Don’t ignore history

As a retired teacher and after reading Beth BeggottTurnage’s letter responding to Chris Powell’s column on teaching “critical race theory” to our school children, I wondered how I had missed it. Consequently, I researched it and read it.

First and foremost, it is not being taught in public schools as such. It is just an explanatory theory, which encompasses our history and thus permeated our society since time began. It tends to enlighten our world about past and current prejudices and segregation that existed in the past and still today wherever it exists, for example in jobs, housing, entertainment and even in some schools.

Consequently, we must recognize race-based actions and attitudes, confront them, and eradicate them wherever they appear, and as far as we can.

As I see it, no better way can we abolish the continuation of our slavery history and white supremacy than in our school systems. That is where our future lies in those who are schoolchildren. They will inherit the present and guarantee the future of the United States and the rest of our world.

Finally, “critical race theory” is not our enemy. It is only an introduction to what faces us in the future if we tend to ignore its explanations of the past and its implications for the future.

As it has been said, “He who ignores the past is doomed to repeat it.” Much of our American history has been ignored and worse is yet to come if we do not wake up and resolve ourselves to do something that is all positive, legal and enforceable.

Peter J. George Bridgeport