By Jack Bernard, contributing columnist
PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. | After much controversy, the teaching of African American history has been found to be permissible under Georgia law. I believe these courses should be mandatory for Gwinnett County (and all Georgia) high school students.
Many well-meaning and normally fair Gwinnett County citizens think that they are not racist when they are. If you heard your parents talk about an African American with such terms as “One of the good ones,” then children believe that all the rest are the “bad ones.” When this biased attitude is reinforced by your social groups (“They are all lazy”), the child grows up with a negative, skewed point of view.
In the ‘70s, I worked with a retired colonel who stated there was no need for affirmative action (sound familiar?). The Civil Rights Act was passed in the 60’s and everyone was now on equal footing and should simply compete.
Recently, I had a disturbing conversation with another vet … a sincere, caring and bright person … who took the same anti-DEI position. Per him, “We do not need affirmative action. Blacks can just work harder.”
Both of these people were brought up in Georgia public schools. Both had a simplistic view, ignored history, making it easier for them to justify their own bigotry and deny being racist. There are others just like many in the anti-DEI movement.
Analogies are often the best way to achieve understanding. The analogy I use is that of a foot race.
If one runner has his feet tied together for the first half of the race, one cannot expect him/her to be competitive. That is the situation regarding African Americans. Even if we accept the totally incorrect assumption that African Americans were suddenly treated equally after the 1964 passage of the Civil Rights Act (they were and are not), they still had an uphill climb just to catch up.
Under slavery and afterwards, African Americans faced nearly insurmountable odds. They had no assets or inherited wealth. They never got the 40 acres and a mule the government promised.
They were strongly discouraged from getting an education. In the ‘70s I saw young black children picking cotton in Woodville, Miss instead of being in school.
Segregated schools that they attended prior to the ‘70s were grossly substandard. Blacks could not get employment in many jobs even when they were qualified.
For example, in the ‘70s when I was an industrial management engineer, I was consulting in a North Carolina mill with profitability issues. The manager of one area indicated to me that one line worker was better than the rest. He was black, as were all the line workers. I suggested he be considered for an opening as supervisor.
The manager told me that he could not promote him because he needed someone who the other workers would respect. He said that black line workers would never accept a black supervisor. Historically, this situation happened time and again over the decades. The real problem here is that the white manager’s racial background and understanding was keeping him from recognizing the benefit of having a black supervisor.
There is just no easy answer to the riddle of how to eliminate racism, a long-standing American dilemma. But to some extent racism does result from white children not knowing true black history.
That is why I am advocating that an accurate black history course be mandatory in all Georgia high schools. It is a small step, the way all long journeys start.
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