For Critical Race Theory

Dear Editor,

As long as I can remember, truth has been feared.. But, our educational system is the cornerstone of our country and it is important that we teach our children the facts.

With few exceptions teachers have been very diligent about doing this without injecting personal bias or belief. Those who don’t rarely keep their jobs. Perhaps it is time to trust them while setting careful parameters.

While I fully support parents weighing in on curriculum, I am appalled that it happens because of misinformation from media and alarmists.  Back in June when I wrote about this, I really didn’t think that it would happen in Carbon County.  But, it has.

Am I an expert on Critical Race Theory?  No, I am not.  Nor do I think those who spoke against it at the school board meeting are either.

I would like to have seen a meeting proposed with the curriculum committee about the subject. That way an informed decision could be made about how to address those issues in the local school system. Instead, mass hysteria is preventing a productive decision. And our children are being denied an opportunity to learn a factual history of the matter.  Now, fear will prevent it.

Unfortunately, school curriculum or text books continue to be censored. Why do we fear the truth? Do we want our children taught fairy tales about our history?

In June I noted that I was never taught about the massacre of the black community in Tulsa.  And, the cowboys versus Indians version in the media during my childhood sugar coated the annihilation by European invaders of the indigenous population. Those natives had lived in American for thousands of years prior to the arrival of Europeans. Racism exists and will never be eradicated by fear.

Recently I read a post that says it better than I could. “History is not there for you to like or dislike.  It is there for you to learn from.  And if it offends you, even better, because you are less likely to repeat it.  History is not yours to change or destroy.”

Cal Thomas is a very conservative columnist.  But, his comment in a column earlier this year says it better than I can. “History is not just a collection of old names and dates to be memorized in school.  History is full of lessons we never fully learn.”

Certainly our children will never learn them if we bury the facts.  

I recall reading a recorded comment of one indigenous man about the poor hygiene of the invading Europeans by a Jesuit priest.  He noted how they blew their noses into silk handkerchiefs to save and never took baths.  Yet, history often justifies the “civilizing” of the invasion.  

I enjoyed Taylor Caldwell’s philosophical books.  One of her fans recently pointed out a quote from one of her books. “ A nation can survive her fools, and even the ambitious.  But, it cannot survive treason from within...the traitor (that) moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself...He appeals to the baseness that lies in the hearts of all men.  He rots the souls of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.”

Propaganda infiltrates our press and school curriculum has been censored for years. Sooner or later though, facts will emerge. Our children will feel betrayed and lied to by omission, but the damage will have been done.  

As a society, we need to accept that only critical examination of facts promotes change and serves us best.

Barbara Parsons

Rawlins, Wyoming