Relearning History
by Topher WestI completed a public K-11 college preparatory education in Centerville, OH. I graduated there with an honors diploma a year a head of schedule. I learned writing and research skills. I learned a little drafting technology, a little French, and some math.
When we were taught history and about racism, I learned to think these were far and distant artifacts. I was taught the theology of the non-racist. Non-racist is a made-up term, which, in my opinion, was fabricated to relieve whites from accountability for history. Non-racists have been socialized not to understand that history is involved in every interaction. Non-racist people address race and race-based oppression in an issue-of-the-past context. They are not people who understand race as a current institution binding all; privileging some and oppressing others. The white supremacist culture that taught me history needs to change. The facts need clarification with a much greater acknowledgment of racial genocide and oppression. The history needs to stop being taught as if it were distant with no current effects. Every interaction, every action, every move, we all wear our histories. A shift is needed to bring everyone to an awareness of the importance of history in our daily lives. This shift must also bring institutional awareness and change.
I was paralyzed by my education. The school I went to allowed those naturally inclined, willing, and able, to conform to a business world's training from birth, to excel. These schools worked with disabled students. Students for whom school wasn't easy. Worked with students that the thirty children to one instructor ratio didn't work for. Worked with students who cannot just ignore history. However, the school worked FOR the companies that control the government and the children who fit their mold. This eventually worked itself into a class-track division. A more advanced track had a higher possible grade point average. The system was institutionally for those who fit the mold and against those who didn't. The conformity that the school was pushing me towards was one with very little of my own identity. I was to celebrate in their fashion—only dress for Halloween in elementary school. Celebrate Christmas—but not religiously, by consuming as much as possible. Monotony was supported and impressed upon me as good. I was expected to be heterosexual. I was expected to be a boy. I was expected, as a white person, not to know where my families are from historically. I was not challenged to act through love, but rather I was taught to dominate and control. A better alternative would involve family heritage projects. A better alternative would be communal snacks—not those nasty individually wrapped crackers. From so young an age I was taught to ignore my culture, my history and to conform to a designated role in the oppressive business world. This also must change.
Society needs a mass-based radical thought revolution. Education reform is brewing. It is necessary to fix that which is broken. The schools I went to did not provide an accountable education. We must all learn and celebrate our own cultures. We must all celebrate our diversity. We must all help to achieve change. We must all relearn history.
Topher is formerly a youth from Heartland District and is currently a bridger in Prairie Star. He also formerly held the Postion On Appraisal on the Young Religious Unitarian Universalists (YRUUs) Steering Commitee.
For more information contact youth @ uua.org.
Last updated on Saturday, April 19, 2008.
