To hear right-wingers tell it, schools are making white people feel guilt and shame over the history of racism in America — a situation which they insist must stop.

No, not because those schools are misrepresenting the history, but because that history of enslavement, segregation, lynching, and genocide is too painful to recount.

No, not for the people who experienced them, but for Chip and Jenny in their exurban bubble, raised to think their country is the finest place ever struck off from the forehead of white baby Jesus in the manger.

For them to learn the truth might prompt them to wonder what grandma was doing during the March on Washington, and that never ends well.

Because let’s face it, she was probably at home screaming at the nightly news about the ungrateful n-words. Or at least doing what my mom’s mom was — just wondering what all the fuss was about.

Because that’s what most of our people did. They hit the snooze button and went back to sleep whenever the racial justice alarm clock went off. They didn’t see American apartheid as a problem. Just like earlier generations hadn’t thought slavery was a big deal either.

Frankly, I wish someone had cared about how badly certain school lessons made me feel. Like the ones involving any math beyond pretty much long division.

But conservatives don’t want you to think about that.

Because it might make you feel bad.

Ancestor worship is this weird thing we do, and we prefer it uncomplicated by things like morality, ethics, or just plain facts.

Frankly, I wish someone had cared about how badly certain school lessons made me feel. Like the ones involving any math beyond pretty much long division.

Seriously, even Algebra had me feeling like an idiot. But maybe that’s because my school thought it made sense to have a basketball coach teach it.

Anyway, making kids feel incompetent about theorems, postulates, and orders of operations doesn’t bother conservatives. Only making white children feel bad about the history of racism concerns them.

Oh sure, the bills they’ve passed to ban so-called Critical Race Theory don’t specify that it’s only white kids they’re concerned about. The bills say that no material should be taught that might make any student feel “discomfort, guilt or shame” because of race.

But they didn’t pass these laws in response to annual stories from around the country of teachers saying racist things or acting out ridiculously racist lessons aimed at kids of color, like having students re-enact being herded onto slave ships.

It was only when parents learned that their children might be reading books about Rosa Parks being sent to the back of the bus or youth in Birmingham being blasted by police firehoses that it suddenly became necessary to protect students’ sensibilities.

So the motivations seem kind of transparent, and the timing is more than a little suspicious.

But maybe the right is on to something — what else shouldn’t we teach to protect people’s feelings?

So far, I’ve been encouraging parents and students to fight back. And while I still think we must, I also believe in having a backup plan. Sort of an “if you can’t beat ’em, join ‘em” kinda thing.

Because the more I think about it, the more I realize there are many historical events we teach in schools that might make certain kids feel bad.

And if we don’t want white Americans to feel guilt, we shouldn’t want other groups to either. No one should feel guilt, shame, or discomfort because of an identity category they have no control over.

So here’s my list of additional things about which teachers should not be allowed to speak, lest they provoke discomfort based on identity.

1. The American Revolution. Yeah, I know it’s hard to teach anything about the United States without discussing why we broke away from England in the first place. But talking about this might make the kids of British ex-pats living here feel bad. Imagine the pain of being viewed as one of the “redcoats” about whom Paul Revere was doing all that screaming? Imagine reading the Declaration of Independence and seeing all those awful things said about the King? Nope, we can’t teach about that.
2. The War of 1812, and again, for the same reason. The British burned the White House for God’s sakes, causing poor Dolly Madison to, according to legend, flutter about grabbing pictures of George Washington to salvage before the flames consumed them. Dear Lord, what might the children of British bankers or the grandkids of British retirees think if they were confronted with the depravity of their ancestors? We can’t risk that. If we offend the mother country, they might scramble the signal for the Great British Baking Show — which I think we can all agree is far too steep a price just to learn about a silly old war from more than 200 years ago.
3. The bombing of Pearl Harbor. Yes, I understand that your great-granddad was on the USS Arizona when the Japanese attacked it, and you had relatives who fought and died in World War II. And you’d like to honor them. But since we only entered the war because we were attacked — we didn’t care much about what Hitler was doing — and since it was the Japanese who did that, we have to be sensitive. Don’t you realize there are 1.5 million Japanese Americans in this country, many in classrooms across the nation? Aren’t you concerned about how learning of the actions of others who share their ancestry might make them feel? So screw your great-granddad and his sacrifice. Japanese feelings have to be protected.
4. The Cold War. Normally we wouldn’t give two shits about what the Russians think. I mean, other than Dostoevsky and nesting dolls, what have they really given the world besides maybe the Trump Administration? But we need to be sensitive here too. There are quite a few Russian-born youth in American schools — often kids adopted by American parents. Imagine how it would feel to have come all this way, to be embraced by some proud Salisbury Steak and mashed potato-eating American family, only to learn how awful your parents’ and grandparents’ generations were: invading Afghanistan (I mean, seriously, who does that?), or crushing political dissent and sending dissidents to the Gulag. Sorry Reagan, the Cold War is out. But here’s the really big one:
5. 9/11. This one is pretty self-explanatory. I know everyone says “Never Forget” when it comes to the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. But imagine how it would feel to be a Muslim student, learning about what 19 people did who worship as you do. Obviously, you wouldn’t be to blame for their actions — I mean, there are 1.5 billion Muslims on Planet Earth, and 19 as a percentage of 1.5 billion is the walking definition of sampling error. But even to teach that equation, possibly in a math class as an example of a really, really small number, might make Muslim or Arab kids feel bad. I know some folks would like to remember and honor the heroic firefighters, just like there are probably Black kids who would love to remember and honor the heroism of Dr. King or Diane Nash and Ella Baker and C.T. Vivian. But we can’t take the risk.

Because let’s face it, it’s impossible to teach about the heroism of some without reminding the class of the bad people whose actions made the heroism necessary.

And even though every reasonable person knows that all Brits aren’t White House-burning assholes, and all Japanese folks aren’t sneak attack pilots, and all Russians aren’t apologists for totalitarianism, and all Muslims aren’t terrorists, teaching about those who were might confuse students.

There’s no way we can expect them to differentiate between Cromwell, for instance, and Graham Norton, between Hirohito and their favorite anime artist, between Kruschev and Pussy Riot, between Osama bin Laden and Ramy Youssef.

The brains of children just aren’t built for nuance. Better to shut them down altogether.

You laugh, but it’s been working in Christian academies, with homeschooling families, and all across suburban and rural Texas for generations.

So what do ya say, MAGA-nation? Let’s go full-scale safe space for everyone, and not just the lily-white snowflakes you worry so much about. No teaching about the revolution, the awful Soviets, the Nazis, World War II, or 9/11.

Ignorance is our American superpower, after all. You might as well embrace it.

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This post was previously published on Tim Wise’s blog.

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The post Here Are Some More Things We Shouldn’t Teach Kids appeared first on The Good Men Project.