As a boy in Florida, I spent many afternoons watching cartoons. The Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna are inextricably part of that childhood. Intermingled with episodes of Super Friends, the networks bombarded us with public service announcements. One cartoon character that resembled a meatball with legs asserted that, “You have to eat some kind of breakfast every day.”
Another such commercial instructed children on how to cross the street, “Look left, then right… then left again.” I remember the video as the camera took the point of view of the pedestrian. It scanned left, right and left again to demonstrate the point. I imagine that the producer of that video would be proud that it has committed to my memory.
We can collectively agree that not all motorists look for pedestrians on every instance. On one afternoon, I ran late to an appointment; I inadvertently rushed and turned through a green light as I nearly clipped a pedestrian. I’m generally a careful driver, though not perfect. We want our children to watch for motorists who do not pay attention to pedestrians. This makes sense.
We take this warning at face value
There’s little angst about issuing this warning, we want ourselves and our loved ones to be safe. Navigating life becomes amassing a collection of instructions on how to operate under different conditions to the extent that we don’t think about some anymore. For instance, we instinctively drive on the right side of the road in the US; that requires us to make adjustments when we travel abroad. This surprises no one.
However, this danger is dissimilar to others that we may encounter. We can warn about walking over icy sidewalks or driving through puddles, but those are natural phenomenon. It doesn’t matter what everyone else does, icy sidewalks will still occur. Similarly, rain will cause water to accumulate into puddles. However, this specific danger to pedestrians (lackadaisical motorists) is one that relies entirely on human behavior. Think about it, we would not need to advise pedestrians to explicitly, carefully watch for traffic if all motorists operated their vehicles appropriately.
We do not vilify motorists
While we agree that we should educate our children, as pedestrians, to watch for traffic, we don’t vilify motorists. Our streets are not a modern-day version of Death Race 2000, where drivers purposefully kill people for points. None of us believe that motorists want to run over pedestrians, nor do we believe that we’re the human version of the 1980’s video game of Frogger. The streets are generally safe; we manage the exceptions.
We understand that while some motorists are reckless, most motorists are not a threat to your life. The vast majority of drivers are not intent to harm you. If a car nearly clips you as you’re crossing the street, you’ll curse that particular driver. You won’t curse all drivers in general.
We don’t look upon anyone’s driver’s license as James Bond’s license to kill.
We do not think of ourselves as victims
There’s no debate that upon a collision between a vehicle and human, the human will sustain most of the damage. Most of the power rests with the driver. If you’re the pedestrian, the best chance of survival is simply to avoid the collision. However, we arm ourselves with information. We are not powerless; in fact, we are empowered.
When we walk the streets, we do not think of ourselves as victims. We do not imagine what we’re walking with a target on our backs. For years, I walked the streets of Seattle with a marine horn. If a car dared to wonder onto the crosswalk, I’d blast it and scare the daylights out of them.
We can extrapolate
We walk and drive each day. First, we instruct our children to navigate the traffic cautiously to maximize safety; we learn to trust them to navigate the streets on their own. Second, we teach new drivers to operate their cars responsibly, not only to watch out for other vehicles, but also to be mindful of pedestrians. Finally, we accomplish both of these without causing either pedestrians or drivers any undue distress. If we can successfully teach these lessons without fracturing their egos, why do we conclude that teaching American history accurately will irreparably harm our children?
We understand that some drivers are irresponsible, but that the vast majority of drivers are perfectly fine. Similarly, we understand that many Southern farmers owned slaves before the Civil War, but that many generations ago. It has no bearing on who white people are today. No one believes that you would implicitly endorse slavery, Japanese internment camps, the Chinese Exclusion Act, or American Indian boarding schools… not simply based on the pigmentation of your skin. Yes, we understand that some people are racists, homophobes, bigots and misogynists, but no one assumes that anyone from a particular demographic is implicitly that way.
What about ‘teaching your kids to be victims’?
I loved and admired my parents. They taught me a great deal of lessons that I carry with me every day; I’ll proudly boast that I’m a product of who they were. That said, no one is perfect. What is the one criticism I had about my parents? They never mentioned that I may be the target of racism. Not once did they say, “Some people may pick on you simply because you’re Chinese. There’s nothing wrong with you; there’s something wrong with them.”
We can collectively agree that racism sucks. However, do we really believe that teaching about slavery, the Civil War, Rosa Parks, or even Jackie Robinson is going to fracture our kids’ egos? Do we honestly believe that it’s going to paint a picture in their mind that they’re victims? Why has talking about the color barrier in baseball become that taboo?
I’ll let you in on a little secret from personal experience. These racist kids from my childhood would have bullied me whether I was anticipating it or not; we haven’t eliminated racism. These are our only choices:
- Children encounter racism, and they do not understand what occurred. They wonder what they did wrong and why people are targeting them. In that ambiguity, they wonder what they did wrong, and their self-esteem takes a beating.
- Children encounter racism, and they understand what occurred. They know that in some ways the world sucks. They know that it ultimately has little to do with what they did, and that some people simply do not like who they are.
Racism exists, there is no third option. Your kids will eventually need to wander out into the real world; you won’t be able to shelter them indefinitely. Between the two choices, #2 sucks less.
Let’s teach all history, including the warts
I learned about Mao Zedong in school. Subsequently, I watched the events on Tiananmen Square when they occurred. Being of Chinese descent, was I overcome with guilt from that history or those events? No, because I didn’t do them. That is a China with which I do not identify.
Are we to believe that our white children will endure emotional turmoil from learning about slavery, the Chinese Exclusion Act, or the Tulsa Race Massacre? If it didn’t happen to me, why would it happen to them? I fail to see how their pigmentation will overwhelm them with guilt.
However, if your kids proudly fly a Confederate Flag on their car, or perhaps worse, got it as a tattoo. Then understanding how it’s seen as a symbol of hate is appropriate. Teaching history will help disambiguate that, not obscure it.
Much like the “Look left-right-left” instructions were so useful in my youth, understanding history not only teaches us how we got here, but also where we’re going.