There is a story out of Oklahoma about a white teacher trying to instill insecurity and self hate in a young Black 7th grader. She ridiculed a Black male student for wearing a t-shirt that said "Black King". She called his shirt racist as she believes she would be labeled if she wore a shirt suggesting that she is a white queen. She continued that there should be white history. So what part of her schooling did she sleep through?The young Black student's Mama said, hell no and challenged her son's experience. The teacher has been suspended.
Black pride scares and intimidates insecure white people, ESPECIALLY when that pride is being expressed or demonstrated by Black Americans. Why do you suppose?
White America, since we arrived on these shores laden in their shackles, has methodically, skillfully and purposefully invested a ton of time and energy in making sure we don't like, love or value ourselves. They want that we not love and honor ourselves but that we see them as our benchmark, our role model, our saviors, our heroes. They want that we envy and/or aspire to be them or at the very least, be, look and act like them.
Always we are expected to measure and judge ourselves according to white standards. We should seek white approval. When we exude Black pride, insecure white people receive it as a rejection of them and all the hard work they have done to make us not like, love or believe in ourselves.
We should hate our naturally bushy and beautiful hair, the blessing of melanin in our skin, our full figures, our full hips, our full lips. This is also why parents at a private charter school in Utah recently rejected teaching Black History to their white children. It is why scholared white historians, sometimes to include self proclaimed liberals, are so vested in their rejection of teaching the truth of Black History like the 1619 Project or Critical Race Theory. They have written our story. We must believe them in spite of ourselves, in spite of our truth. Similarly, the peaching of Reverend Jeremiah Wright and others who preach Black liberation theology scares the hell out of insecure whites. They call it preaching hate. In America, one cannot claim a well rounded education that is void of Black History. Black History IS America's history and it must be taught!
Insecure whites reject that which educates and builds Black people up and tears down their hard work and desire that we loathe ourselves. To know and love one's history is to have pride and to know and love oneself. As we close out Black History Month, let us practice, embrace, love, teach and learn Black History 365! Never stop learning...
As our children are being taught at home virtually, we can hear and are reportedly being responsive to what they are learning. Make it a habit!!! We ARE our children's protectors and their keepers.
Sadly, this teacher who by her actions incited his white classmates to join in her taunting, bullying, questioning and her efforts to shame this Black student against speaking his truth and having pride in himself and who is now on leave with pay pending an administrative decision will not be held accountable. Many of her superiors, in active consciousness or not, are of the same mindset as her and are incapable of judging her for that which they see or perhaps cannot see in themselves, or for what they hold in their own hearts. They don't quite understand the angst of his Mom or know or care about the intended or potential of damage behind the message the teacher tried to instill in her young Black son.
It is our duty to be engaged in what is being taught or instilled in our children. Six hours a day for nine months for 13 years can do tons of damage. We MUST speak up, expose and challenge these harmful and sometimes irreversible actions taken against our children. Let them call you angry. You should be! Protect our children and what they are being taught at all costs.
This young man is gifted with a good, engaged and proud Black Mom!!! Her lesson of protecting her sin and hus honor superseded any lesson of inferiority his teacher was trying to teach him and his young and impressionable white peers who are influenced by her merely because of her role. Of course they are as are Blackchildren... However, on that day, thanks to a Black Mother, a seed of intolerance was planted and that is good...
#toknowourselvesistoloveourselves #BlackHistory365!
❤🖤💚
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