In school, it is required to teach History to the students. However, a lot of the time, we are being fed biased or partial information. Too many times to count, my fellow classmates and I have found that the history we’re meant to be learning is either held back or changed to praise white people, similar to the “white savior complex.” For instance, there have been scholastic textbooks, such as the Virginia: History, Government, Geography textbook that portrayed slaves as “happy” as well as glorifying Confederates. Another children’s book implied that slaves happily sang in the field as they picked cotton. This is done to downplay the hardships many African Americans had to go through during slavery.
In addition, many textbooks have been called out for changing pictures during the civil rights movement to black and white when they were originally taken in color. Pictures of Martin Luther King Jr. and signs prohibiting “colored people” are shown in black and white ink. This is to make them appear older and make students believe that racial injustice/discrimination was a long time ago. Also, even history textbooks constantly refer to Native Americans as “angry Indians” or praise the white men who tried to “protect” themselves from “native Americans attacking” instead of teaching us more about their culture. We’re taught to believe that they were “savages” who acted like animals and attacked for no reason, when this simply is not the case.
Many of our textbooks highlight some of the white men that stole land from the Native Americans, led destructive rebellions, and had racist beliefs. Our school system praises figures such as Thomas Jefferson for his accomplishments and fails to teach us that he had a long term sexual relationship with one of his mixed-race, 14 year old slaves and then enslaved their children. The curriculum continues to feed us only what portrays white people as saviors and encourages Eurocentrism. Do you feel that the school is intentionally feeding us biased History?
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