A Little Knowledge, Part Three – Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire

February 24, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

“My client wasn’t even IN the bar the evening of the murder, and if he WAS there, he doesn’t even OWN a gun! If he DOES own a gun, he didn’t have it with him that evening, and if he DID have it with him, it wasn’t loaded – he’s not CRAZY! Even if it WERE loaded, he didn’t use it – why would he? He didn’t even KNOW the victim. If he DID know the victim, he liked him, and if he didn’t like him, he at least didn’t kill him. But if he DID kill him, it was self-defense. And if it wasn’t self-defense, he still had a very good reason. Otherwise, he’s crazy and can’t be held accountable. Come on, he was carrying around a loaded gun – who DOES that?!
I’ve told you that one way or the other he’s innocent – why do you doubt me? That’s so hurtful!”

It is difficult for those of you with the slightest shred of decency to appreciate how the law and politics work. They do not operate according to anything most of us consider reasonable, moral, or even explicable. In the past they didn’t have to (and in some systems today they still don’t). Those affected had little expectation of being fully informed and no real control of the outcome.

In modern America, politics still doesn’t have to make sense, but for different reasons. Most of us are too busy to try to keep up and sort it all out, or too quick to follow anyone confirming what we wish confirmed or feigning outrage over whatever we find outrageous. Or maybe we’re just too stupid and easily distracted.

Not criticizing here – just keeping an open mind about possible explanations.

It’s amazing to me how easily we roll our eyes or exclamate our declamations over things done in the past – successfully, for centuries – and yet find it inconceivable the same things may be happening today, because… well, that’s CRAZY!

What, exactly, is it you think has changed about either mankind or the nature of power? Please – I’ll wait.

…

Hello?

The South attempted to secede and lost. The war destroyed lives and property on both sides, but the South had the worst of it by far. Reconstruction began, things got weird again.

And then the South began writing the history of the war and the events which led to it. The war they’d lost. The one fought over a variety of issues, but in which slavery and its continuation were central and essential as defined by the South in the very documents they issued to justify their cause.

Only suddenly the war hadn’t been about slavery at all. In fact, the South was collectively rather wounded at the suggestion! Slavery?! You think – you think this was about SLAVERY?

No less an authority than Jefferson Davis began cranking out volumes on the REAL story of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. Others picked up the theme, and before long their United Daughters (still active today) were tea and cookie-ing this theme across the land.

Historians still argue about the war (they’re allowed to do that still, outside of Oklahoma and Texas) – that’s fine, it’s what they’re supposed to do.

What’s less tolerable is the fervent hurt and chagrin evidenced by the South’s defenders at the very suggestion that secession had ANYTHING to do with slavery. It’s not that they wish to lay out a reasoned argument, you understand – it’s that they’ve reshaped history and historiography solely through repetition and strong emotion.

“To suggest secession was about SUH-LAVERY, well it it it’s it’s just… *sniff* DISHONEST!”

The rest of the nation has cooperated, by the way – we don’t like acknowledging our role in making chattel of humans with souls any more than they do. Better to focus on tariffs and elections and economies and cultures – all persuasive alternatives, since all were involved.

The best deceptions are mostly true, after all – or true but for omissions. That’s how laws are made and history written – so be it.

Why does it matter if the South wishes to save a little face? What’s so wrong with simply focusing on the good parts in our collective history? I mean, the naysayers won their little war and got their way, didn’t they?

Can we at least keep the damn flag without everyone having a hurt-feelings-fit every time?

My favorite hockey team captain after a tough loss and horrible officiating: “There were some tough calls, but the real problem is that we didn’t take care of business in our own end. We let too many pucks get past us and didn’t take advantage of our opportunities.”

I hated the poor play, and the poor officiating even more – but my decisive and lingering memory is how much I love the class of my team.

Also, he’s pretty.

