History Lesson

On TV at the hotel in Jacksonville it is sports sports sports, some weather, and all Fox all the time.  Not so different from any hotel anywhere in the US.  Constant exposure to "main stream" US culture makes me think back to my experience-- little things which add up to give me a totally different perspective on the US.  (I say US so as not to be so provincial as to suggest that the US is all of America). 

My brother had tried to warn me.  We were walking home from school, I was in the third grade, and Bruce asked me a question: “If everyone but you thinks something is true, is it possible that everyone is wrong but you?”  No, of course not.  I was the easy going, go along to get along kid and my brother was always making trouble.  These are deep personality traits, but that doesn’t mean we cannot learn.  If everyone says the dog is a cat, does that make it true?  No, I thought, of course not.  But this was an academic question.  Why would everyone say a dog is a cat?  I didn't get it. 

So many years later I still remember Shondra Peobles, the toughest girl in 3rd grade.  She had lost her hair in some kind of fire, and the boys in the cloak room would steal her wig and hide it.  But she always got even on the playground.  I had the privilege, through what was called  “districting” where schools got money from property taxes collected from the local district of going to the school on the (literally) wrong side of the tracks.  Districting kept the poor schools poor and black, and the rich schools white, in what was a supposedly an integrated town.   (Things changed rapidly with force busing and the town taxes were equally divided amongst all the schools.) At least half the school and half my friends were black.  Shondra was black, but she was not my friend.  She had no friends.  She walked home alone every day with her head-up-high attitude. 

It was Washington’s Birthday,  and the teacher was giving the history lesson.  Our founding father, hero of the revolutionary war and our first president.  Maybe the greatest american ever.   I was bored, we heard this every year and I had no doubt it was true.  We learned that  his teeth were wood, the best dentistry of the day.   Then Shondra stood up.  She was out of order!  This was not done in the classroom.  “Sit down Shondra!!”.  But she stood there with her head held high and said, “But George Washington had slaves!”  The class went silent.  We all waited for the teacher to respond.  I had learned my history well and knew this could not be true.  The teacher tried to recover--- “yes, but most of the people had slaves back then”.  The class fell apart.  “Had slaves! We were the slaves!”.   Recess was declared.  The lesson was over.  

That was the moment for me “when the truth is shown to be lies”.