Education needs to be expanded
Every year in February, students across the country learn about black history. We study the great successes of African Americans and their hard-fought history in America. This has been a tradition for over 40 years. As a student in the midst of my 10th Black History Month, I have noticed a few key facets of the black experience missing from the curriculum.
I did not learn about Freddie Gray in history class. Gray died while in police custody in Baltimore in 2015, We are taught about the tragedies of slavery and segregation and the triumphs of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. We are not taught that black men are nearly six times more likely to be incarcerated than white men. We are not taught that people of color still make an average of 31 percent less than whites. Every year, we learn about Brown vs. The Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court case that outlawed school segregation, but we have not learned about Missouri vs. Wilson, in which a grand jury did not indict police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014. We learn about the Civil War and Jim Crow laws and Martin Luther King Jr., but history didn’t end in 1964. History is made every day. The last 50 years should not be left out of our education. School taught us that we all have equal rights, but it did not teach us the importance of standing up for them.
The definition of ally is “to side with or support (someone or something).” School didn’t teach me how to be an ally for racial justice. Allies are people who stand up for oppressed groups. I believe that we all have the responsibility to stand up for one another when we witness inequality. However, I also believe that attempting to speak in the place of a group of people that you are not a part of is equally as unjust as oppressing them. The movement to end discrimination must be headed by those who are being discriminated against. Those of us unaffected by racial injustice cannot fight for people of color, but we can stand with them. We can listen and create change in ourselves. We can support them, show the oppressors that the cause is just and deserves to be addressed. We can fight for oppressed minorities, but we must be wary of overstepping our bounds and intruding upon those we wish to protect.
This idea of allying is invariably left out of Black History Month every year.
As a white person, I was never taught what it means to respect other races. I often hear peers complain about the unfairness of scholarships based on ethnicity, not listening to explanations of what it means to be a historically-disenfranchised minority with less chance of being admitted to a college or university. I hear “all lives matter” from those who do not understand what it means to fear people who are supposed to protect you. This shows a fundamental lack of respect. To respect another race or culture sometimes means that you need to shut up, check your privilege, and listen to them. The concept of respect for less-privileged individuals is another piece missing from traditional Black History Month education.
Black History Month is one of the most crucial parts of American history education. Education on black history can help to spark change in communities by encouraging young people to improve their relations with others. It has been taught for 41 years with little change. I believe that the standard teachings should be updated to include modern history, allying, and respect.
I am grateful for learning the details of the inequality that has plagued our country in the past, but learning that it still exists will impact me for the rest of my life.
Daniel Gysi is a sophomore at Washington Senior High School. This is one of two first-place entries in an essay contest commemorating Black History Month. The contest was sponsored by Washington Health System Teen Outreach.