More importantly, the team is able to go into practice the next day aware of the things they CAN control, and which led to problems. By acknowledging what they did wrong, instead of merely casting blame, they can improve – or at least that’s the goal.

You may remember the contrast between how Kanye and Beyonce handled this situation:

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The lingering perception is that Kanye is a nut, Beyoncé is a class act, and that apparently Taylor Swift is a country artist (as she mentioned in the full version of her pre-interrupted speech). Reality may differ, but what we remember is what shapes events going forward.

It matters what happened and how it’s remembered because we can’t learn from mistakes we don’t think we made. Left uncriticized, Kanye is just a fighter for justice and Swift a bewildered blonde. Without her subsequent efforts to make things right, Beyoncé could just as easily seem a sore loser, despite winning bigger better things that same night.

If the war was about slavery, and slavery is evil, and the South lost, then the reasonable thing to do is to start trying to repair some of the damage done by slavery. If the war was about a race-based chattel system, then we have some serious introspection to do about ourselves as a people and the extent to which we’ve failed to live up to our own ideals.

Of course, if the real issues were states’ rights-ish, that’s not as bad. Federalism is about balance, after all, and if perhaps the South got out of balance, that’s clearly rectified now. If anything, the central government is much stronger than originally intended as a result!

We can spend some time trying to Reconstruct the South and push for some reforms, but at some point we’re going to need to get back to being a country again. We’ve made our point – let’s let them rebuild and trust whatever gradual progress can be made in terms of race and society.

If the war was about slavery, then both Lincoln and John Brown were right – we’ve paid for our national sin with national bloodshed. Time for a new birth of freedom.

If the war was about different understandings of the Constitution, then might makes right and we won by decimating our enemies by any means necessary. Next time the meaning of our founding documents may swing back a bit the other direction.

If the war was about slavery, then Black America may well need time and support to recover from a sort of collective PTSD. There would be imbalances to correct and scars which may never be quite healed. If we’re willing to go to war with ourselves to keep an entire race of people in degradation and servitude, what must we confess and how might we repent to set a better future course?

If 620,000 men died over tariffs or electoral procedures, then our nation is charted by whichever political and popular mechanizations produce the desired result. If the war was about anything other than slavery, maybe Black people need to just get over it and be less, you know… ‘Black’ about everything.

If our ideals are as flawless and their realizations as consistent throughout our history as current legislation insists, then inequity and suffering are primarily a result of personal or cultural failures. If America is ‘exceptional’ in the way they demand we acknowledge, whatever failures have occurred within it are individual and not national. Potential solutions or cures must, logically, come from the same.

We can’t repent of sins we can’t confess, or repair that we are unable to see as broken. This applies across any number of historical and national issues. If we build our actions and beliefs on a foundation of national amazing-ness, the ramifications are much, much larger than which textbooks we adapt or which tests we take to graduate. Conversely, if we believe the human heart – even the American heart – is desperately wicked, and deceitful above all things… who can know it? Well, that leads to humility and grace as we push forward, aware of what we are capable, for good or ill.

I’ll close with a little Bible talkin’, since that seems to be such a motivator for those pushing a better whitewashing for our lil’uns. Whatever we may disagree on, I wholeheartedly concur that we’ve lost much in our upbringing if we feel the need to run from the wisdom found in small red print:

“And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:
Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.
And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”
(Luke 18:9-14, KJV)

If there’s an argument to be had, let’s have it. But let’s base it on our best understanding of the truth and the wisest possible course consistent with our proclaimed ideals – not on what best covers our collective behinds and casts the remaining blame on those least able to carry the burden.

A Little Knowledge, Part Two – Forever Unfit

February 22, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 4 Comments

In Part One, I waxed eloquent about secession and the South’s stated reasons for attempting to leave. Among their many complaints – most of which involved perceived threats to slavery – was the North’s tolerance of those who snuck in and taught slaves stuff.

A little knowledge, it turns out, is a dangerous thing.

