I guess that the passage of House Bill 3979 in Texas offers yet another piece of support to the axiom that absolute power corrupts absolutely. The recent actions of Texas state senators seeking to expand restrictions on discussions on current events and racial matters in the Lonestar State’s classrooms should sound alarms for American educators seeking to illuminate the minds of our youth. Apparently, Texas Republicans believe that the introduction of substantive classroom discussions regarding America’s tumultuous racial past and present will lead to irreparable damage to the minds and self-esteem of White children.

I must give it to Texas Republicans that the intellectual sleight of hand that they are using to fortify historical politico-economic monopolies that were in place prior to John Hancock boldly signed the Declaration of Independence is an impressive charade. Consider the following steps that have propagated a grand educational lie to naïve Whites; a populace with a vested interest in participating in this intellectual injustice.

1. All parties agree that Critical Race Theory (CRT) is taught at the collegiate level.
2. Yet, CRT is a catchy and easy-to-remember slogan that must not be discarded as it has significant utility.
3. The CRT slogan is an Excalibur that Republicans used to cancel all efforts to discuss racial inequities in America’s K-12 schools.
4. Republicans used CRT to denounce any mention of past and present racial inequities.
5. The CRT slogan has been used to further morph America’s contemptuous racial past in an unprecedented manner.
6. Texas Republicans have taken issue with heretofore givens such as
   1. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s., March on Washington Address — an example of Critical Race Theory and must be banned.
   2. Caesar Chavez’s legacy — yet another example of trying to browbeat White children and must be banned.

I am sure that you get the picture. Anything that even threatens to turn a critical eye toward the methods that Whites have used in the past or are currently using to entrench themselves as powerbrokers is off-limits for classroom discussions.

Texas Republicans’ determination to dictate what is and is not permissible in K-12 schools reveals them as dictators seeking to brainwash citizens by crafting educational curriculums that paint them as superior to others. Any resistance to these Nazi-like plans occurs under the threat of economic devastation for already impoverished educators. This is what totalitarianism looks like in its early stages.

If only the verbiage found in House Bill 3979 that “diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective” were applied throughout the course of American education, opposition to the actions of Texas Republicans would be unnecessary.

If the above statement were adhered to, I would no longer encounter undergraduate students who have read The Diary of Anne Frank and not The Autobiography of Malcolm X. If educators were not forced to adhere to a curriculum created by self-promoting politicians with little knowledge of anything in the realm of education, my students would learn that Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is a man of flesh and bone and not see-through. Perhaps my students would realize that James Baldwin is the most significant social critic this nation has ever known and not the missing sibling of Alec, Daniel, Stephen, and William.

As a historian that has studied racial matters for decades, I understand the slick maneuverings of Texas Republicans seeking to extend the unjust reign of their ancestors and therefore have no expectation that they will give one inch to those opposing their tyranny. Their type prefers to rule in hell than to serve in heaven.

Rest assured that they are nowhere near finished with their drive to whitewash American history. If unchecked, these dastardly rascals will continue until American history is unrecognizable. Freedom-loving educators will no longer be a need to assert that figures such as David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Maria Stewart, Malcolm X, and Assata Shakur should be included in history/social studies curriculums because no one will know about their contributions to the world. This is a scary time, my friend, a frightening time for anyone who values their right to think for themselves.

James Thomas Jones III, Ph.D.

©Manhood, Race, and Culture, 2021