My High School’s Unchecked Racism Left Me with a Distorted View of Activism
Students fail to understand privilege and fight injustice when racism is a part of the curriculum.
How many AP Government teachers start their first day of school by showing their classes Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” music video then stating that the video explains their own political ideology? Well at least one… mine.
Growing up in a town with a population of just under 13,000 that is approximately 97.4% white, all of the teachers I had in my K-12 public education (with one exception- a teacher brought in halfway through my freshman year who left the next year) were white, as were the vast majority of my classmates. Kids would joke that you could count the number of black kids at our school on one hand- and frankly, they were right. This homogeneous environment often lent itself to a space in which social injustices were left unchallenged, if even mentioned at all, and where prejudices were able to thrive.
My AP Government teacher would usually start lessons innocently enough, explaining concepts such as government budgeting, then the rants would begin. We checked the national debt calculator once a week, and our teacher would read us lists of “stupid” things the government funded using taxpayer money. While these moments initially just felt odd, they quickly began to reveal deeper biases our teacher held.
Two moments of such prejudices stand out in my mind: once, when reading one of the aforementioned lists of government projects, my teacher mentioned a soccer field being installed in a federal prison complex, then talked at length about how inmates should be punished, not given luxuries like soccer fields. Another time, when talking about voter registration and the challenges that accompany getting people to the polls, my teacher went on a tirade about how democrats would use tactics such as bribing homeless people to vote (I believe the phrasing he used was along the lines of “promise them a Happy Meal then bus them to the polls”) in order to inflate democratic numbers. Other recurring, problematic themes included depictions of welfare queens and mentions of his “black friend” who told him that black people could not be racist, followed by an all lives matter-esque rant about how this was not true.
Prior to taking this class, I had not put much thought into my political affiliation besides ascribing to my parents’ views, which were a sharp contrast to those of my teacher. However, the racism and twisted truths I heard in class began to weigh on me; I had the background knowledge and curiosity to recognize that my teacher often presented his opinions as facts, leaving no room for discussion or opposition. I know that not all of my classmates had this same realization. My view of the class shifted from mild amusement to dread. As a high school student, the natural power imbalance between student and instructor assumes that the teacher is always right, and I knew that questioning our teacher would come across as disrespectful, which was not worth the risk of losing good favor with the teacher. Ultimately, I felt powerless to correct the swayed narrative that we were being taught.
Funnily enough, AP Government was also my first experience finding community in disagreement. There were about five of us in the class that quietly concurred that our teacher was blatantly prioritizing his agenda rather than teaching the curriculum, though our own political views varied. We sat in a cluster on one side of the aisle, sneaking glances at one another when our teacher would make a particularly problematic comment or spit out a “fact” that seemed far too hyperbolic to be true and having post-class conversations where we would break down the most egregious parts of the day’s lecture. I felt a shift in my own political interest- I began to pay more attention to current events, knowing that they could be presented in a completely different light in the classroom the next day. If I was not comfortable questioning our teacher directly, then I needed to find answers and truths on my own.
I often wonder if growing up in a more diverse community and school system would have impacted the way I was taught- if my teacher would have been less comfortable openly discussing racially-tinged stereotypes if he was surrounded by the very people he generalized. I regret not speaking up when he would say something problematic, as there was no one in the class to advocate for the people his prejudices dismissed and insulted. My town’s social norms created a comfortable place to rest in one’s own privilege, and I took advantage of it. In the years following high school, I realized that silence in the face of injustice makes me a contributor to the same system I observed senior year in AP Gov. I also occasionally wonder about the classes of students that continue to absorb the politically-tinged beliefs of teachers and assume them as factual, especially when these lessons echo the beliefs of their own families.
As the stories of George Floyd, Christian Cooper, and Ahmaud Arbery are gaining national attention, I am reminded of my high school’s own anti-blackness. I think about when a white classmate read the n-word over and over again and while reading Adventures of Huckleberry Finn my junior year and the teacher made no effort to stop them. Last year, I returned home for a high school football game and saw that the team ran out with a “Blue Lives Matter” flag. The current school dress code prohibits both dreadlocks and cornrows.
As long as white people ignore and exclude black narratives from our own perception of current issues, we will not aid in racial reconciliation; we will continue to work against it. My experience in a largely white high school left me comfortable with limiting my role in racial injustice to sitting back as an ultimately silent, albeit uncomfortable, observer. At the time, I thought my friends and I were making a change by simply questioning and our government teacher. I think that this erroneous sentiment persists largely in communities like mine. White privilege is the opportunity to choose your own adventure and level of involvement in your response to violence against African Americans. I have begun listening to black voices before responding to injustice, voices that I did not hear in school and did not seek out on my own at the time, learning how to use white privilege to amplify, not dampen, the voices of those who have suffered racism firsthand. My work in the area is not done- I had room to grow in high school, and I have room to grow now. If a black narrative was absent in my education, it surely deserves a place front and center in my current spheres of influence. My government teacher likely holds the same views as he did in 2016 and may still pepper his lectures with covert racism. As long as the narratives of white educators are allowed to drown out black experiences, students will grow up like me, misunderstanding the need for activism, and ultimately, the need for change.
Author’s note: All events described are recollections from my high school experience (2014–2017). I have made an effort to portray these events accurately in good faith. My goal in these descriptions is to bring light to how covert racism in the classroom affected my own perception of social justice.
