Usually I stay away from political or controversial topics on my blog but there are times when something so distressing or historic happens that I simply have to comment. Yesterday was one of them days…
I was sitting at the Reference Desk talking to one of my co-workers and a student worker about the usual nonsense that helps to break up the day when I stumbled across this post. I had to fight back tears as I read how Emmett Till’s casket had been found tossed in the back of a shack during an investigation of a heinous money raising scheme. I started relating the story to my co-worker and the student worker, when the student interrupted me to ask “Who is Emmett Till?”
I was immediately taken aback, “Who is Emmett Till?” Really? From a college student? I had to check myself because I really wanted to explode. He was a fourteen-year-old boy who was brutally lynched, his death launched the Civil Rights Movement, his mother took a bold stand by making him the face of hate…. I could go on.
Why did I take this question so personally? Because I have a fourteen-year-old son at home and every time I look at him, I see what could have been and what may be. I know the statistics for black men being incarcerated or murdered. I know that he will be the victim of racial profiling. I know that some idiot will call him the “n word.” Even in 2009. Even with a black man in the Oval Office.
I teach history and I spend a lot of time devoted to Emmett Till because I want my students to understand that it wasn’t just adults who were lynched, children were also victimized. During the discussion, I brought up the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing and the deaths of the four young girls. Again, the student asked for details. Bless her heart, she really didn’t know. Somewhere along the line, her instructors had failed her.
The student asked how could things like that happen back then, I asked how could things like that happen now? Recently, allegations of racism have swirled around an exclusive swim club in Philadelphia after some children were asked to leave the pool. The club president has denied racism was the motivation behind the eviction of the children. Um, a note to the swim club president, whenever you have to invoke “I have black friends” or “We are very diverse” during a face saving mission, you are being racist. All black people know that is code for “I know one black person and he or she is ok because he or she is different from the rest of you people and because I can see that I am not a racist.”
Contrary to what people would like to believe, racism did not end because the Obamas moved into the White House. People are still falling victim to racism every day. This needs to end. And the only way it will end is through education and remembering the anger and the pain we feel when discrimination, in all forms, rears its ugly head.
July 13, 2009 at 3:29 PM
Great post, Dani! Thanks for sharing it.
July 14, 2009 at 8:39 AM
Terry, thank you. I am continually amazed that we keep hearing the phrase “Never forget” yet we fail to remember.
July 15, 2009 at 8:42 AM
I agree with Terry, an excellent post. At the high school level, some curriculum issues become caught up in the so-called culture wars. (The Wall Street Journal recently covered an ongoing dispute in Texas.) This obviously affects what people know and how they view and frame issues when they get to the college level and after they graduate.
A professor who blogs at the History News Network noted in a blog entry on May 1, 2006 that “After 34 years of college teaching, I thought I had heard just about every imaginable student complaint. Last week, however, a freshman in my 300-seat US History Since 1865 course came in to discuss her exam with one of the graders and proceeded to work herself into a semi-hissy over the fact that we had spent four class periods(one of them consisting of a visit from Taylor Branch) discussing the civil rights movement.
‘I don’t know where he’s getting all of this,’ she complained, ‘we never discussed any of this in high school.’ One might have let the matter rest here as simply an example of a high school history teacher’s sins of omission being visited on the hapless old history prof. had the student not informed the TA in an indignant postcript, ‘I’m not a Democrat! I don’t think I should have to listen to this stuff!’”
Sigh. I would hope that this doesn’t happen very often but who knows. . . .
Again, thanks for an interesting post. I, too, gasped when I realized the cemetary was the one in which Emmett Till was buried.
July 15, 2009 at 9:23 AM
Thank you, Gee Gee. Honestly, your post could have been written by any number of history instructors I have talked with over the years. All have expressed disbelief/anger/frustration over the lack of historical background with which students enter college.
Whenever my students question the voracity of what I’m teaching them, I explain to them that high school history provides the foundation while college history provides the details. But the sad part is that they are coming to me without even basic knowledge. And, sadly, it happens more often than one would hope.