Editor’s Notes: The past and the furious
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"Gone with the Wind" was one of my favorite movies growing up. It is gorgeous, it's a classic and, having grown up below the Mason-Dixon line, a few decades ago I was still buying in to the notion of the glories of the Old South. Then someone older and MUCH wiser than I was asked me if I'd given any thought to the way the movie made it seem as though the "knights" of the Confederacy were heroic figures fighting for a noble cause, and that the Black slaves portrayed in the film were content -- maybe even happy -- with their lot.
I hadn't, of course, which is exactly how Margaret Mitchell and those who made her book into a movie wanted it. So I was given a history lesson the likes of which I had never received in school -- about the "right" the states of the Confederacy wanted so desperately to preserve, about the horrors of slavery and the atrocities of the Jim Crow South, about the rampant influence of organizations such as the Daughters of the Confederacy or the Ku Klux Klan in the early 20th Century, about the Civil Rights Movement … and about how history is, indeed, written by the victors and that it is up to us to seek out the history of those who remain on the losing side of it.
Way back then, anyone under about 60 had finally figured out it was a bad idea to publicly air their bigotry. But I was warned as part of the history lesson that I should understand they hadn't gone away. They still clung to their hate and called it "heritage," and they were teaching their kids and grandkids behind closed doors.
Nonsense, I thought. We'll never go back.
It makes me sad to think how naive I was about that.
But sadness is mixed with frustration and even a little fear a I read the words of Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., who both agreed that White nationalism means racism and doubled down on his allegiance to the movement, saying "White nationalist, to me is an American."
Or when I read that Florida's Board of Education has approved new standards for teaching Black history that require middle school instruction to include "how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit." At the same time, the board rejected a pilot version of an Advanced Placement African American Studies class for high schools, because they said it lacked educational value.
Claiming Blacks benefited from slavery has a similar ring to the old men politicians who opine about rape and abortion by advising that women are able to "just relax and enjoy" being raped.
Alex Lanfranconi, director of communications for the Florida Department of Education, went so far as to say the board is "proud" of what it has done. Meanwhile, the Florida Education Association called the standards "a big step backward."
They are.
When will we decide this retreat to the sociocultural standards of the 1920s has gone far enough (and, in fact, acknowledge that at this point, we'll have some work to do to reverse it)?
"How can our students ever be equipped for the future if they don't have a full, honest picture of where we've come from?" asked FEA President Andrew Spar, according to a report by CNN.
They can't. But maybe that's what those who seek this and many other appalling educational changes across the country want. They don't want our kids to be prepared for a bright future. Well not ALL children, anyway. They want children to grow up in a society as divided, dismal and hateful as what this country endured 160 years ago.
We can't let it happen, folks. We can't let the elected officials who are turning us backward believe that in doing so they gain our support. In fact, they must know they will not be tolerated another second, and that we want better -- for everyone.
Christina Myer is executive editor of The Parkersburg News and Sentinel. She can be reached via e-mail at cmyer@newsandsentinel.com