I grew up in the 1980s in Texas, attended really good public schools. I learned about "great civilizations" like Greece/Rome. I memorized the founders but knew nothing about them. I never learned about slavery, Jim Crow, or the civil rights movement.

2. It was a complete & total white supremacy education. My teachers were caring educators, some of them were downright brilliant, dedicated public servants. But they had the curriculum, they were handed the textbooks, and they did their jobs.

3. At one point (must have been 1986) we spent weeks in school learning songs to mark the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty. It was a BIG deal, and they marched us kids up there to sing patriotic tunes and read letters from immigrants. https://www.nytimes.com/1986/07/05/nyregion/liberty-weekend-the-festival-all-american-concert-from-pop-to-patriotism.html

4. What I remember most is being taught--in school and out of school--that the number one threat to America was communism. Every lesson we learned led, one way or another, to the blessings of modern technology and freedom, and we are not Communists by God.

5. In high school I was taught that the dastardly Commies had taken the civil rights movement in America as a moment to try and tarnish our great history! Commies will try and trick you.

6. And yes the Lost Causee-it should go without saying that we learned more about Robert E. Lee than we did about Grant or Sherman or Frederick Douglass (whom I'd never heard of until college). And slavery? We learned it was a benign system and not the cause of the Civil War.

7. People everything I'm saying here: this was not the 1880s or the 1950s. It was the 1980s, in well-funded public schools, in an upwardly mobile suburb, w/dedicated teachers, attentive parents, & college-bound kids. Good people with good intentions can still parrot lies.

8. I spent the years 1991 to this morning trying to unlearn those things, without throwing away the truth that those adults (most of them) loved us. Cared for us. Wanted us to make the country better when we grew up.

9. Guess what? They were indoctrinated too, to believe that learning the violent truths of American history meant you were unpatriotic, a Communist, a "hate America first liberal."

10. But rather than learn how to do the research, teach antiracism, include Black voices as central and indispensable to the work, and address the legacies of injustice--they (we) decided it was easier just to sing the patriotic tunes and keep our eyes on the future.

Well . . . that future has arrived. Let's get to work. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/17/us/politics/trump-patriotic-education.html