Frederick Douglass, in his first autobiography (1845), describes his epiphany regarding education:

My new mistress proved to be all she appeared when I first met her at the door,—a woman of the kindest heart and finest feelings. She had never had a slave under her control previously to myself, and prior to her marriage she had been dependent upon her own industry for a living. She… had been in a good degree preserved from the blighting and dehumanizing effects of slavery…

One thing Douglass’s account shares with those of Solomon Northup, Harriet Jacobs, and others, is their insistence that not all slave-owners were naturally cruel and evil people. They avoid neatly dividing people into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and instead focus on the system, and its effect on those involved – slave or free, black or white.

Rather than letting a few slaveholders off the moral hook, it puts the rest of us on it. When the problem is bad people, we’re safe because we’re not them. When the real problem is something larger, tolerated by us all…

Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she very kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters…
Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read. To use his own words, further, he said… “A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master—to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world.”

Mr. Auld was no fool. He knew that control – whether of populations or individuals – begins through the information to which they have access. Whoever controls knowledge controls everything else – especially when it comes to maintaining a system based on privilege and inheritance.

You know, like the one we pretend we don’t have today.

”Now,” said he, “if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy.”

Mr. Auld is at least honest. Rather than claim young Frederick CAN’T learn, the problem is very much that he CAN – and as things stand, that helps no one. Raised expectations are a curse both ways.

These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought…

Isn’t that what the best learning does? Challenge everything, and force you to sort the assured from the assumed?

I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty—to wit, the white man’s power to enslave the black man… From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I wanted, and I got it at a time when I the least expected it…

If your room under the stairs is all you’ve ever known, you may not be happy, but you can hardly fathom more. Once you’ve gone to a museum or zoo, your horizons are forever altered – there are things out there of which you didn’t know. And Hogwarts… still full of limits, but compared to the room under the stairs…?

There’s nothing wrong with learning to be content with what you have, but that’s a choice we can only make if we have some glimpse of the alternatives. I may wish I were rich, but as I endure Kardashians and Trumps, there are trade-offs I’m not willing to take to get there.

How many Hobbits, Starfighters, Wizards, or Divergents have begun their journeys only upon recognizing the nature of their limitations? Bilbo may wish to retire to the Shire in peace, but true contentment is only possible after gaining the freedom and perspective to make an honest choice.

Until then, you’re just… stuck.

Douglass started tasting something bigger than he’d known, and for the first time found himself able to give form and meaning to his sense of bondage.

I was now about twelve years old, and the thought of being a slave for life began to bear heavily upon my heart. Just about this time, I got hold of a book entitled “The Columbian Orator.” Every opportunity I got, I used to read this book. Among much of other interesting matter, I found in it a dialogue between a master and his slave.
The slave was represented as having run away from his master three times. The dialogue represented the conversation which took place between them, when the slave was retaken the third time. In this dialogue, the whole argument in behalf of slavery was brought forward by the master, all of which was disposed of by the slave. The slave was made to say some very smart as well as impressive things in reply to his master—things which had the desired though unexpected effect; for the conversation resulted in the voluntary emancipation of the slave on the part of the master…

Slavery is bad, and running away was illegal. Talking back to one’s master was dangerous and not to be advised – it was unlikely to lead to your emancipation. All this book lacked to be utterly perverse were zombies and a gay shower scene. And yet, Douglass discovered benefit in reading this work of subversive fiction.

Douglass connected with a character who was in some ways like himself – not in wise words or holy determination, but in the ways his life sucked, like being a slave. This fictional character, however, was able to demonstrate at least one possible way to endure or even flourish in the ugly, imperfect situation in which he was mired. He resonated far more than an idealized hero-figure of some sort could have, belching platitudes while fighting off the darkness with patriotic pluck.

Douglass became who he was partly because of a banned book.

The reading of these documents enabled me to utter my thoughts, and to meet the arguments brought forward to sustain slavery; but while they relieved me of one difficulty, they brought on another even more painful than the one of which I was relieved. The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest as well as the most wicked of men.

