This past August the Alabama Board of Education approved a resolution that will ban Critical Race Theory. This prohibits Alabama teachers to teach anything that would indoctrinate students in social or political ideologies that promote one race or sex above another. The Board also adopted a rule that would allow action to be taken against teachers who violate the new policy. No specific discipline is recommended, but will be up to the school boards. Teachers will be safe as long as they go along with banning the Critical Race Theory.
What is Critical Race Theory, (CRT)? It’s an academic class that is taught in universities and law schools based on the idea that racism is a social construct that is embedded in all aspects of our lives, including our legal system and policies.
There are two education terms used in professional development that sometimes get mixed up with debates about Critical Race Theory (1) culturally relevant or responsive teaching, and (2) social-emotional learning. Culturally relevant teaching is the importance of a student’s social, cultural, and family backgrounds as opposed to the traditional teacher-student experience where the teacher is the “expert” and sticks to the curriculum.
Social-emotional learning is a program of building up the student’s self-confidence and the teacher to be more aware of the student’s home life, mental health, family trauma, and cultural barriers.
Alabama NAACP President Benard Simelton informed the Board that the resolution has no merit because the schools in Alabama are not teaching CRT in schools K-12. So, why are the Republicans so adamant about passing this law?
Our history books do not tell the real story of what happened to the African Americans or the Native Americans. The barbaric treatment has never been told in any of our history books. The distorted picture came from propaganda from Southern heritage groups and white academics that accepted the interpretations of slavery and segregation. The history books are written from a typical white perspective on history at the time. The Ku Klux Klan was not noted as the terrorist organization that it was/is.
Native American history has been the most distorted of all of our history. The cruel and inhuman way the Native Americans were treated is not taught. Little children may be too young to learn the brutal truth but they should not be led to believe that the Indians were treated nicely. 54% of schools in our country do not even mention Native Americans.
Alabama history books have not been updated in 11 years. Alabama requires students to learn about a variety of leaders, events, and groups in the civil rights movement. The problem is, this does not trace the connection across justice movements or make explicit the important lessons for civil education.
English Literature has banned certain classic novels from our school libraries claiming bad language, racial characterization, depiction of drug use, social class, sexual orientation, or other social differences that challengers see as harmful to students. All the Harry Potter books have been removed from our school libraries because they are considered to have real Satanic spells in them. Books like “To Kill A Mockingbird” should not be read by children, however, when a student reaches the level of a high school senior, it should not be considered banned. This novel does have a big lesson in it about how Black people were treated in the old South when Black men were jailed and beaten for even looking at a white woman. The racial slurs are in there and give the teacher the best opportunity to explain to their students what kind of impact it has on the Black race. It would open the door for Black students to express their own feelings to their white friends about how they feel about the “n-word” and the Rebel flags flying in their neighborhoods.
Hiding the truth will not educate our children or prepare them for the world we live in. It also scars their decision-making capability when they are old enough to vote. It’s shocking when you talk to a high school student today and they do not know why George Wallace stood in the door at the University of Alabama, or why there was a march from Selma to Montgomery. Most of them have never heard of the Trail of Tears. The truth is not in our history books of what happened when the faces were chiseled into Mount Rushmore. One of the main concerns is now that the CRT has been banned from all Alabama schools, how does this affect the history of our Black and Native Americans? Their stories deserve to be told. The truth is, it has never been told in our history books and now it never will be.
The push from the Republican Party in Alabama to make sure that the CRT is not taught in our schools is for their own benefit. They do not want children to learn the meaning of the Constitution. They want to hide the fact that it was the Democratic Party who passed the New Deal that gave their grandparents Social Security, and Medicare. They do not want little girls to learn that it was the Democratic Party that fought for equal pay and equal rights for women. They don’t want those who leave high school and go into the workforce that without the Democratic Party, there would be no overtime pay, vacation pay, family leave, 40-hour work week, 401K, and healthcare. They do not want them to know what collective bargaining is and that a Union protects their working conditions, and gives the employee a voice in the workplace. They want to stop all of this so Fox News can spoon-feed the uniformed what the Republican Party wants them to believe. So far, it’s working, and as long as the Republican Party runs the State of Alabama, we will remain at the bottom of education where we have been for generations.
We will not, and cannot stop the genocide of education in Alabama as long as we have no candidates on the ballots. As it stands now, there is not a Democrat running for Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General, or Secretary of State. It’s hard to complain about the mud when you don’t have a dog in the fight.
Lynda Kirkpatrick
Marion County Democratic Party Chair
SDEC Alabama Democratic Party