Research Notes #12
Intellectual Freedom vs. White Supremacy
Two weeks ago, in Tennessee, the legislators voted 25-7 to pass a bill that, if it is signed into law by Governor Lee, will seek to withhold funding to school districts where Critical Race Theory (CRT) is taught. As I have mentioned in previous posts, there are wedges that right-wingers use to maintain power over the majority of the population and CRT is the latest of these hot button issues.
Meanwhile, in Western New York, a parent is harassing a teacher for using Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give and John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men to teach critical thinking skills to her 9th-grade Language Arts students. In order to make his argument seem more plausible, the parent is using the claims of Intellectual Freedom and the First Amendment. In December 2020, this same parent lost his cross-fit license over racist comments he made toward a former customer of his gym; it isn’t a big mental jump to today as he seeks to limit any discussion of systemic racism in his child’s public school classroom.
In both cases, and spurred on by Fox News and other non-credible news sources (click here to read more on credible sources), CRT has become a catch-all phrase for white folks who don’t want their children learning a full and true history of the country. This, alone, isn’t new and neither is the move to restrict Intellectual Freedom in public schools. After all, the banned books list has been around for decades. What this highlights though is the surge of white people who are shaking in their boots because their children are finally learning the true history of the United States, rather than the white-washed history we were fed since public schools began back in 1635.
Here at the Research Notes Newsletter, the goal is to make topics more accessible through resources that you won’t find via a simple Google search. In this issue, we will dive more deeply into the concepts of Intellectual Freedom and Critical Race Theory. As a member of the American Library Association (ALA) and an MLS graduate from an ALA-accredited university, I have the professional responsibility to uphold the right to Intellectual Freedom for all. The banned books list, although meant to highlight the most challenged books from year to year, as a way of encouraging people to read these books, might have a chilling effect on the concept of Intellectual Freedom and we will look at this as well.
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Saying of the Week
Before we dive into the topic at hand, I wanted to talk about a saying that I was asked to clarify with a bit of research. Thank you to the reader who sent in this question: “I have heard that the phrase ‘grandfather clause’ might have racist roots. Can you please clarify this for me? I wouldn’t want to be offensive in my language and I am certain that with a bit of research you can help me better understand the roots of this saying.”
Grandfather clause or ‘grandfathered in’ is a phrase that can certainly be understood as having a racist root. The original phrase comes from the tests that were administered to Black voters during the Jim Crow era in the South. It was a means of maintaining the ability for poor and/or uneducated white people to vote by exempting them from the literacy tests or poll taxes that were administered to Black voters. The clause stated that if your ancestors (read: grandfathers) were able to vote during pre-Civil war times, you were exempt from any further examination and able to freely vote. This obviously gave preferential treatment to white men and meant that Black men had to pass further poll tests or pay a tax to vote. Although this clause was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1915, it damaged the voting rolls in the south for the 45 years it was in effect.
Now that we know the origin of this phrase, it might be something we want to leave behind. It isn’t explicitly racist on its face, but the story behind it most certainly is. A good replacement for this phrase is to be exempt. “They are exempt from that policy because of their length of service”. Legacy is also a replacement, but that comes with all kinds of other meanings, so I would stick with exempt. For further reading on this, please see the links below:
The Racial History of the 'Grandfather Clause' - NPR Code Switch
(1915) GUINN V. UNITED STATES: THE GRANDFATHER CLAUSE - blackpast.org
Intellectual Freedom and Critical Thinking
The fight against Critical Race Theory in public schools is yet another attempt by the Republicans to unravel the ability of teachers to teach the true and full history of the United States. Thinking critically about race might lead to students thinking critically about other concepts as well. In the case of the Western New York gym owner mentioned above, I wouldn’t be surprised if the catalyst for his anger was his child questioning his racism at home. Perhaps he used the n-word, the kid questioned that, and the response was “I’ll say what I want in my house - and you don’t need to be reading that garbage” or something to that effect.
