The Danger of Miseducation

Dylann Roof and January 6th

In 2015, Dylann Roof murdered nine Black congregants at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, in Charleston, South Carolina. Roof has never expressed remorse for the murders. He remains on death row in Terre Haute Federal Prison in Indiana.

Our nation asked the question then and now…why?

Here is an explanation from Ethan Kytle and Blain Roberts, the authors of Denmark Vesey’s Garden:

“Americans soon learned Roof’s flawed understanding of slavery, among other factors, fueled his racial hatred and attack. In his online manifesto, Roof claimed that ‘historical lies, exaggerations, and myths’ about how poorly African Americans had been treated under slavery are today being used to justify a black takeover of the United States.”

This is the radicalizing effect of misremembering history. Of disinformation. The terror and hate and death dealt by a young man turned conspiracy theorist turned white supremacist turned murderer.

Dylann Roof pictured with a Confederate flag. Photo via Politico/Mason Adams.

I understand miseducation — I received one myself.

I grew up learning that the Civil War was fought because of “northern aggression.” It was the Lost Cause. Slavery was just a peculiar institution.

I don’t remember learning Black History in high school, but if it were taught, I imagine it a side note when we studied the Civil War. History was dominated by white men and I grew up hearing excuses for slavery.

Black folks were enslaved but don’t forget about white indentured servants.

The enslaved were taken care of by benevolent masters.

Black folks were content with their lot in life and happy to be in America.

I learned these things from the textbooks I studied.

We know some former slaveholders and their descendants worked to construct a romanticized memory of the antebellum South…they started writing their revisionist histories almost as soon as the ink was dry on the papers at Appomattox.

A major player in the whitewash movement was the United Daughters of the Confederacy. This group of Rebel apologists put up monuments to the Confederacy and wrote poisonous curriculum for public school children.

This is an actual description of the “benevolent Master” from a Georgia textbook from the 1950s:

As a rule the slaves were comfortably clothed, given an abundance of wholesome food, and kindly treated. Occasionally some hard-hearted master or bad-tempered mistress made the lot of their slaves a hard one, but such cases were not common.

Cruel masters and cruel mistresses were scorned then just as men and women who treat animals cruelly are now scorned. These slaves were brought into the colonies fresh from a savage life in Africa and in two or three generations were changed into respectable men and women. This fact shows, better than any words can, how prudently and how wisely slaves were managed.

Ah, the civilizing effects of brutality. Of manacles. Of beatings. Of family separation.

And did this textbook entry compare enslaved men and women and children to animals? Of course it did. The word “chattel” is defined as “moveable property” and shares a common origin with the word “cattle.”

Years ago, I worked in a building with a History teacher who taught students that slavery was just a part of the many causes of the Civil War.

This teacher talked about economics.

Yes, the Southern economics of free labor in the form of slavery.

This teacher talked about territorial expansion.

Yes, whether slavery would be expanded West.

This teacher talked about the election of Abraham Lincoln.

Yes, the election signaled the end of Southern rule and the beginning of secession in order to hold onto slavery.

Slavery. The Civil War was principally fought over slavery and watering it down, whitewashing the cause of the Civil War, has had devastating effects on students. That miseducation matters. Pseudohistory is dangerous.

And, it continues.

Yesterday was the four-year anniversary of the insurrection. The riot turned mob that stormed the US Capitol.

Most of us watched it live. Traitors pushed back the police line and beat officers with our flag and entered our Capitol to block our peaceful transfer of power.

Some of the insurrectionists broke into the Capitol with the intent of murdering lawmakers. They built gallows on our Capitol lawn.

I watched my own Senator raise a closed fist in solidarity with the mob.

We all watched it unfold. We have seen irrefutable evidence for years. We saw the worst of the offenders sent to prison and hundreds given probation.

We saw it happen. We know what happened. We can’t deny what happened.

And yet the January 6th apologists have already started to revise history. They started just days after the attack. Just like the United Daughters of the Confederacy. They need to revise history — it is a common theme among right-wing Christian nationalists. A common theme among traitors.

On #ThisDayInHistory in 2021, thousands of peaceful grandmothers gathered in Washington, D.C., to take a self-guided, albeit unauthorized, tour of the U.S. Capitol building. Earlier that day, President Trump held a rally, where supporters walked to the Capitol to peacefully protest the certification of the 2020 election. During this time, some individuals entered the Capitol, took photos, and explored the building before leaving. ~Mike Collins, (R, Georgia)

That is a bold-faced lie and Collins has repeated it often.

Supporter of Donald Trump protest in the Capitol Rotunda on Jan. 6, 2021.Saul Loeb / AFP

I was teaching on January 6, 2021. I couldn’t keep up with the attack minute by minute, but I checked the news during passing period. When the bell for 7th hour rang, my Department Chair walked down and said, “Turn on the news.”

I was horrified to see the smoke and people scaling the walls and the mob attacking the Capitol. I turned my computer off and taught the next 50 minutes trying to hold it together. I told my students that our Capitol was under attack and it looked like Americans were responsible.

That night, every teacher in my district received an email from our Superintendent. She instructed us not to talk about the insurrection the next day. I was enraged…were we just going to remain mute on an attack on democracy?

And here is something worse — the revisionists are already on school boards. A Kansas school board recently refused to adopt a teacher-created social studies curriculum because some on the board viewed the curriculum as biased and “anti-Trump.”

My god…

I find the similarities in revisionist history stunning. The same Confederate flag was carried by Dylann Roof and some of the insurrectionists on January 6th. It even feels like the same sort of people who revised history for the Civil War are revising the history of the insurrection.

Confederates turned MAGA.

Though it is very recent history, the insurrection revisionists are already seeing the fruits of their labor.

I have family members who claim the FBI and Antifa were responsible for the attack — that the friendly grandmas on a tourist visit had nothing to do with the mob. That January 6, 2021 was set up. That it was rigged to make Republicans and Trump look bad.

Dylann Roof pointed his angry miseducation at Black folks. He murdered the innocent in part because of his miseducation.

The next angry person will likely target Democrats. The revisionists on Capitol Hill are inspiring acts of violence against an entire party.

We are in the early days of the revisions. We still have time to stop the sane washing. The whitewashing. The lies.

The miseducation of a nation.

~Jess

The Emanuel Nine. May they rest in peace.

Clementa C. Pinckney

Cynthia Graham Hurd

Susie Jackson

Ethel Lee Lance

Depayne Middleton-Doctor

Tywanza Sanders

Daniel L. Simmons

Sharonda Coleman-Singleton

Myra Thompson