Between 1882 and 1910, the state of Iowa saw 19 lynchings.
Is that something students should know? Might it make them uncomfortable?
Wait! Of those 19 victims, 17 were white. That means we can chalk up those murders to the vigilantism typical of the Wild West. Little racism there. Nothing to compare with the hundreds of lynchings sweeping through the South.
Wait! Should students know about those southern crimes — 3,500 in all, as recorded by the Tuskegee Institute? Should they learn of the terrorizing that sent 6 million southern rural Blacks fleeing northward on the Great Migration? Might it make them think less of their nation?
And what about the Civil War? Iowa sent 76,000 citizens to fight. The largest per capita participation of any state in the Union.
Sixteen thousand Iowans didn’t come home. That could make a kid proud to be an Iowan.
Wait! Should students know what, exactly, the fighting was about? Of course, Lincoln the Great Emancipator and all that. But should kids know what people were being emancipated from?
Of course teen students should know — all of it. Not only the evils of slavery but also the genocide against Native Americans in the settling of the West, the exclusion of Chinese immigrants and — during lifetimes of many Gazette readers, including me — the World War II internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans.
Students also should know the straight word on the 1960s civil rights movement.
Parents should deplore any move to stifle their children’s chance to use history, some of it ugly, to remind them of responsibilities lying ahead.
The campaign to whitewash history, embraced by once and future President Donald Trump, is nothing but ideology-driven censorship dressed up as concern for children. The move is unabashedly called The War on Woke. It started in Florida with Gov. Ron DeSantis as leader. Its emphasis: Things to fear. Its battlefield: public schools and colleges. But what starts in Florida usually spreads.
Two red-state targets have cryptic-sounding initials — CRT and DEI. That disparaged pair, Critical Race Theory and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, is joined by three improbable targets I call BLT. Not to be confused with the sandwich, BLT stands for Books, Librarians and Teachers.
Now to Critical Race Theory. It asks us to see race as a social construct as opposed to inborn. It examines how learned racial biases have become systemic throughout history. Quite sophisticated, CRT is taught solely in colleges. It sounds creepy — something to perhaps fear — so legislators in red states have no trouble outlawing it across the board.
Race as a social construct should be widely understood. It can be surprising. A personal example: In a local department store 56 years ago, one of my two five-year-old daughters saw a Black family coming down the aisle. “Daddy,” she whispered. “Those people are Black.” “Yes, they are,” I said, “but they’re just as good as you.”
What WAS I saying? The kid wasn’t suggesting some people are better than others. All she meant was, “Oh, look people whose skin is different.” My reaction shocked me.
As for DEI — Diversity, Equity and Inclusion — it urges accepting and supporting those of all racial, sexual, gender and socioeconomic backgrounds, among other distinctions.
What could be wrong with that? It further disturbs those upset at the prospect of America’s melting pot with millions outnumbering those whose forbears came from Northern Europe.
DeSantis knocked out public university DEI programs in Florida last year. Iowa’s Legislature axed them this year. No more diversity offices at state universities.
Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s massive blueprint tailor-made for Trump, proposes empowerment of states to squash DEI. Teachers interfering would risk dismissal. Trump vows to delete DEI. Racial tensions grow apace.
That brings us to BLT — books, librarians and teachers promoting understanding and inclusion through material enabling students to learn, grow and think critically. Prime throttler of progress is book banning.
Prominent among banished books is the Pulitzer Prize winning “The 1619 Project.” Assembled by lead essayist, Waterloo native Nicole Hannah-Jones, it is a critical review of traditionally revered figures and events in American history. It proposes that America’s startup dates not from European explorers’ early 1500s arrival but from 1619, when the first slave ship unloaded its tortured cargo in the colony of Virginia. From there it shows the enduring centrality of racism and slavery to our history.
President-elect Trump wants that book gone, nationwide. In 2019, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told him “The 1619 Project” couldn’t be banished because the federal government has no education curriculum.
Such obstacles could fall with newly empowered Trump’s vow that “the woke stuff will be gone.” Project 2025 proposes banning of African American and gender studies at all levels of education. It also would ax the Education Department.
BLT attacks threaten school librarians in Iowa but also public librarians in other states such as Missouri and Idaho. This year, the Idaho Legislature criminalized librarians who allow LGBTQ+ books to remain on shelves.
Joining librarians among the newly disrespected are teachers in history and social studies. And, perhaps, science teachers if instructions in climate change are outlawed in tribute to Trump.
What a letdown for Iowa public schools, once considered among tops in the nation. Years ago, Iowa legislators valued creative teachers. That was so 20th century. In their eight years of domination, Republican legislators have forsaken conservatives’ traditional emphasis on local control and fallen in line with national GOP strategy: strong-arming school boards, threatening teachers who don’t toe the line and intimidating LGBTQ+ kids.
The denigration and devaluing of Iowa teachers has led to a discernible exodus of young talent.
It falls to voters to reverse the trend. So far, no changes in sight. Meantime, by narrowing kids’ horizons — limiting their free access to empowering information — Iowa is eating its own seed corn.
Such improbable casualties are engulfed in the hush-up of CRT, DEI and BLT. All amid a Wizard of Oz things-to-fear singsong, “Books and librarians and teachers! Oh, my!”
Retired Gazette editor-writer Jerry Elsea served 10 years on the Cedar Rapids Library Board of Trustees, eight years as president. In retirement he was a 14-year reading tutor for challenged first-graders at Cedar River Academy at Taylor.
