Lessons Learned

 Heaven forbid anyone should feel uncomfortable. 

Especially white people.

In Florida.

Yes, once again the spotlight falls on The Dongle State as the "governor" pushes a bill through his state's legislature  that would prohibit public schools and private businesses from making white people feel “discomfort” when they teach students or train employees about discrimination in the nation’s past. "Governor Ron" said he would seek legislation that would allow parents to sue schools and employees to sue employers if they were subject to critical race theory. Good news for the frivolous lawsuit barristers out there. Not so good for those of us who prefer our reality a little more real. 

It was my fifth grade teacher who opened my eyes to the Holocaust by suggesting that I read Anne Frank's diary. That was at a point when I was fascinated by all things World War II. It turns out there was a reason the Nazis were "the bad guys." Six million of them. This was the same gentleman who introduced me to the Sandy Creek Massacre. Growing up in Colorado, we were inevitably walked past the contributions of our Native American predecessors, but it wasn't until fifth grade that the suggestion of genocide was tossed into the mix. 

Did these teachings make me feel any less of myself? Maybe. A little. But mostly it brought clarity to those moments in history when those colonial powers who came to exert their culture and race across the land through force. Broken treaties. Broken windows. Broken people. 

So when it came time to consider slavery right here in the land of the free and home of the brave, I was ready. To say that mistakes were made would be the understatement of the past two millennia. The subjugation of another human being is wrong. The fact that our nation was built on the backs of those who were taken and forced to do the work made us "the bad guys." And maybe it was easier in 1970's Boulder, Colorado to handle this kind of information. It certainly made me more aware of our family's trips through the southwest and its native reservations. It made me seek out more truth about what happened all those years ago when we systematically created a notion of racial superiority. 

This did not make me feel comfortable. It was not taught to me for that purpose. I learned about those mistakes so that I would not repeat them. Governor Ron's bill reads, in part, “An individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, does not bear responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex. An individual should not be made to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race.” 

Here's a little lesson for Governor Ron: If you don't feel any of those things, you're not feeling anything. It's called empathy. That's a much harder thing to teach. Please return to your fifth grade classroom to inquire about it.