Sparks in Time Episode 6: Juneteenth and the History We Are Not Taught

A History We Are Not Taught

There is a history we are not taught. A history that took place all around us—in the towns where we grew up, in the places where we spent summer vacations. Part of that history is memorialized in the statues we remember, perhaps even in the name of our elementary school or the main street in our town. But it’s not a complete history. Like all histories, it is the one written by the victor. And like all histories, it is one that is repeated because we didn’t learn from it. In fact, we didn’t learn it at all.

There is a history we are not taught. I learned about Tulsa in school. I learned about the Oklahoma land rush and the pioneers. But I was 38 before I learned about Black Wall Street. I’ve been to Wilmington as a tourist. I’ve walked its streets, enjoyed its restaurants and beaches and everything that makes it beautiful. But I never learned about the Wilmington riots. Not even as a student in North Carolina.

There is a history we are not taught. I learned about our nation’s first president in every school I ever attended, with ever more detail as I grew. I learned the embellished story about the cherry tree, that he had wooden teeth, that he was a farmer who researched the science behind everything he did on his farm. But it wasn’t until I read Ron Chernow’s biography of the man, that I learned George Washington’s false teeth were pulled from the mouths of slaves. That many of the slaves who served him were never freed upon his death, as history sometimes claims. Or, that free black men and women had to flee to Canada after the revolution to escape a future as slaves because our country did not see them as humans who deserved the rights that the country had just won.

There is a history we are not taught. I went to history night at my children’s elementary school just this year and watched as black, brown and white children read a short history of George Washington and then dutifully completed the “fill-in-the-blank” exercise. George Washington was a successful ______ (farmer). He owned 300____ (slaves). My mind was blown. What a wasted opportunity to educate children about our nation’s history. Instead of a discussion on who we were and what we did, and the legacy of slavery, instead children walked away with an understanding that our most treasured founding father was a good farmer…and a statement for their notebooks that implied he might have been such a good farmer because he enslaved hundreds of human souls to do that work for him.

I was angry. I wanted to apologize to the children being asked to write those sentences. I wondered what ran through the minds of the children who were not white as the other kids wrote those words. Did my child understand the significance of the words he had just written? The incredible weight of those words that still is carried by so many of our neighbors? But I also knew that this was the same history I learned at that age. A history that was easier to swallow—that our heroes always acted heroically. That felt better to talk about. A history that didn’t cause children to ask questions.

And perhaps this is what makes me the most disturbed about the events of the past few months in America. I am a student of history. By nature, I ask a lot of questions. But there are questions about the world all around me that I have never thought to ask until recently.

Such as…Why do we continue to honor the men that tried—almost successfully—to secede from the Union in an armed rebellion?

In what other country do they habitually honor men who rose up against a standing government…160 years later? Rehabilitation, reconciliation. I understand that argument and why that may have mattered at the time… until I start to scrape away at it. What about our values as a nation? Did those men stand for the nation we envision ourselves to be? The future our ancestors were trying to realize?

If you read the articles of secession, and the dozens of times that the text specifically calls out slavery as the impetus for the Confederacy, I would venture a guess that the vision these men held differs from the values we tell ourselves we hold. And yet, the statues still stand. We honor them in monuments and with names on military bases. What then, should reasonable minds conclude? We didn’t after all, name a base after Benedict Arnold. I guess the real question is…why should we be surprised when we hold up a mirror to our society and don’t like what we see?

How about these questions: Why was I taught that the police are there to help me, but there’s a whole segment of society who was taught the opposite? Turns out, I don’t get profiled all that often. Why do my black friends use a different name with their work colleagues? Turns out, white names get hired.

Or, Why is Juneteenth a big deal? From an academic sense, I’ve understood why the day is so important. But not until recently have I known the importance of this day—of our failure to learn our history, of the consequences of letting that unspoken history repeat itself again, and again, and again—from an empathetic perspective. From a human perspective. From a mother, a sister, a daughter, a friend’s perspective.

It’s not enough to know the history as intellectuals. We need to embrace the sharp edges of this history until they no longer cut us. But until we can imagine how it feels to live under those sharp edges for so long, and with no relief, we cannot begin to heal as a nation. This is all of our history to carry. To learn. To learn from. To become better because of and…in spite of.

On Writing…

So what does any of this have to do with writing? A lot, actually. Our writing is a reflection of our experiences, our societies. And there are a lot of voices not represented in mainstream writing today. Because of that, we continue to project a society that doesn’t reflect all of us. We continue to not teach or learn our collective history and experiences.

My challenge to you today is to read books written by black or brown authors. Buy them. Review them. Get them on the New York Times Bestseller list. Read books about characters that don’t look like you. Step into someone else’s world and discover empathy for an experience that looks totally different from your own.

Challenge publishers and agents about why they aren’t representing more black or brown authors. We all struggle to get by the gatekeepers to the published world…but not nearly as much as our black and brown colleagues. We need to help to amplify that market. To insist that we need and we want stories that reflect all the colors and the lives and the experiences we see in our towns and cities. Otherwise, we will continue to hold up a mirror to our society and not like what we see. Because we are blocking out so much of the view with our own huge biases.

This week, the New York Times Bestseller non-fiction list reflects the angst that our nation is undergoing. My challenge to you is to help the fiction list catch up. We learn as much from fiction as we do from non-fiction. And as avid readers, we all know that reading fiction builds our capacity for empathy. Challenges us to think differently. Gives us a glimpse into another world. After all, that experience is what keeps us going back to the bookshelf time and time again.

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