You've got to be taught to hate
and fear.
You've got to be taught
from year to year.
It's got to be drummed
in your dear little ear.
You've got to be carefully taught.
--Rodgers and Hammerstein,
"South Pacific"
Let's get our definitions straight first, before the letters start pouring in. The people of Oklahoma, through their legislators and now through the state Board of Education, have not prevented the teaching of history. Not even uncomfortable history that targets certain demographics for their brutal treatment of other demographics. Some of us remember Jim Crow. Some of us have grandparents who might remember the old folks at home talking about the women's suffrage movement. Before that, note well the Trail of Tears, and whole chapters of our history books dedicated to that travesty. (Some of us still wonder why Andrew Jackson's face still "graces" the $20 bill.)
The papers are full of news about history classes in Oklahoma, some of it even accurate. But it should be understood that what's happening in our neighboring state isn't whitewashing any of our collective history as much as an attempt to keep today's kids from paying for the sins of their fathers. Or great-great-grandfathers.
Dispatches say that Oklahoma has forbidden K-12 teachers from teaching concepts on race and gender that could be considered as, well, indoctrination rather than education. According to The Oklahoman, the new law prohibits teachers from teaching:
• that one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex
• that an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or not
• that an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment because of his race or sex
• that an individual's character is determined by his race or sex
• that an individual, by virtue of birth, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex
• other common-sense rules, which were more common when sense was more familiar
This has proven controversial, in Oklahoma and elsewhere, as the papers suggest. Believe it or not. There are those who opposed this legislation and now these new rules. Mostly the opposition said the new policies were only solutions in search of problems. But if you believe that, you haven't been paying attention. To even question some new-fangled education theories is to set oneself up to be accused of racism. Trust us.
The Trail of Tears, Jim Crow, slavery, the Civil War, the internment of Japanese Americans in Arkansas, the three-fifths compromise of 1787, Wounded Knee, Dred Scott v. Sanford, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire, "no Italians need apply," Plessy v. Ferguson, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the refusal of the MS St. Louis, the Klan, 1970s "boat people," and Timothy McVeigh can still be taught in Oklahoma's schools, as well as every other school in the United States.
Also the moon shot, the winning of two world wars, fluoride in the water, Loving v. Virginia, abolitionists, the covid-19 vaccine, rock 'n' roll, and the Civil War amendments to the United States Constitution (which was once described as "the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man."--William Gladstone)
But kids growing up today shouldn't be carefully taught that they are responsible for any of it--good, bad or in-between. They will be responsible enough for their own actions in the coming years. About that awful American history, and there is plenty of it, those growing up today shouldn't be tied to it unfairly. The fact that this needs to be said, and made law, says a lot about today's American society. And nothing good.