Teaching about Slavery

August 5

I teach American Literature to tenth graders and since I have terrible retention of historical information, in my first year of teaching the course, I relied on what I assumed my students were learning in history to create a context. I learned that while my students were learning "American History," it was history with a very traditional, sometimes racist bent. The first and most alarming comment a student made in my first year of teaching the class was that they had debated in history whether or not slavery was necessary for the successful founding of the United States of America and that truly America would not be what it is today without slavery, and he was not suggesting that it created the racist society we live in today, he was talking about the amazing home of opportunity.

I did not know what to say. I wondered how my two African American students survived that debate, and which side they were forced to support. I wondered if there was any reading of slave narratives prior to the debate or if the teacher believed and taught that people can have a discussion of the economics, minus humanity. That was my first year.

The last two years, I have brought it up before my students do. I tell my students that I know this debate occurs in some US History classes. I tell them that it is a conversation that I could not sit through. I tell them that while I enjoy many privileges of being a white middle class American, and that I would not have been born without history happening the way it did, I can imagine a society that was able to maintain humane values while creating opportunities for success. I tell them that slavery was not necessary, and that while we read The Narrative of Frederick Douglass and other texts from that time period, I hope they will realize that slavery was immoral, unethical and inhumane in every moment that it existed.

I wonder if students go home and tell their parents what is being discussed in history. I wonder if parents call in and say my kid will not debate the decisions made by elite whites to dismiss humanity for profit. I wonder what is listed as the objectives for that individual or group of history teachers who facilitate this debate. I wonder if parents will call and complain about how I frame slavery and racism. I wonder how this debate continues in history classes in my district or anywhere. I wonder why white parents are not outraged.