Skip to main content

Live and Learn


 

Starting on Monday I have seen on social media quite the outburst of anger as well as smug attempts to excuse ignorance pertaining to Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Yes, even right here in Howard County.

Ignorance: when you don’t know and you don’t care. (A Mom definition.)

In looking over my post from last year’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day I came across a video shared by the Howard County Office of Human Rights and Equity. It’s three minutes long and it puts the focus right where it should be:

Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Ignorance and a fierce determination to defend it are not something to be proud of. Caring enough to learn the truth and come to terms with it are what we should be striving for. 

Here is what the Indigenous Peoples’ Day deniers seem to have missed: it is absolutely possible to love this land, to love our democracy, and at the same time believe we are made stronger by learning the truth about our history and by choosing ways to do better. 

It isn’t weakness. It’s strength. 

Rigidity leads to brittleness. Things that are brittle are more likely to break. Take trees, for example. The ones that have even a small capability to bend are the ones that can withstand heavy storms. We each have a choice: to remain rigid in the face of uncomfortable truths, or to have the flexibility to learn from them. 

I am beginning to be convinced that the future of our nation is threatened to its core by those who demand the former and spurn the latter.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...
1 comment
Read more

F ³: We Are Not Entitled

  A college student went missing. His family and friends were distraught. The community was encouraged to be on the lookout and spread the word.  Days passed.  They must have been agonizing days for those who cared about the missing student. Thoughts that foul play had been involved cannot have been far from their thoughts.  Then, at last, the student was found. Alive. The news was shared with the public.  So. Much. Relief. A family had been reunited with their child. Even though we know that life is complicated, I think it is okay to accept this as a happy ending and leave it at that.  But the world of social media says no. For every expression of joy at the news came questions and even judgement. It became clear to me that some folks felt entitled to an explanation. They wanted the backstory. It’s as though they felt that, by enlisting the help of the public on social media, the authorities now owed them all the details. Television dramas often weave curr...
2 comments
Read more

Separate and Unequal

  Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in  broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not.  It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...
1 comment
Read more