Here’s the number one reason governments and religions and parents and schools ban whatever they ban. It’s nearly impossible to maintain the illusion you’re doing someone a huge favor by keeping them locked under the staircase once they’ve visited Hogwarts – even by proxy. The power to question is the power to overcome.

As I read and contemplated the subject, behold! that very discontentment which Master Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read had already come, to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish. As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out.
In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. Anything, no matter what, to get rid of thinking!

Finally, something our elected representatives could support.

Douglass went on to become one of the most powerful speakers and important writers of the 19th century. He also turned out to be a pretty good American, despite his dissent regarding any number of issues.

Turns out you can do that.

Learning is dangerous, but not to the person doing the learning. It can hurt along the way, but you usually end up better off for it.

Learning is dangerous to men whose ideas lack sufficient merit or whose systems lack sufficient substance to maintain their influence over those with other options.

Schoolhouse Rock intoned in the 1970’s that “It’s great to learn – because Knowledge is Power!” A few thousand years before, Jesus of Nazareth had promised his followers that “you will know the truth, and the truth will set your free.” He was speaking most directly of Himself and salvation, but the principle echoes past the specifics.

In a time of strict codes and limited freedom, He offended the churchiest of them with his associations, the liberties he took with the law designed to protect them from damnation, and his words suggesting we might not need the holy arbiters any longer to find our way.

At the risk of getting preachy, the curtain tore long before Martin Luther nailed his complaints to the door.

Perhaps the Scribes and Pharisees had underlying good intentions, being naturally rooted in the ways of Old Testament law. They did grow up under a God who’d kill you for touching his ark, even if it was to prevent it falling to the ground. We’ll cut them some slack.

The Inquisitions and Puritans and Assigners of Scarlet Letters in New Testament times have no such excuse. If their faith is what they claim, it’s a faith based on light and truth and – above all – informed choice. Jesus and Paul may not have had much in common, but there’s no record either ever lied or hid anything they didn’t want the world to see. They didn’t want to capture anyone who didn’t wish to be won.

You don’t make better citizens or better Christians by more effectively blinding them to the things you don’t wish them to know. You can’t strengthen faith by torturing those who violate social norms, or even sin. You can’t narrow the gap between young people and American ideals by doing a better job bullsh*tting them.

It’s wrong, of course, but it also just doesn’t work.

Let’s have a little faith in our spiritual ideals as well as our values as a nation. Let’s offer enough light and live enough of an example that we can risk letting those we love have a little freedom. If they come back – well, you know the rest.

RELATED POST: I’d Rather Be Aquaman

A Little Knowledge, Part One – Secession and Superiority

February 21, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 3 Comments

In the Election of 1860, despite almost unanimous opposition from southern states, Abraham Lincoln was elected. Between the announcement of his victory (it took a little longer to tally everything back then) and his inauguration in early March, seven southern states announced they were leaving the Union.

From Georgia’s declaration of secession:

The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property…
A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party… anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose…

From Mississippi’s:

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery – the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

They all pretty much go like this. The format consciously echoes the Declaration of Independence – the basic proclamation followed by a list of complaints explaining their decision to bail.

Based on these documents, produced by the Southern states for the explicit purpose of proclaiming to the world the causes of their secession, the main issues seemed to be (1) slavery, (2) slavery, and – in some cases – (3) slavery.

South Carolina took the lead as they always did when racial equity needed to be crushed:

But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the Institution of slavery has led to a disregard of their obligations… {The northern} States… have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress, or render useless any attempt to execute them… Thus the constitutional compact has been deliberately broken…
Those {non-slaveholding} States have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions*; and have denied the rights of property** established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of Slavery***; they have permitted the open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace****… They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

*i.e. ‘slavery’
**i.e. ‘slaves’
***i.e. ‘Slavery’ – oh wait, it says it that time, doesn’t it? My bad.
****i.e., abolitionists

South Carolina was upset that the North allowed so much discussion of things which threatened their way of life and went against their beliefs. They listed as one of their central reasons for trying to break the country their collective outrage that other states weren’t doing enough to stifle debate.

