History is how we learn
ROBERT C. KOEHLER for Common Dreams
All gone – gone with the wind. It’s just
not taught anymore. Yeah, we had a civil war—about “states’ rights”—and then we
moved on: We conquered the West, saved the world first from the Nazis, then
from the commies, and remain the greatest country ever. Hurray for capitalism!
Any questions?
Oh, one last thing: The commies—a.k.a., the
Marxists—are still around. They’re everywhere. As Ben Burgis noted, Marxism means “anything conservatives
find frightening.” I recently learned, for instance, that they’ve invaded the
Smithsonian Institution – specifically, an exhibit about Latino history in
the United States.
As critics wrote a year ago in The Hill: “A new Latino exhibit at the National Museum of
American History offers an unabashedly Marxist portrayal of history, religion
and economics. It is, quite frankly, disgraceful.”
Indeed, the exhibit—which focuses on the
history of Latino youth movements—is so outrageous, according to the critics,
that it clearly demonstrates the need to immediately cut congressionally
approved funding for the construction of the National Museum of the American
Latino, because . . . you know, the Marxists. Among their current tactics to
undermine the greatest country ever is to write their own version of American
history, which focuses on all the stuff we need to forget about.
By now everyone knows about the ongoing
conservative furor over American schools teaching what they called “critical
race theory.” This is a name they plunked from the world of academia and turned
into an evil, Marxist plot to make (white) American children feel uncomfortable
by forcing them to learn about how there used to be systemic racism in this
country.
That is, once upon a time, white America, in the wake of freeing the slaves and outlawing slavery, maintained its sense of supremacy by legally, and often violently, enforcing, as George Wallace once put it, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” And of course, the essence of segregation was separate and unequal—from housing, jobs and schools to bathrooms and drinking fountains.
From the conservative point of view: poof! It
no longer exists, so it never happened. And those who insist otherwise are
caught in the grip of Marxists—a term nowadays that simply means the purveyors
of absolute evil.
Beyond the teaching of history, here are a
few other ways that Marxists, according to conservative writers and pundits,
have infiltrated America:
1. Global warming, a.k.a., climate justice,
which, according to author Jordan Peterson, as quoted by Burgis, is “the new
guise of murderous Marxism.”
2. Black awareness, a.k.a., being woke. Ron DeSantis has
described it as “a form of cultural Marxism,” which of course is pervading
American schools.
3. Gender equality. As AP reported, various Republicans, including DeSantis and
Ted Cruz, have used the term cultural Marxism “to characterize
fights for gender or racial equity that they argue are ‘woke’ and threaten a
traditional American way of life.
4. Racial integration. Ah, the old days. In 1959, according to Current Affairs, protestors surrounded the Arkansas state
capitol building in Little Rock, carrying signs that declared: “Race Mixing Is
Communism.”
5. The prosecution of Donald Trump. According to AP: “Hours after
pleading not guilty in federal court, Trump told a crowd of his supporters at
his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, that Biden, ‘together with a band of
his closest thugs, misfits and Marxists, tried to destroy American democracy.’”
He added that, even if the communists get away with this, “it won’t stop me.”
I’m sure there are plenty more ways that
conservatives envision the Marxists are trying to skewer the country’s greatness or will in the future. For the moment, what continues to consume my
attention is the right-wing desperation to control history and not simply
challenge but banish any version of it that counters their certainty about who
we are.
For instance, Alex Skopic at Current Affairs quotes author James Lindsay, who described
efforts to address racial injustice in America as, in actuality, “the tip of a
one-hundred-year-long spear that is being thrust into the side of Western
civilization.”
Ouch!
The present moment comes and goes. Apparently
what matters is how – or whether – you talk about it afterwards. In other
words, establishing our history creates the present. That’s
the reason “critical race theory” is such a serious nuisance to the right wing.
While I am absolutely willing to acknowledge
that virtually any version of history is likely factually flawed and
politically influenced, I would suggest to conservatives that trying to banish
versions they don’t like, and writing them off as Marxist, will not make the
truth go away.
History is not some kind of Biblical
narrative: “In the beginning, God wrote the Declaration of Independence . . .”
Or whatever. History is deeply complex and full of chaos. Our understanding of
it is ever-shifting. Terrible things have occurred that need to be faced,
addressed and, eventually, transcended.
Johanna Fernandez, one of the historians who put together the
Latino history exhibit that caused such a stir, said: “We live in La-La Land.
White Americans, Black Americans, Latino Americans walking around, really not
understanding who we are, why we’re here, and how we got to this place. What’s
so dangerous about honestly grappling with the history of this country?”
Grappling with history versus trying to
control (and erase) it. There’s a lot of truth in our past we still need to
face, however much it may hurt.
ROBERT C. KOEHLER is an award-winning, Chicago-based
journalist and nationally syndicated writer. Koehler has been the recipient of
multiple awards for writing and journalism from organizations including the
National Newspaper Association, Suburban Newspapers of America, and the Chicago
Headline Club. He's a regular contributor to such high-profile websites as
Common Dreams and the Huffington Post. Eschewing political labels, Koehler
considers himself a "peace journalist. He has been an editor at Tribune
Media Services and a reporter, columnist and copy desk chief at Lerner
Newspapers, a chain of neighborhood and suburban newspapers in the Chicago
area. Koehler launched his column in 1999. Born in Detroit and raised in
suburban Dearborn, Koehler has lived in Chicago since 1976. He earned a
master's degree in creative writing from Columbia College and has taught writing
at both the college and high school levels. Koehler is a widower and single
parent. He explores both conditions at great depth in his writing. His book,
"Courage Grows Strong at the Wound" (2016). Contact him or visit his
website at commonwonders.com.