Is that something students should know? Might it make them uncomfortable?
Wait! Of those 19 victims, 17 were white. That means we can chalk up those murders to the vigilantism typical of the Wild West. Little racism there. Nothing to compare with the hundreds of lynchings sweeping through the South.
Wait! Should students know about those southern crimes — 3,500 in all, as recorded by the Tuskegee Institute? Should they learn of the terrorizing that sent 6 million southern rural Blacks fleeing northward on the Great Migration? Might it make them think less of their nation?
And what about the Civil War? Iowa sent 76,000 citizens to fight. The largest per capita participation of any state in the Union.
Sixteen thousand Iowans didn’t come home. That could make a kid proud to be an Iowan.
Wait! Should students know what, exactly, the fighting was about? Of course, Lincoln the Great Emancipator and all that. But should kids know what people were being emancipated from?
Of course teen students should know — all of it. Not only the evils of slavery but also the genocide against Native Americans in the settling of the West, the exclusion of Chinese immigrants and — during lifetimes of many Gazette readers, including me — the World War II internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans.
Students also should know the straight word on the 1960s civil rights movement.
Parents should deplore any move to stifle their children’s chance to use history, some of it ugly, to remind them of responsibilities lying ahead.
The campaign to whitewash history, embraced by once and future President Donald Trump, is nothing but ideology-driven censorship dressed up as concern for children. The move is unabashedly called The War on Woke. It started in Florida with Gov. Ron DeSantis as leader. Its emphasis: Things to fear. Its battlefield: public schools and colleges. But what starts in Florida usually spreads.
Two red-state targets have cryptic-sounding initials — CRT and DEI. That disparaged pair, Critical Race Theory and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, is joined by three improbable targets I call BLT. Not to be confused with the sandwich, BLT stands for Books, Librarians and Teachers.
Now to Critical Race Theory. It asks us to see race as a social construct as opposed to inborn. It examines how learned racial biases have become systemic throughout history. Quite sophisticated, CRT is taught solely in colleges. It sounds creepy — something to perhaps fear — so legislators in red states have no trouble outlawing it across the board.
Race as a social construct should be widely understood. It can be surprising. A personal example: In a local department store 56 years ago, one of my two five-year-old daughters saw a Black family coming down the aisle. “Daddy,” she whispered. “Those people are Black.” “Yes, they are,” I said, “but they’re just as good as you.”
What WAS I saying? The kid wasn’t suggesting some people are better than others. All she meant was, “Oh, look people whose skin is different.” My reaction shocked me.
As for DEI — Diversity, Equity and Inclusion — it urges accepting and supporting those of all racial, sexual, gender and socioeconomic backgrounds, among other distinctions.
What could be wrong with that? It further disturbs those upset at the prospect of America’s melting pot with millions outnumbering those whose forbears came from Northern Europe.
DeSantis knocked out public university DEI programs in Florida last year. Iowa’s Legislature axed them this year. No more diversity offices at state universities.
Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s massive blueprint tailor-made for Trump, proposes empowerment of states to squash DEI. Teachers interfering would risk dismissal. Trump vows to delete DEI. Racial tensions grow apace.
That brings us to BLT — books, librarians and teachers promoting understanding and inclusion through material enabling students to learn, grow and think critically. Prime throttler of progress is book banning.
Prominent among banished books is the Pulitzer Prize winning “The 1619 Project.” Assembled by lead essayist, Waterloo native Nicole Hannah-Jones, it is a critical review of traditionally revered figures and events in American history. It proposes that America’s startup dates not from European explorers’ early 1500s arrival but from 1619, when the first slave ship unloaded its tortured cargo in the colony of Virginia. From there it shows the enduring centrality of racism and slavery to our history.
President-elect Trump wants that book gone, nationwide. In 2019, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told him “The 1619 Project” couldn’t be banished because the federal government has no education curriculum.
Such obstacles could fall with newly empowered Trump’s vow that “the woke stuff will be gone.” Project 2025 proposes banning of African American and gender studies at all levels of education. It also would ax the Education Department.
BLT attacks threaten school librarians in Iowa but also public librarians in other states such as Missouri and Idaho. This year, the Idaho Legislature criminalized librarians who allow LGBTQ+ books to remain on shelves.
Joining librarians among the newly disrespected are teachers in history and social studies. And, perhaps, science teachers if instructions in climate change are outlawed in tribute to Trump.
What a letdown for Iowa public schools, once considered among tops in the nation. Years ago, Iowa legislators valued creative teachers. That was so 20th century. In their eight years of domination, Republican legislators have forsaken conservatives’ traditional emphasis on local control and fallen in line with national GOP strategy: strong-arming school boards, threatening teachers who don’t toe the line and intimidating LGBTQ+ kids.
The denigration and devaluing of Iowa teachers has led to a discernible exodus of young talent.
It falls to voters to reverse the trend. So far, no changes in sight. Meantime, by narrowing kids’ horizons — limiting their free access to empowering information — Iowa is eating its own seed corn.
Such improbable casualties are engulfed in the hush-up of CRT, DEI and BLT. All amid a Wizard of Oz things-to-fear singsong, “Books and librarians and teachers! Oh, my!”
Retired Gazette editor-writer Jerry Elsea served 10 years on the Cedar Rapids Library Board of Trustees, eight years as president. In retirement he was a 14-year reading tutor for challenged first-graders at Cedar River Academy at Taylor.
