white History Month
a happy Monday morning to you all.
as you know, today commences our celebration of white history month.
as thoroughly detailed in the memo from our assistant superintendent
for diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-biased justice in curriculum
development—this is not a time to bask in the distinctions of european
heritages and ethnic enclaves. you are expected to compose lesson plans
devoted to distinctly “white” achievements in american history. please
refer to the resources in the center of your tables for extra guidance.
these lists serve only as suggestions and are not intended as limitations
to the academic freedom of you or your students. to summarize:
classroom posters can prominently feature Chaney, Goodman, and
Schwerner, Vincent Chin, Mary Turner, Emmett Till, Rodney King,
and Baldir Singh Sodhi. timelines on Jim Crow legislation, red-lining,
the slavery industrial complex, the Trail of Tears, gentrification, and
the school-to-prison pipeline are appropriate, as are the Zoot Suit Riots,
the Sandy Hook shooting, and the Chinese Massacre of 1871. interactive
displays examining smallpox blankets, fire hoses, a petri dish of HeLa cells,
an empty canister of Zyklon B, a white woman’s cellphone, and DVDs
of Griffith’s Birth of a Nation and Farrelly’s Green Book are encouraged.
infographics may be useful to detail the demographics of traffic citations
in Ferguson, MO, when most confederate monuments were built, the names
of sundown communities, as well as gerrymandered counties, and the number
of non-white presidents, congresspeople, federal judges and Supreme Court
justices. students can produce to scale models and dioramas of Manzanar, Tule,
Topaz, Jerome, Wilmington, Rosewood, and Tulsa. primary texts can include
the three-fifth compromise, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Dred Scott decision,
and Executive Order 13769. our lawyers have assured us thoughts and prayers
from 16th Street Baptist, Emanuel AME Church, Al-Furqan Jame Masjid Mosque,
and the Tree of Life Synagogue are acceptable when presented in a strictly secular
manner. again, these are only suggestions. please discuss any questions with
your dept head. okay. first period starts in about fifteen mins. let’s get out there
and have a great day. GO CRUSADERS!
when asked what might finally lead me to drink or abuse schedule 1 narcotics
these and the requirement that i keep a mask of cool, kissable waters in response.
Matthew E. Henry (MEH) is the author of six collections, including the Colored page (Sundress Publications, 2022) and The Third Renunciation (NYQ Books, 2023). He is editor-in-chief of The WEIGHT Journal and an associate poetry editor at Pidgeonholes and Rise Up Review. The 2023 winner of the Solstice Literary Magazine Stephen Dunn Prize, MEH is an educator who received his MFA yet continued to spend money he didn’t have completing an MA in theology and a Ph.D. in education. You can find him at www.MEHPoeting.com writing about education, race, religion, and burning oppressive systems to the ground.
Read other Letters to America online or in Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy, published in partnership with Trinity University Press.
Header photo by BlurryMe, courtesy Shutterstock.
