Should Schools Teach Children to Be Grateful For White Supremacy?
I’m not asking because I agree, I’m asking because that’s what’s happening
I recently received criticism on one of my articles from a white woman who, although she claimed to recognize the “injustices” I criticized, she still thought I should “practice gratitude.”
It occurred to me how often the phrase “You should be more grateful” is the default response to any complaint you might offer in the USA.
Not getting paid enough?
“You should be more grateful for the job you have.”
Working conditions are deplorable?
“You should be grateful you don’t have it as bad as other people.”
Subjected to racism, bigotry, or misogyny?
“You should be grateful you don’t live in someplace worse.”
Every time anyone tries to make a constructive criticism to bring more justice to the world, some entitled person stands up, pats you on the head, and says, “I’ll listen to you, but first I need to lecture you on how you need to be more grateful.”
Americans are conditioned to respond this way. Our educational system is designed to turn a blind eye to historical systems of abuse. Why do parents tolerate that? Why aren’t they angry? Why are they so afraid of creating the tension that can lead to justice?
Racism and education
The reality is that the educational system of the United States currently teaches a philosophy of gratitude for injustices that arose as a direct result of white supremacy.
What else can you call it? We’re told to revere the founding fathers as if they were deities, yet they owned slaves. We’re supposed to be inspired by the risks they took to win our freedom, and they owned human beings as property.
Is the impulse to cover up abuse with a demand for gratitude a uniquely American concept?
“Please stop holding me prisoner here, I want to run free and see my mother again!”
“You should be grateful I’m giving you food to eat and a roof over your head!”
Americans respond with nervous hostility every time anyone suggests we teach the truth in our history classes. They ban books, but it’s telling that Mein Kampf almost never appears on lists of prohibited reading material.
The forces of censorship have no problem with that one.
Our educational system has a tacit understanding with white supremacy because everyone in our society has been trained to tolerate it. This is what institutionalized racism means!
With all due respect
Deflecting a conversation to something else is a malicious rhetorical tactic. The comment I referenced in the introduction started with the phrase, “With all due respect…”
Every time somebody uses that phrase, I think of the scene from Talladega Nights.
Ricky: “With all due respect, Mr. Dennit, I had no idea you’d gotten experimental surgery to have your balls removed.”
Dennit: “What did you just say to me?”
Ricky: “What? I said with all due respect!”
Dennit: “Just because you say that doesn’t mean you get to say whatever you want to say to me!” — Talladega Nights as quoted on Rgalen.com
The worst part is, that exchange is not satire. That’s how people actually use the phrase “With all due respect.” I’m very nearly at the point that when I see the phrase at the beginning of a comment, I delete the comment unread.
Instead of injustice, let’s talk about gratitude
“With all due respect, you should show a little more gratitude.”
That’s exactly what Americans are conditioned to say isn’t it? We aren’t even allowed to mention that George Washington used the teeth of slaves to make dentures, or that Thomas Jefferson raped a black child.
No, we’ve got to talk about “gratitude” first. We have to stand up, put our hands over our hearts, and chant about how grateful we are.
People put up statues in remembrance of horrible individuals who committed terrible atrocities, and we’re never allowed to remove those statues. We have to walk by them day after day, week after week, year after year, with our heads appropriately bowed in deference, respect and gratitude.
We’re trained to be tolerant of those statutes, and intolerant of anyone who criticizes them.
Take a step back and think about that one for a moment.
“You should say ‘Thank You’ to the people who are holding you down.”
Again, these aren’t my words, these are the words that America embraces. This is the philosophy that that Americans insist is taught in our schools.
YOU need to do better
The woman who criticized my post told me that it was up to me to do better. It was up to me to be the change I wanted to see in the world.
Okay, now it’s my fault.
I’m supposed to be this shining example that will rise above all the hatred, bigotry, abuse, oppression, and misery. Evil people are supposed to look at me and slap themselves in the forehead and say, “Oh! That’s how you do it!”
