The Death of White Supremacy in the Classroom

As far back as most of us can remember history has been taught in a way that is fairly one sided. The rhetorical "we" (Americans) did everything right and all that has happened in history from the discovery of fire and the domestication of animals to Space exploration and the internet has all been a divinely planned out and don't forget God loves America and no place else. After all America is a good old-fashioned Christian nation, right? The history that we have been taught as told to us from the writings and perspectives of usually white men who upheld a system of white male privilege and supremacy is perfectly fine, after all what could non-whites, women and political radicals like Malcolm X or Che Guevara have to say that would be constructive in an American classroom?
History has been neatly packaged for the majority of America's public school students in a way that allows us to see the Jim Crow era as something forgivable, even though the scars of that time will never leave my grandparents and parents (all of whom except one are living) faces or minds. The truth is that as my high school history teacher Thomas Murphy once pointed out "Social studies is when the black kid, the white kid, the yellow kid, the red kid and orange kid can hold hands and sing songs all day.... It's a nice idea but never happened. History is dirty, war filled and almost never clean cut. It is a living, breathing thing that still goes on today." The question becomes why is it that in 2010 an English Literature teacher like Karen Salazar, who has been recently denied a renewed contract by the Los Angeles Unified school district can be noted by her supervisors to be performing in a "satisfactory" manner on the one hand and then accused of "brainwashing her students" with Afro centrism for simply using Malcolm X's famed autobiography on the other?
The truth is that in the majority of American classrooms, (which are increasingly getting darker with every passing school year) there are people who are not hired to teach your child and mine the truth of history, science or math but they are instead supposed to be vehicles by which information is controlled and channeled. Ms. Salazar used the Autobiography of Malcolm X not only because it is arguably the best book on one of the greatest African American leaders and activist of the 20th century, but also because it was a district approved text, that her students could and did relate to. In his now famous critique of the American textbook industry and history curriculum "Lies My Teacher Told Me" Professor James W. Loewen notes that American history textbooks are written to agree with a certain narrative that gives students a false sense of real history and politics. All the great historical figures such as George Washington, Thomas Edison and JFK were white Christians and although you had Martin Luther King and Fidel Castro and a few other standouts from the other racial groups they are mostly anomalies or in Castro's case the enemies of all that is good about human civilization. This notion in a student becomes a notion in a parent or school administrator who becomes hostile when other perspectives are introduced to them that are seen as an affront to their entire worldview. These same administrators are the kind of people reminiscent of the Legislators in Arizona have recently endorsed a bill that will cut state funding to programs “denigrate American values and the teachings of Western civilization.”, as well as prohibit students and staff at state funded schools from having organizations that focus on students ethnic heritage such as Black or Latino student groups as well as ethnic studies departments. The truth of the matter is that perhaps this error-ridden worldview needs to be affronted so that students can truly be educated.
In the first chapter of his book entitled "Handicapped By History: The Process of Hero-Making" Loewen notes that: "Through this process, (the process of hero-making) our educational media turn flesh-and-blood individuals into pious, perfect creatures without conflicts, pain, credibility, or human interest." The old saying of "If you tell a lie long enough to enough people, it starts to become truth" seems to be at work in Americas classrooms today and I for one am happy to know that there are still teachers like Ms. Salazar and others throughout this country and the world who are not willing to bow down and teach in a manner that is not only dishonest but is degenerative to the overall mental welfare of her students. I fully support the efforts of her and her students to see that her contract is reinstated.
The United States is going through some changes that only a decade ago would have seemed impossible: there is a Black family in the White House, Ms. America is a Lebanese-American Muslim and at the same time Arizona has legalized racial profiling, Texas power of the textbook industry is creating a revisionist, Evangelical Christian skew on history and the whole while the mostly Caucasian Tea Party is shouting "We want our country back!".... The question that must now be asked is "From whom?"