Commentary: Relearning American history

It empowers you to work towards their total inclusion in this, all of our America. We should celebrate their triumphs, their inventions and inventiveness. We should appreciate their contributions to our great country, and their indomitable spirits, despite the hate eschewed towards them. We should acknowledge their sameness as every human; their need, want and desire to raise a family. Their right to love, to succeed and buy into the American dream we all strive for.

When I was a child in third grade in Texas, I was introduced to Black history by Mrs. Duke, my teacher, a strong, intelligent and amazing woman full of love for her students and her profession. As you can probably imagine, the Texas curriculum towards slavery basically was an apologists version. We were shown the horrible pictures of whipped enslaved Africans. We saw the aftermath and disfigurement of slaves who sought freedom from their terrible plight. We heard about families ripped apart at auction. We were taught that slavery and Jim Crow was wrong.

However, we also were taught that “good masters” took good care of their slaves, nursing them back to wellness after disease or injury, and that the system of slavery was somehow better than the Northerners’ use of free peoples in their industrial jobs. We were told that the Northerners did not care about the people in their workforce. We were taught that slavery in a good family was a better fate than the faceless, nameless masses working tirelessly endured for some rich white man.

She was forced to teach these lessons, and even at 9 years old, I could tell it pained her greatly. She was a great woman who believed in love, but was forced to teach this thinly veiled hate. This was all taught in a state that did not free their slaves for some 900 days after slavery was abolished by the Emancipation Proclamation.

Slavery was wrong, period, full stop. Continuing systemic exclusion, no matter how great or small, in American life and its institutions is wrong, full stop. If you still do not believe in systemic racism, just looking at basic employment and housing statistics will tell you all you need to know.

Logically, we cannot continue this trend. We cannot take away the only leveling device (DEI is not a bad word, by the way). To do so would be patently wrong. To bury our heads in the sand is wrong, and to deny any of this is happening is wrong. It is ignorant.

We were all taught about slavery in different ways and by different people, all with differing ideologies, agendas and prejudices, including the state. We can relearn, though, through first person autobiographies, historical documentaries and honesty with ourselves, because I also am a great believer in love and I prefer the view, rose colored or not, that Americans are and will always be good people with a large capacity for forgiveness, understanding and love.

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Raven Rutherford is a Texas ex-pat who has lived in the Columbia River Gorge for 10 years with his wife. He has been serving people with disabilities for nearly a decade.