Then they’ll be inspired to give up their evil ways and they’ll rush up behind me like the kids running after Rocky up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and we’ll all hold hands and sing together and it will be just like a Coca-Cola commercial!
Yeah, why can’t I do that? Now that would be something to talk about, and it would be a lot more productive than sitting around complaining.
Eliminate racism without making anyone feel any tension!
While you’re at it, create cold fusion and invent a vehicle that can travel at faster than the speed of light.
The moderate and the absence of justice
“Don’t sit in your ivory tower and complain, be the change that you want to see in the world!”
It’s always stunning to witness the convoluted logic of people who feel the need to get up on their soapbox and criticize me for writing an article. They speak without precision. They string together a series of unrelated criticisms in an attempt to assemble a visual, impressionist argument through pointillism. Then they walk away content in the righteousness of their position because it was what got hammered into them during their public education.
Because of their upbringing, it doesn’t matter that they just threw all logic out the window.
Their emphasis is always diverted away from the resonant injustice and is instead fixated with a hyper-focus on, what they feel, is an inappropriate means of correction.
The thing is, no suggestion is ever good enough for them. They always preach non-action. They always criticize any effort.
[T]he white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice — Martin Luther King Jr.
Demanding justice creates tension.
There’s tension when you walk in on a man who is abusing his wife and you say, “Stop!”
There’s tension when you accuse somebody of lying.
There’s tension when you point out the truth that the United States of America was built on a philosophy of white supremacy.
We are not freedom fighters, we’re zombies
Americans have been lured into a pathetic, zombie-like state of acceptance of injustice and they recoil with terror at the apparition of tension.
Why don’t we recoil in terror at the apparition of injustice?
You want to think that our country is good, but we don’t act when we should.
We simply don’t.
We don’t see racial inequality out the window of our condo and leap off the couch to rush to fight for truth and justice.
Nope, instead, we settle back in and turn up the volume so we can watch the conclusion of ‘The Masked Singer,’ while people wail and scream for aid out in the street.
IT’S PATHETIC!
And it’s because that’s how we and our children are TRAINED to react.
Creating a better world
Nobody should settle for what King called a negative peace. The problem is that Americans don’t know what a poor deal they’ve been given because they’ve never known anything else.
Americans are taught to be grateful for white supremacy. Our schools teach that abuse and mistreatment is inevitable.
Conservatives pull out their hair at the thought that teachers should present the truth about plantation life. Instead, they want students to be programmed with an absurd fantasy. Conservatives want to think that every plantation was like the one Benjamin Martin ran in ‘The Patriot.’ Oh sure, the masters and the slaves used to have picnics and they slapped each other on the back and laughed a lot.
No, I will not be grateful for that! That’s not how it was!
That’s lying!
Quit telling our children LIES!
Pick your battles
I’m also tired of people who have the energy to criticize me for pointing out the truth even as they adopt an attitude of passive indifference to the multitude of injustices that confront marginalized people on a daily basis.
Don’t tell me to be grateful. In fact, don’t say anything. If you don’t like the way I fight injustice, then stop flapping your lips and show me, through your example, a more productive way to fight it. I will not tolerate any appeals, even if you don’t recognize them as such, to give up the fight.
It’s important to recognize that Americans have been trained to be impassive in the face of injustice. This is how injustice is allowed to persevere. It’s incumbent upon all of us to reject this programming in favor of an ideology that will lead to a better society. You need to learn to nod your head in approval at comments that create tension, not fall back on your conditioning, and assume it’s your duty to make appeals to gratitude.
That isn’t even your original thought. That thought was put there by a white supremacist!
Don’t you see?
We shouldn’t be grateful. We should be angry. Stop letting our educational system train our children to be co-conspirators in their own exploitation.
Teach children to feel hatred and resentment for white supremacy. Make them despise it. Make them want to fight it. Empower them to fight it. Tension isn’t the enemy. Stop allowing white supremacists to define our curriculum.
