I think being "woke" ought to make white people feel bad [View all]

[cyclonefence]

As Frank Zappa put it, "I'm white, but lots of times I wish I was black."

Of course little children, white or black, shouldn't be made to feel bad about the color of their skin. But they ought, white or black, to be taught what happened. Slavery is a fact, and hiding that fact doesn't do anybody any good.

But by the sixth grade, white and black children ought to understand that what helped make--maybe more than anything else--the US the economic powerhouse it became from the late 18th century to today is the *fact* that rich white Americans had the inestimable benefit--over the rest of the world!--of not having to pay for labor in the production of some of the greatest money-making exports of the time: cotton, indigo, tobacco. Imagine the advantage of not having to pay workers!

Whether or not your family owned slaves--even if you spring from the loins of the greatest white abolitionists of the time--if you are white, you benefited from slave labor. Slave labor gave rich white men, like the Founding Fathers, the wealth and leisure time to become highly educated (ironically, it was the Enlightenment, Rights of Man and all that) while making sure the labor force continued to be unable to read.

It of course should not be presented so baldly to young children, but they ought to begin to learn about white debt--America's debt--to the black contributions to our wealth and greatness. By high school, I think children should have an understanding of systemic racism, why it is wrong, and white people's embracing of it--consciously and unconsciously--and what we all can do to begin to address it.

"Woke" is something all children by 18 ought to understand, and if it makes them ashamed to be white--well, good. That's impetus to find out what to do about it, and reading Ta-Nahisi Coates is the best way I know to begin.