Students touch on race during roundtable
Session with Murphy reveals insights about US history being taught
For some Middletown High School students, the debate over critical race theory that has engulfed communities in Connecticut and across the nation misses a much deeper issue: that the American history they learn is often taught through a white lens and neglects the lives of marginalized groups.
“I believe that throughout my entire life, education and American history has been made for white people and to make white people feel comfortable, when in reality, if you really look at American history, I think it’s reasonable to say that nobody should really feel comfortable hearing the stories of actual American history,” Ved Gautam, 17, a Middletown senior, said during a roundtable discussion with Sen.
Chris Murphy on Wednesday about how race is taught in schools.
Pilar Brooks, 15, a junior, said she believes that some white people “hide so hard behind [critical race theory] and don’t want it taught” because the concept threatens their sense of identity and power.
“Because then the truth comes out and people get angry, and people want to change,” she told a group of about 20 students, teachers, administrators and politicians assembled in the school cafeteria.
Critical race theory, a framework developed by legal scholars in the 1970s, hinges on the notion that racism is systemic — not simply perpetuated by individuals — and is intertwined in institutions of law and governance. The concept has become a target of protests on the American right, as some Connecticut parents accuse schools boards, often without evidence, that it has infiltrated middle and high school classrooms.
Murphy argued that the “backlash” to critical race theory that has emerged in some communities this year is less about the specific legal framework than it is a reflection of the “discomfort that many Americans have to talking about race at all.”
A member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Murphy said he anticipates bills arriving in Congress this year dealing with the issue of how race is discussed in American schools. He emphasized in Middletown
that he wanted to gather student perspectives that would inform his work in Washington.
“Our job as educators is to make sure that all of you have an accurate picture of what America is today and the history of this country, and that involves talking about race,” Murphy said.
A number of students shared that they often encounter gaping holes in their history curricula and do not see themselves reflected in the material.
Florimar Casarez, 17, a senior, said that she feels that the Middletown school system teaches its students American history through the lens of white people.
“As a Latina, I don’t feel that I get taught my history,” she said. She emphasized that being taught by primarily white teachers means that “they’re not me and I don’t see myself in them.”
“The history that I’ve learned all my life never made sense,” Pilar Brooks offered, noting her history courses have only included scattered references to America’s indigenous communities, and the information that is included is presented through “the lens of Europeans who came here.”
She added, “We learned the slightest bit about slavery, but no one teaches anything about what happens before.”
Liz Mancini, a teacher and chair of the social studies department, said that Middletown schools do not teach critical race theory, but that teaching American history with the lens of race is a crucial part of students’ education.
“We want kids to walk away with an accurate, truthful understanding of this country, because it’s only then that you can understand who we are as a nation,” she said.
Mancini said that when teachers discuss The New Deal, it’s critical for them to make students aware of the fact that the U.S. Social Security Administration specifically blocked farm workers and domestic workers, who were primarily Black, from receiving those benefits.
“We’re teaching a fuller picture. We’re not demonizing, we’re not trying to make people feel guilty. We certainly don’t want kids to walk away feeling badly about themselves because that’s not productive,” she said. “... But we have to understand the policies and practices that are embedded in this country’s history because without that, you don’t understand where we are right now.”
But some at the roundtable said that there should be no reason to fear centering critical race theory in their classrooms.
“There’s no reason why in an A.P. U.S. History class we shouldn’t be talking about the legal construction of race,” Diana Martinez, a co-facilitator of the Middletown Racial Justice Coalition, said, offering examples of U.S. Supreme Court cases in which American residents had to petition the government to be considered white in order to receive privileges and benefits.
Gautam agreed: “I believe that it’s impossible to teach American history accurately without critical race theory.”