Toward a nation of freethinking people

Most thoughtful citizens would agree with Scott Paulo (letters, April 21) that we don’t want our children subjected to a “whitewashing” of the less flattering aspects of American history. We want our schools to continue discussing, as they have in recent decades, past injustices and current inequities along with the important notion that it is the values put forth by our founders that have been and will continue to be crucial to continued progress.

What many of us, including a growing legion of Black scholars (and left-leaning commentators like Bill Maher) are concerned about is the introduction in to our schools of rigid and illiberal orthodoxies designed not to illuminate American History but to distort it for ideological purposes. I hope that Scott agrees with me that we want our children to become open-minded and free thinkers — not indoctrinated foot soldiers trained to implement a particular political agenda.

My fellow Democrats would be wise to look beyond the very popular but highly biased “books in common” that have flooded our Chico bookstores and libraries in recent years, and seek out important counterviews for serious investigation. Black liberal John McWhorter’s “Woke Racism” is a great place to start. Future political relevance could depend on this.

As for schools, a group of prominent African-American thinkers and writers has assembled some excellent curricula that don’t sugarcoat anything, but do keep the emphasis on achievement and positive progress toward the integrated and egalitarian society we all want. For more about this, go to 1776unites.com.

— Carl Ochsner, Chico