Louisiana Voice

Well, the Republicans’ morbid fear of something called critical race theory (CRT) being taught to impressionable children in our public schools has finally come to Louisiana. And, predictably, our educational leaders have shown the requisite invertebrate characteristics necessary to placate those who would teach the sugar-coated versions of history as opposed to the hard, often ugly truth.

State Superintendent of Education CADE BRUMLEY was quoted in the Baton Rouge Advocate Saturday as saying he was opposed to “anything resembling critical race theory.” He said, “We have to make sure that no standards open the door for any form of indoctrination of our public school children.”

Really? No indoctrination? But make sure the say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning before classes commence.

I have nothing against the Pledge of Allegiance. I’ve recited it hundreds of times myself, but requiring it of school children without explaining what it means is in itself a form of indoctrination. For instance, are children told that the Pledge is of allegiance to the United States flag and not to a certain president, whoever he may be at the moment?

Are they told that their allegiance is not to 535 members of self-serving members of Congress, but to our nation and to our democratic republic form of government? Are they even told the difference between a democracy, a republic and a democratic republic?

Are our children really ever educated as to the meaning of the Bill of Rights? Or are they just taught the Second Amendment?

Are children taught that the First Amendment gives them the right – responsibility, even – to question actions taken by our government? If they were, the disastrous Vietnam War may have come under earlier scrutiny and perhaps a few thousand American lives might have been saved.

Brumley says CRT is “anything that prompts discussions to be viewed simply around the lens of race.”

And there you have it. The real reason for the gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands. We just can’t discuss race because it might open some old, ugly wounds and we can’t have that. Instead, let’s just pretend that slavery never occurred, lynchings were no more than bad dreams and turning dogs loose on black protesters in Birmingham was just a prank.

Why would we want to dwell on the COLFAX MASSACRE of 1873? Hell, it was just a minor disagreement where three whites and 150 blacks died. A book, The Day Freedom Died, by Charles Lane, explores the tragic event that is very much a part of the history of this state but Brumley obviously would not have that ever mentioned in a Louisiana classroom.

Likewise, a book entitled The Thibodaux Massacre by John DeSantis (I assume no relation to the Florida governor) tells us of that event that occurred in 1877, just four years after the Colfax killings. The DeSantis book details how 10,000 black sugar cane growers, dissatisfied with their pay ($1.25 per day), went on STRIKE. The strike affected four parishes: Lafourche, Terrebonne, St. Mary and Assumption. An all-white state militia was turned loose on the strikers by order of the governor, no less, and before it was over, about 60 people were dead, with many of the strikers’ bodies being dumped in unmarked graves. Survivors hid in the swamps as the killings spread from plantation to plantation.

I was never taught about Colfax or Thibodaux in my eighth-grade Louisiana History class and neither were you and neither will anyone else, according to Brumley or any number of Republican legislators who are obviously calling the shots with the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

I knew nothing about Solomon Northup until I saw the riveting movie 12 YEARS A SLAVE, which told of an educated black man from New York who was drugged and sold into slavery on several Louisiana plantations, including ones near Cheneyville and Vacherie. Much of the award-winning movie was filmed on locations in Louisiana.

That story and the shooting of the movie in Louisiana is part of our state’s history. Instead of learning about Solomon Northup, or Colfax or Thibodaux, our students will learn all about passage of the Right to Work law in 1974. It dealt a critical blow, after all, to organized labor in Louisiana which meant more profits for members of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI).

Students will not learn that Louisiana was one of the very first states to implement the concept of prisoner work release, which led to the growth in size and population of prisons like the Louisiana State Prison at Angola. It was southern plantation owners’ answer to the abolition of slavery.

Prisoners would be hired out to private business for cheap labor. That of course, led to the need for more prisoners and the natural pool of potential labor was found in the newly-unemployed black population. So, more laws were needed for more convictions so there could be more prisoners to be leased to private business, mainly plantation owners. Prison work-release programs quickly spread throughout the South and the practice remains in place today and indeed, has morphed into a prosperous business for private prisons. And our legislature is accommodating the need to keep the process up and running by passing more restrictive laws so more prisoners may be fed into the system.

But you will never see that taught in history classes because Brumley and legislators like State Rep. RAY GAROFALO (R-Chalmette), who at one time chaired the Louisiana House Education Committee, believe that Louisiana schools should teach the “GOOD” aspects of slavery. Honest, he said that.

There will be those from Colfax and Grant Parish, as well as those from Thibodaux in Lafourche Parish, who may feel compelled to offer their own description of events in those two parishes and that’s fine. They’re welcome to do so. I make no effort to provide my own version of the facts. I certainly wasn’t in either place when the shooting started.

I was never taught about the horrid killings that took place in both locationss and therein lies the problem. I never even knew they took place until I was an old, retired geezer.

Let’s not hide the truth from our children. We can’t protect them from everything. After all, your kids have access to the Internet so they have already seen a lot more carnage and graphic sex than you realize. And they have cameras on their phones and the ability to text pictures to each other.

They’re certainly up to taking a little real history.

You have to ask who the real child is in this scenario.