Lying To Make Friends

I’m going to pick up on my co-author’s theme of life faintly imitating science fiction. Imagine the following scenario. The president of the United States is a black man. A Latina is about to be confirmed to the Supreme Court. Changing demographics indicate the country is only going to get more diverse and more progressive.

What’s a concerned conservative white Christian to do? One option would be to send a cyborg back in time to eliminate the heroes that paved the way for minority advancement and progressive change in this country. Unfortunately for white dudes, cyborgs and time travel have not yet been invented. But the “panel of experts” reviewing curriculum for the Texas Board of Education have discovered the next best thing: pretend they didn’t exist! Three of the experts have suggested removing Caesar Chavez for the state’s social studies curriculum because he is not a fitting role model for students due to his ties to Saul Alinsky. (If the Texas School Board wants to go all the way with the “Let’s close our eyes and pretend this is all just a bad dream” campaign, President Obama could be eliminated from the curriculum for the same reason.) And while I would certainly disagree with the conclusion that Chavez is not a good role model, in either case it seems like a rather odd standard for whether or not school children should learn about the man. As for Thurgood Marshall, on this one it’s hard to disagree with the experts: I don’t see how anyone could think that the man who argued perhaps the most famous and important Supreme Court decision of all-time and became the first African-American justice on the Supreme Court is an example of “a historical figure of influence.”

-AR