The reason I can envision this so clearly is that I remember having this same conversation with a racist family member several times as a child. When the n-word was used in my presence I would push back on the usage of that word and get the same response as above or this gem, “I won’t have a child tell me what words I can and cannot use in my own home”. Mind you, I didn’t have the full understanding of why the n-word was wrong, at the time I just heard it as a swear word, but my adult relative DID know what it meant and he was using it in the context of hatred and bigotry. It didn’t matter how many times I told him it was wrong, he felt it was within his purview to use that word when he wasn’t in public. And this is the crux of racism in the United States.
I have since parted ways with this member of my family, but not before trying my best to convince him that his racism was wrong. He chose to continue being racist, in a family text thread that mirrored my childhood experience above. I wanted to be better at convincing him that his beliefs were wrong, but instead, I decided to stop giving him my time and energy.
This form of racism used to be only seen in secret or in the privacy of one’s home. Not to say that it wasn’t on full display at various times in the public square, but it was also hidden in the basements and backyards of people who you would otherwise believe were not racist. They were polite in public to all people of color, but once they got home they would throw around the racist terms for Black, Brown, Asian, and Arab folx like it was no big deal. And this continues today. The mere fact that we have legislation in several states to ban the discussion of race in the public school classroom reinforces the white supremacist behaviour found in these types of households where children are still being carefully taught.
But the mere wish that you can remain racist in your home, does not allow you the right to restrict the intellectual freedom of other students in the public school system.
Free Speech
The First Amendment reinforces the principles of intellectual freedom by giving Americans the right to speak freely and also to hear all sides of an issue, but what it does not do, and this is where some folks get confused, is give Americans the right to restrict resources that they do not agree with. This is why books from the banned books list still exist in libraries. We do not restrict speech. Books can be challenged, but they cannot be removed based on the challenge. Removal is done at the discretion of the library’s board, not a patron’s request. Censorship is never
Sidenote: I know that probably brings up the Dr. Seuss thing for some people, but when a publisher decides to stop printing books, it is actually not a first amendment issue. It is commerce and capitalism.
In contrast, the claim made against the Western New York teacher is framed as “harmless” when the parent claims he wants his child to learn all sides of an issue while the true goal of the complaint is to restrict the teaching materials chosen by the professional when these materials teach about systemic racism. This is a clear violation of the First Amendment as it does not allow all points of view to be expressed. They want the students to only learn about the myths of American exceptionalism and freedom for all, with no critical analysis of the systems.
Racism On Display
This brings us to my final question for research: what is the ‘other side of history’ that the gym owner wishes for his children to learn? Is it the lost cause myth? The historical revisionist theory that claims America was founded as a Christian nation espoused by David Barton? Or maybe he wants them to learn about any variety of Big Lies throughout history? In the end, I think the gym owner is just looking to have history taught the same way it was in the past. Without critical thinking. Just presented as a series of facts and figures - a bunch of dates to memorize and regurgitate on test day - with no real understanding of how any of that history actually affects us in the present-day version of our country.
Folx like this parent (and he is by no means a solitary case) want us to stop dwelling on that content. We can say that slavery happened, but we shouldn’t dwell on it. We can say that the holocaust happened, but we shouldn’t dwell on it. We can say Japanese people were held in internment camps in the US during WWII, but we shouldn’t dwell on it. Don’t think critically about history and never, ever make a white kid feel bad about being white.
These are the ideas that parents like the gym owner are trying to keep out of their children’s minds. Not because they care about their children’s feelings of self-worth or want them to be good human beings, but because if those kids learn the real, true history of the United States, in all its violence and chaos, they might turn that self-reflection back on their parents and other family members. They might start questioning the behaviours of the people they live with. And in the process, they might become better human beings than the people who are raising them. I mean - we can dream, right?
Additional readings from the week:
It Was Always About Control by Cory Collins at Learning For Justice
Advocate for critical race theory education by Nicole Cardoza at Anti-racism Daily
Commitment to Racial Justice from the American Association of University Professors
White Allies, Let’s Be Honest About Decolonization by Kyle Powys Whyte at Yes Magazine
Thank you for reading the Research Notes Newsletter! Now it’s YOUR turn. Please share your thoughts along with any other questions or suggestions for future research, in the comments. I look forward to lively discourse.