Blog Post #4: The United States' Public Schools' Implementation of "White" African American History in School

I was stunned last week in class, when someone said “We live in a whitewashed society.” After that
was said, I’ve been thinking to myself “How is the United States whitewashed?” “This makes sense,
because historically, the white race has been the most privileged, what are some of the ways that the
United States is still whitewashed?”

This took me back to my EDUC 310 course last semester, where the content was about promoting
diversity in American education. On the first day of class, my professor went over events in history
we studied in school, and told us that we did not learn in school what actually happened. For example,
we were going over Rosa Parks and the bus incident in 1955. My professor told us that Parks was not
the first African American woman to refuse giving up her spot on the bus. Actually, there were other
women who had done the same act as Rosa Parks, she got more attention for her refusal of getting up
from her seat on the bus. When I was in school, this was represented more in a dramatic story, instead
of the realistic depictions of the incidences.

Something that was whitewashed in my education was learning about the Civil Rights Movement of
1964. Generally, most of my teachers would cover Martin Luther King’s contributions, but glossed over
the other individuals who had worked on this movement. Every year, Martin Luther King would be
discussed somehow, and we would read books and watch movies on him. He has been glorified in the
United States public education systems, because of his boldness to lead protests and give influential
speeches. In reality, Martin Luther King was only a part of the Civil Rights Movement. There were other
black and white individuals who spoke up and protested about the weaknesses of segregation, and
without their works, public places would be less likely to be integrated.

Another reality that I have faced in the last few years is the prevalence of racism in the United States
today. When I was in school, I learned that blacks were allowed to use the same facilities as whites, and
that they are equal. However, blacks are not treated equally to whites still. The United States was built
on principles created by educated white men, which means that they take in their interests, and this
does not mean that it takes in the interests of people who are different from them. Historically and today,
most people prefer to be around people from their own racial group, even though all public facilities
have been integrated.