are, this fight we have between the deserving and the undeserving is going to persist.

We are also going to continually produce people who look at the length and breadth of history and say things like this from former Republican Representative from Iowa - Steve King

"The idea of multiculturalism, that every culture is equal — that's not objectively true," King told The Washington Post's Philip Rucker, less than 48 hours after he asked on live TV what "subgroups" besides white people had made any contributions to civilization. "We've been fed that information for the past 25 years, and we're not going to become a greater nation if we continue to do that."

Washington Post - July 2016

This man is a product of a historical perspective that told him that his gaze was the only one that mattered. He certainly doesn't think he's a bad guy. He was just trying to save America from the non-white, multi-cultural infection that he is pretty sure is destroying it.

I am also a product of that history. I'm not a bad guy. I just want to be seen.

He has no reason to question the history as it was taught. As far as he is concerned, what it told him reflects how he has lived his life.

Me? I had no choice but to reject his view of history. Otherwise, I accept that I have no place in it. 

Day 1: Telling My Ancestor's Story

Day 2: The Historical Lens Was Cracked!

Day 3: I Couldn't Be Prouder - Reframing What It Meant To Be A "Slave"

Day 4: A New Generation: The Teenage Social Justice Warriors

Day 1: Telling My Ancestor's Story

 Not Everything that is faced can be changed,

but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

- James Baldwin

James Baldwin

I loved history when I was in school. It was one of my favorite subjects. I loved learning how the various moving parts and stories intertwined to create the wild tapestry that explained why the world looks the way it does. I especially loved Medieval history and European history. 

This was not because I found European history more interesting than any other kind. No, what I have realized is that I enjoyed European history because it was the only history that actually flowed and made sense. 

I also loved ancient history. I loved reading about Ancient Greece and Rome. 

These histories were also authentic to me.

Early American history always felt uncomfortable. Lots of African and South American history felt odd. 

Looking back now, I can put my finger on what it was about learning that history that was both uncomfortable and odd.

Europeans had been fighting, killing, and dealing with each other for generations. They had respect for each other even if they didn't like each other. They recognized each other's strengths and knew their history. 

When the textbook writers wrote of English, French, Roman, or Greek history, they were solid. They wrote with confidence, and they have gorgeous, sometimes horrific, full-throated confident language that showed those people and cultures as powerful or important in their own right.

Then there was the way they spoke of Africa...

Looking back, it is clear the people writing these textbooks learned about African History from people who only knew Africa from a Western European perspective. 

We didn't learn about African people.

We learned about the "discovery" of Arica as if it wasn't there before white folks found it.

We learned about the first encounters between Africans and Europeans as if the Africans were some other species of creature.

Columbus "Discovering" America

The same thing happened with the Incas, First Nation peoples of every other continent, and their cultures. Then, when they got to how those other cultures were treated...well, it just went from bad to embarrassing. 

There was no deep telling of who these "other" people were or what they had been up to for thousands of years. 

It was as if they were bit players in the great story of white men in the world. Which, let's be honest, that is how they were portrayed in my history.

No part of history really belonged to me or my ancestors. My only real worth was as a backdrop for the great white way.

There was a paucity of blackness or color of any kind in my "official" teachings of what human history is or was or that people like me had any hand in shaping it.

It made me feel small, insignificant, and as if I had no place.

I know, I know. Some of you are thinking, "No it didn't! Children really don't think about it like that. You are projecting your adult, been through the classes, looking at the research, remembering it wrong brain on your child self!" 

Nope. 

What I remember is clinging desperately to any and all references of blackness that were even somewhat kind, strong, positive, or meaningful.

I tried so hard to find ways to be proud of what and who I knew I was, to the point of my now being able to list three things that struck me in childhood.

1) The book I brought into Show and Tell in Kindergarten. The only one I had that featured a little girl "like me". My favorite book for many years.

This is the original cover

2) The poem that was read to us in music class. I don't remember which teacher read it. All I remember is that I was in second grade. I was at Sheridan Road Elementary School. The poem was by Mary O'Neil, and it was from the book Hailstones and Halibut Bones: Adventures in Poetry and Color

Want a Copy?

The poem that stayed with me that I kept repeating over and over and over in my head for about three years? The poem that still comes back to me as an adult, but it a different way?

Here is the whole poem:

"What Is Black?"

Black is the night

When there isn't a star

And you can't tell by looking

Where you are.

Black is a pail of paving tar. 

Black is jet

And things you'd like to forget

Black is a smokestack

Black is a cat,

A leopard, a raven,

A high silk hat.

The sound of black is 

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Echoing in

An empty room.

Black is kind -

It covers up

The run-down street, 

The broken cup.

Black is charcoal

And patio grill,

The soot spots on 

The window sill.

Black is a feeling

Hard to explain

Like suffering but

Without the pain.

Black is licorice

And patent leather shoes

Black is the print 

In the news.

Black is beauty

In its deepest form,

The darkest cloud 

In a thunderstorm.

Think of what starlight

And lamplight would lack

Diamonds and fireflies

If they couldn't lean against Black... (O'Neill, 1960).

3) The last bit of my childhood that I clung to when thinking about finding strength was the story of Wilma Rudolph. I loved this woman's story.

Who was Wilma Rudolph

I found out about Wilma Rudolph when I was in fourth grade. I wrote essays about her as my most admired American for the next four years. She'd worn braces on her legs when she was a child. I'd worn a cast on mine when I was little because my feet and legs were not in alignment and they weren't sure I'd ever walk.

She was an Olympic medalist! She was not given a chance to walk well, and she ran! She was black! She was black like me! 

I absolutely worshipped this woman when I was a kid.

Looking back now on those three tangible facts about what it meant to be going through school as a black girl in the '70s and 80s, I am both angry and sad for that kid when I think of all of the things she could have been taught. 

I'm glad she was surrounded by opportunities, family, books, music, laughter, love, hope, and teachers who looked at her, couldn't believe she was as smart, precocious and determined as she was -

 (these were not qualities that were normally assigned to black girls when I was little - I can guess this because I was literally the only black girl in most of the work groups, study groups, and classes I had through all of my k-12 education, and I know I wan't the only smart, determined, or capable black girl in every school I attended )

and pushed her to do what even she didn't know she could do.

So, as I approached February and thought about what I'd like to do to honor black history month this year, I thought perhaps I would do some retelling.

What would I have wanted to learn about what it meant to be black in America? 

What would i have wanted to understand about what it meant that my ancestors were enslaved here?

What would I have liked to have known?

What would I have liked to have felt?

So, I am going to begin to tackle that.

I am going to spend 27 days retelling this story. 

I won't get through all of it, there are centuries of information to unpack...but I can begin with a rough outline and expand from there.

So, here we go...

Day 1: Telling My Ancestor's Story

Day 2: The Historical Lens Was Cracked!

Day 3: I Couldn't Be Prouder - Reframing What It Meant To Be A "Slave"

Day 4: A New Generation: The Teenage Social Justice Warriors