About that "when facts don't fit the narrative" thingy

Alabama's segregationist Governor George Wallace blocking the entrance to the University of Alabama to prevent two black students enrolling at the University of Alabama, 11 June 1963. Photograph: AP

 

Sigh.  So not only is today the 50 anniversary of the assassination of Medgar Evers it is also the 50th anniversary of the former Alabama Governor George C. Wallace's famous stand in the school house door  preventing Vivian Malone Jones and James Hood from enrolling in the University of Alabama. 

So what is the media driven narrative of the day......White Americans are the good guys of history.

The truth is, like everyone else, White Americans are a mix of good and evil.
That said, they are nowhere nearly as good as they imagine. That for several reasons:

1. American exceptionalism. They see themselves as being above history, the shining city on the hill, a light to all the world, what the whole world wants to be like. God is on their side. This goes back to the Puritans. They thought God was on their side too – as they burned peaceful Pequot Indians alive. Little has changed.
2. Moral blindness. To maintain their self-image as Basically Good they do not face up to the evil they do – which makes them yet more evil.
3. They write the history books - as winners do. But, as if basking in their own whitewashed mythology was not good enough, they also believe in the Teflon Theory of History:  that anything bad that took place over 30 years ago is Ancient History – it has Absolutely No Effect on the present.
4. They control the world’s biggest media machine – meaning they live in a land filled with their own self-serving lies and point of view.

Case in point, a quick Google Search regarding the Anniversary will take you A daughter's Struggle to Overcome A Legacy of Segregation: NPR and A view from the football office:  Assistant Coach remembers Stand in the Schoolhouse Door.  It's more about whites than blacks.  But that's to expected from the Alabama press.

On another note, I can't figure out how blacks can forgive and forget former Governor George Wallace's real sins,  yet some white American's (not to be confused with all) can't forgive Joe Reed for standing up and fighting for equal, civil and human rights and standing up for public education, and public school educators?

SMH

What black folks still live with continued

It is a brazen, right wing, media enabled, LIE most black students don't want to learn. It is a historical FACT blacks were prohibited from learning.

The most oppressive limits on slave education were a reaction to Nat Turner's Revolt in Southampton County, Virginia during the summer of 1831. This event not only caused shock waves across the slaveholding South, but it had a particularly far-reaching impact on education over the next three decades. The fears of slave insurrections and the spread of abolitionist materials and ideology led to radical restrictions on gatherings, travel, and—of course—literacy. The ignorance of the slaves was considered necessary to the security of the slaveholders (Albanese 1976). Not only did owners fear the spread of specifically abolitionist materials, they did not want slaves to question their lot; thus, reading and reflection were to be prevented at any cost.

African Americans recognize the power and the importance of education hence the formation of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, which to this day are full of black student who not only want to learn, but are learning.

HBCUs actually were "invented" in 1837, 26 years before the end of slavery. Richard Humphreys, a Quaker philanthropist, founded the Institute for Colored Youth to train free blacks to become teachers.

The school had moved from Philadelphia to Cheyney, where it eventually became Cheyney University, and by 1902 at least 85 schools were set up by white philanthropists, free blacks, states or churches to educate sons and daughters of former slaves.

Until 1954 and the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education, which ended "separate but equal" school systems, HBCUs were the number 1 option for most blacks interested in attending college.

The Brown v Topeka Board of Education decision gave us Ruby Bridges and the Little Rock Nine. Brave, black students who volunteered to integrate the public school system.

Let us not forget what Vivian Malone Jones lived through when she integrated The University of Alabama despite then Governor George C. Wallaces' infamous stand in the school house door.

Fast forward to 2011 when an Arkansas school district won't allow a black valedictorian

After four years of nearly straight-As, Honors and Advanced Placement classes, 18-year-old Kymberly Wimberly achieved the highest GPA at McGehee Secondary School southeast of Little Rock, Ark., according to a court complaint.

However, instead of awarding the student for her hard work and dedication, the school denied her the valedictorian status because she was black, claims the document filed by Wimberly's lawyer, John W. Walker.

According to the court document, this is not the first time this has happened in the school's history:

"[The] defendant's actions were part of a pattern and practice of school administrators and personnel treating the African-American students less favorably than the Caucasian ones...Until Wimberly, the last African-American valedictorian in the McGeeHee school district was in 1989."

This is proof they are still standing in the school house door.