Their little white feelings were hurt and their dominant role in the world inconvenienced. Poor things.

Seriously, it goes on for several pages like that.

Was Lincoln’s election really such a threat to their way of life? Maybe. Not according to Lincoln, it wasn’t, but the new Republican Party openly advocated for restrictions on slavery – particularly in terms of limiting its expansion. Perhaps that was a debate worth having, in the context of the times.

But the time for debate and compromise, it seems, was over. The writing was on the wall, and the South feared that reason and decency would no longer produce the outcome they wished. So, they circumvented both and tried to change the rules. They chose theatrics over the much more difficult path of introspection.

…those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

Slavery was not simply about physical bondage, as central as that was. It required a type of brainwashing and systemic manipulation so that the slave remained perpetually hopeless, and largely helpless. They were kept ignorant of all but the most basic skills or concepts. Slave-owners – the same ones who would soon rebel based on their right not to be bossed around – were forbidden by law from teaching their slaves to read, allowing them to learn to swim, or otherwise expanding their horizons beyond what was absolutely necessary.

The shocking thing about slave revolts isn’t that they happened – it’s that there were so few of them. Most resistance was covert, cultural – playing dumb, breaking things, maintaining an identity bewildering to white slave-owners.

The Underground Railroad was pretty amazing, but the total numbers carried to freedom were miniscule compared to the size of the institution. And yet…

…incited by emissaries, books and pictures…

Do you feel the past reaching out to you through that line? I got goosie-bumps.

“We don’t like the thinking prompted by your teachers, your books, your visuals. We don’t appreciate you complicating their world or ours by introducing problematic ideas. Ignorance is bliss, buddy – our version of reality is good enough, despite its apparent inability to withstand the slightest scrutiny.”

See? I coulda been a Southerner.

The problem with education is that it gets people thinking. The problem with thinking is that they don’t always think what we want them to. And, in the South’s defense, sometimes a little knowledge IS a dangerous thing – we’ll look at that in Part Two.

The South understood the dangers of expanded thinking. As lovers of tradition – and of being in charge – they had little taste for new or threatening ideas. They codified narrow-mindedness as a virtue and framed the ignorance of those in bondage as a mercy.

Turns out the human race is pretty good at legal, intellectual, and moral contortions when it’s time to rationalize something we really really want to be true.

After the War – which they lost – the South continued to fight against dangerous levels of education for others. They also began denying their own explicitly stated causes for trying to leave in the first place. When you feel strongly enough that your cause is just, reality is just one more adversity to nobly overcome for the greater good.

That’s Part Three.

My goal throughout is to avoid directly referencing Representative Dan Fisher and his ilk – not even once – no matter how analogous the issues involved.

Oops!

OK – just once, then.

Unintended Consequences

February 9, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 2 Comments

In 1850, as part of a collection of legislation intended to once again defer civil war, the Fugitive Slave Act (FSA) was passed. It had always been technically true that escape by a slave to a ‘free state’ did not mean they were legally free, but in practice, reaching Ohio or New York dramatically reduced the chance they’d ever be forced back into bondage.

The FSA mandated some pretty serious fines for anyone in law enforcement who didn’t demonstrate sufficient commitment to capturing and returning this peculiar contraband. It even required private citizens to respond when called upon to act as a sort of ‘posse’ in these efforts. The goal was to force northerners to be a bit more cooperative when southern ‘property’ was at large.

If asked, most northerners would have condemned the system of slavery, and there were of course some rather vocal abolitionists. But most folks were simply leading their daily lives, uninvolved one way or the other. Much like today, there was a substantial gap between popular opinion and overt action. People have things to do – it’s not personal.

