Ben White

Teach Black children their history? ABSOLUTELY! But teach them ALL of it, not some carefully curated historical narrative designed to leave them perpetually angry, resentful, and convinced that their future is imprisoned by their ancestors’ past. You want to teach them about slavery? EXCELLENT! Then let’s teach them about the African kingdoms and merchants who captured, enslaved, and sold other Africans. Let’s discuss the Kingdom of Dahomey, the Asante Empire, and the role African intermediaries played in the transatlantic slave trade. Let’s teach them about the Arab slave trades, which operated across centuries, and the indigenous systems of servitude that existed in Africa before Europeans arrived. And absolutely teach them about European colonialism, the Atlantic slave trade, the barbarity of plantation slavery, and the laws that systematically deprived Black Americans of their liberty. But don’t you dare selectively edit history to manufacture an eternal racial grievance. Let’s teach Black children about Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, and the extraordinary accomplishments of Black Americans who refused to let oppression define the boundaries of their existence. Let’s teach them that African history did not begin with slavery and that Black American history did not end with emancipation. Let’s teach them about African civilizations, scientific achievements, entrepreneurship, intellectual independence, family formation, and the extraordinary resilience of our ancestors. And while we’re examining historical culpability, let’s examine the American political institutions that defended slavery, enacted Jim Crow laws, and resisted civil rights. Let’s name the politicians, examine their party affiliations, and acknowledge how those parties and their coalitions changed over time. No selective amnesia for anybody. Here’s where I fundamentally disagree with you. You appear more interested in teaching Black children whom to resent than teaching them what they can accomplish. My ancestors endured extraordinary suffering. Their suffering deserves historical accuracy, reverence, and remembrance. It does not require me to surrender my intellectual independence or teach my children that their destiny is controlled by people who lived centuries before them. History should produce knowledge, not inherited animosity. Teach the entire historical record, including the uncomfortable chapters that contradict your preferred narrative. Because a child who knows only the atrocities committed against his ancestors knows only a fraction of his ancestry. And that is an egregious intellectual disservice. I will teach my children what happened to their ancestors. But I will also teach them who their ancestors WERE before captivity, what they accomplished afterward, and what they themselves are capable of becoming. My God did not create my children to spend their lives shackled to the grievances of yesterday. Teach history. Don’t manufacture helplessness. #AStoneGroove #SilentMajoritySpeaks