Du Bois
Sadly, many young people growing up in the united states may never learn the true nature of slavery. The education system has ultimately failed in revealing the truth about the American menace that rigged the country for almost two and a half centuries. Children are being given a false idea about slavery, as seen in the article. First, they are taught to believe that slavery had some advantages. According to Heim, 2019, teachers in the current curriculum have been teaching slavery wrong, and in some instances, they have gone on to ask students to identify positive contributions of slavery. On the other hand, schools have also continuously lied to students about slavery’s true nature. As Heim points, “…just four years ago, textbooks told students “workers” were brought from Africa to America, not men, women, and children in chains.” (Heim 2019). The system appears to be in denial of the atrocities that the country committed towards fellow human beings.
Arguably when the children learn about slavery in this perspective, they develop the grand narrative that the united states are a benevolent country and that slavery was a means to save the Africans from their primitive lives. America tries to set itself upon a pedestal as a savior rather than a cruel slave master.
From my own experience, slavery was just a subject to illustrate the beginning of the civil war. Not much detail was given, and the teachers only brushed through the topic. There was very little attention given to the real picture of pain, suffering, and tribulations that the African Americans had to go through in America.
These ideologies about slavery ultimately deter the end of racial inequalities in the country. I believe that people do not see racism as a critical issue because all their life, the education system has been attempting to cleanse the picture of America from the wrong side of history. Racism may never end until children are taught from an early age about the true nature of slavery.