Hey, Swamp People is on!

The FSA had a result quite different than intended. When forced to partake one way or the other, most Northerners chose to assist runaways, directly or indirectly. Whether this was Christian charity or a collective middle finger to the South was irrelevant to the couple sleeping in their barn and accepting that leftover ham. The FSA ended up galvanizing into action the formerly uninvolved – but not in the way intended.

This is what we in the history business call “unintended consequences.” Examples are plentiful.

Several years ago, my district implemented a policy against giving extra credit for ‘stuff’ – no points for tissues, colored pencils, novels used in class, etc. They argued it was wrong to reward some students with points inaccessible to those with fewer resources.

Fair enough.

The new policy led to several unanticipated consequences. Many of us simply quit reading as many novels or doing as many artsy-fartsy projects. There are other ways to acquire resources, but few have the patience or wherewithal to perpetually write grants and fill out RQs for stuff they might not get anyway.

Besides, hours of tedious paperwork and bureaucratic hoop-jumping without assured benefit to students? That’s what VAM and TLE are for.

Most teachers were already maxed out on what they could buy themselves, so some instituted modest but uniform ‘supply lists’ required of all students. Those unable to comply were dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

These were the same kids who didn’t have to worry before about coming up with colored pencils or poster board because we always had a stash in the back which had been donated for extra credit. That was, in fact, why we’d done it that way.

This is what my friends in ELA would call ‘ironic’ – and not in a fun way.

‘Extra credit,’ properly dispersed, rarely makes a dramatic difference in a kid’s total grade. It may nudge, but the overall impact is negligible in an ocean of numerization which is largely subjective to begin with. The effort to eliminate it, however well-intentioned, had negative impact on those it claimed to protect.

The introduction of the horse to Plains Amerindians. Prohibition of alcohol in the 1920’s, or of drugs today. Pretty much anything involving the internet. There are exceptions, but it often seems the greater the good we’re trying to mandate, the more ‘unintended consequences’ prove quite the spoilers.

One last example…

In the early 1970’s, employers began running into trouble with the ‘aptitude tests’ they used to assess applicants’ qualifications – or at least their potential – for available positions. As the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and related legislation grew in scope and impact, these tests became suspect – minorities didn’t always score as high as whites.

The disparity had nothing to do with IQ or potential and everything to do with socio-economic realities only one short century after the Civil War. The head of racism had perhaps been crushed, but its fangs remained firmly clamped into our collective heel.

Business owners had no desire to end up on the wrong end of socio-legal revolution. Their solution was simple – no more aptitude tests. Instead, applicants now needed a college degree – in some cases, pretty much ANY college degree. Let the universities deal with any disparities – and hey, look at our over-qualified workforce!

Demand for post-secondary degrees swelled, and the cost of college rose commensurately. Many minorities who would have done just fine on the various aptitude tests – or could have, given some basic training – were effectively washed out of the job pool by a financial and academic bar they weren’t prepared to clear.

Many good jobs in the 1970’s didn’t really require that level of education in order to be successful. For many, a college degree was complete overkill. Nevertheless, those from families who’d shared the benefits of preferential status for generations could often make the necessary adjustments fiscally and academically, while those still fighting for their place at the table often could not.

Frightened employers trying to cover their pale behinds sought refuge in ‘higher standards’. They couldn’t be held accountable for racial or economic fallout as long as they clung to requirements both lofty and universal. That it centered around ‘education’ made it even easier to blame the victim.

So… bonus.

You see where I’m going with this now, don’t you?

When we try to mass-mandate solutions in ways that ignore or deny the underlying sources of the problems, there will be unintended consequences. In the 1970’s the primary issue was race, and its impact on access to education or employment. That hasn’t gone away, but we’ve expanded the problem by insisting that every new life must be immediately assimilated into our ‘college and career’ ideals. We intone ‘all children can learn’ as we practice ‘all your identity are belong to us’.

We want so badly for ‘higher standards’ and ‘college ready’ to become unilateral solutions to complex problems, and to provide us with moral and legal cover as we marginalize and blame those not born into pre-existing privilege. We choose not just the height of the expectation, but its very nature. We rarely stop to ask if our concept of ‘mastery’ reflects anyone’s worldview but our own.

In practice, ‘high expectations’ has become a new poll tax or grandfather clause – fair and reasonable on the surface, but inequitable and perhaps even malicious just below the gilding. It’s a job description tailored to the person on the inside they’ve already decided to hire, labeling all others ‘unqualified’.

It doesn’t have to be purposeful to be destructive (hence ‘unintended’), but I’m not always certain it’s not. Our conflation of ‘high standards’, ‘success’, and ‘compliance with my old white guy paradigm’ is simply too persistent to dismiss intent altogether. Real learning and its ‘measurement’ must vary with circumstances and goals. It must accommodate real students and teachers working through their messy, non-standardized worlds.

That this is cloyingly unsatisfying makes it no less true. Until we grasp that, we’ll just keep trying to pound the wonderful variety of pegs entrusted to us into the same damn little round holes. Not only will we keep failing to make them all fit, but we’ll break far too many along the way.

Their destruction will be an unintentional consequence of our most noble rhetoric. The grades will go on their report cards, but the failure? That’s ours.

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40 Credits & A Mule, Part VI: Return of the Jedi

January 15, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

This is part 6 of 7 – some recap seems in order:

Who gets to be a ‘full’ American? Who gets suffrage, representation, and due process?

Land-owners were the initial default. Land provided opportunity, American Dream-style. It was a universal measure of personal responsibility and capability. It inculcated virtue, and perhaps won supernatural favor. And, finally, it gave you a vested interest in the success of the young nation.

What began as a checklist for civic participation became the default measure of a man. What was intended to protect representative government from the incompetent or slothful became an anchor on those who didn’t fit certain checklists as of 225 years ago. You are unworthy. Not quite a full American – and thus not quite a full person.

The issue became your state of being rather than whatever rules you had or hadn’t mastered, or whatever goals you hadn’t met. It was self-perpetuating and self-reinforcing. It became circular:

Presumption: You provide for yourself and your family, so you are worthy to help run the country. You own land and do responsible things? Here’s your ballot.

Evolution: You provide and are provided for – because you are worthy. You own land because you’re so responsible – here’s your halo.

I suggest we’re doing something similar with education today – both public and higher.

Consider Alyssa – a wonderful young lady in AP classes from a two-parent Methodist family. She works hard, makes good grades, stays out of any real trouble, and wants to be a neuroscientist. Obviously she deserves some credit for her accomplishments. She’s demonstrated great capability, and made good decisions.

She’s also from the right family, and – more importantly – the right ZIP code. She goes to the right school, has the right social circle, the right economic status, and the right looks. She’s the right amount healthy and she was born at the right time for her particular skill set to shine. None of these things are entirely in her control.

She’s our ‘white homesteader.’ She’s done nothing malicious in making her ‘land’ productive. She does tend to wonder what’s wrong with students who don’t do the same – not out of racism or vanity, but simply because it’s bewildering to her that anyone would not want to do well, or not be able to do well. It’s just not that hard.

Compare her to Dionne – another wonderful young lady, but one from very different circumstances. Her life might be happy enough, or it might be reality-show dysfunctional, but in any case does NOT unfold in the same universe as Alyssa’s. All of the rules are different and their experiences mutually exclusive.

Dionne’s AP Chem grade (or the fact that she’s not even taking AP Chem) reflects many things OTHER THAN her capability or choices. Her ability and agency matter a great deal as well, but they’re not sovereign.

Dionne is a beautiful black girl, descended from freedmen. Plenty of Black Americans ‘bought in’ to Anglo-American values – they sought land, self-sufficiency, education, progress, etc. But they weren’t merely denied the resources to join such a culture – they were actively punished for making progress along those lines.

This didn’t stop the dominant culture from belittling them for not matching their successes, of course. It doesn’t prevent belittling those today who at some point simply changed their priorities and dropped out of that particular value system.

In Dionne’s case the issue is not emulating prior conditions, but overcoming them.

Anders is a kid who doesn’t want to be in your class – or anyone’s class – at ALL, near as you can tell. He’s not particularly defiant, but he’s also rarely tempted to give much. It would take three of him to make one passing student. His test scores put you on lists and you’re constantly asked to send him work he’s already ignored. You go to meetings about him called by his counselor; the parent chair is always empty.

Anders is my Amerindian, although he might be Hispanic, or White, or Black, or whatever – there are racial issues wound up in these, but they’re not exclusive or always definitive. Many Amerindians had no interest in the Anglo-American value system or way of life, but they were forced to partake – and stakes were high if they failed. They lacked buy-in, but they also were denied good tools, seed, land, etc. It’s not much of a stretch to think a comparable state exists between many teenagers and whatever public school system holds them captive in 2015.

Pick something your kids spend time on that you totally don’t understand – video games, soccer, angsty music, whatever. Something you at least partly despise. Master it. Spend the hours it takes to really get decent at Call of Duty. Practice soccer until you’re good enough to compete. Consume YouTube until you want to run hot skewers into your eyes and ears to make the bad things stop!

That’s how Anders feels about Grammar, and Physics. He may be right.

I’ll add a Zack – they’re always named something like ‘Zack’ – who’s surviving AP Chem and otherwise getting by even though he’s NOT particularly bright and doesn’t have a great work ethic. He’s charismatic, knows how to play the game, and while not exactly a charlatan, succeeds more through people skills and an instinct for edu-bureaucracy than anything. He’s probably destined for administration.

Which of these are worthy? Which deserve to be a full American? To get a full ride to an elite university? Which are making the best use of the opportunities presented to them, however flawed they may be?

You’re so thankful for Alyssa – students like her give you the energy to get through the day. But how often is Alyssa essentially rewarded for her upbringing and Dionne marginalized for not ‘working hard enough’? How angry does Anders make you even though he doesn’t really do anything to you other than not be taught? Zack’s an annoying little turd, but he’s passing and no one’s mad at you because of him so… whatever.

Anders has been given very little reason to adopt the same values and goals as the rest. For all our talk of nurturing kids’ individual strengths, his just aren’t on the curriculum map – and there’s nothing you can personally do about that. Dionne may have tuned out, but no wonder – even when she does ‘buy in’, she lacks many of the proper tools and supplies, literally as well as figuratively.

And Zack… well, there’s always that kid who just does OK for reasons you never quite understand, yes?

Changing the nature of American public school won’t be accomplished by ‘higher standards’ or tougher testing. We can argue about this set of standards or that for another ten years if you like, but – and I hate to be the one to break this to you – for the vast majority of kids not currently ‘succeeding’ in our schools, it just doesn’t matter one tiny little damn.

We have a culture fundamentally shaped by our past – that’s how history works, it’s why we study it. We have generations of mostly well-intentioned peeps whose views of one another are shaped by that history. Our psyches are riddled with logical fallacies and vestigial reactions we don’t even recognize. It’s not rational, it’s not fair, and it’s sure as hell not standardized.

We have a rather narrow definition of what sort of learning is valued and tested and college and career ready, and that means a rather narrow idea of just what kind of education we’re willing to begrudgingly and inadequately finance. Our definition ignores more reality than it includes.

Meaningful change might INVOLVE academic standards and teaching strategies, but it won’t be founded on them. It’s going to be people-heavy and cliché-light. It may not even begin in school. That’s what I’ll tackle in the next and final post on this topic.

It’s taken me six parts to try to unwind my version of the problem. That leaves me exactly one last segment in which to resolve it. I’m not optimistic.

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