The Revolution Must Not Be Sanitized
I'm deep in (finally) reading Manning Marable's Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. It's transforming my life to learn so many details about a man I thought I knew! Many of the details shed light on where he got his amazing, radical, constantly evolving ideas. Many of them shed light on what a complicated, flawed man he was. And it's these details that are helping me to realize the harm of sanitizing our icons, and conversely, the beauty of complexity. It's not just that sanitization allows for others to control the narrative and information about the icon, which my hero Trudy writes about here. What concerns me, as a teacher, aspiring activist and human, is this: Sanitization and over simplification creates impossible, perfect figures.
In teacher school, I learned the importance of kids seeing themselves reflected in the people I teach about. I learned the importance of diversity in our books and who I post in my walls, I learned that kids "can't be what they can't see." And so, as a social-justice minded educator, I put pictures of leaders of different ethnicities on my walls. MLK, Malcolm X, Cesar Chavez, Ghandi, Dolores Huerta and many others. Kids smile, feel validated...but I now realize, it isn't enough. Even teaching about these individuals, I still don't think I can achieve what those heroes achieved. I still couldn't see myself in those heroes. And I don't think kids can, either. I couldn't see myself in these heroes because I was are not showing these individuals' HUMANITY. We often do not teach the flaws of our heroes. We teach our students that to be a hero is to be perfect - or, maybe to have overcome a difficult childhood/adversity only to become perfect later in life. So how can any beautifully imperfect, beautifully human child see themselves in that perfection? This coming school year, I am committed to teaching the flaws. I am committed to teaching that flaws make a person HUMAN - nothing more, nothing less. Humanity doesn't detract or add to a person's accomplishments, their message or the impact they've had in history. It doesn't mean they're more or less worthy of respect or admiration. Each one of us, regardless of our flaws or mistakes, is worthy or respect because of our humanity. I am committed to teaching this in every aspect of my curriculum. If we talk about Martin Luther King Jr, we will discuss all of his accomplishments - and the fact that he was a cheater (in multiple ways: both a plagiarizer and a philanderer). If we talk about Ghandi, we will talk about his nice quotes and contributions to non-violent movement, as well as about how much he hated black people. If we talk about Malcolm X, we will discuss his misogyny and convient anti-semitism that allowed him to form alliances with Nazis and the KKK. If we talk about Cesar Chavez, we will discuss the ways he helped to improve lives for farm workers, as well as the ways he marginalized undocumented immigrants and contributed to erasing the accomplishments of Filipino Farm Workers. If we talk about Dolores Huerta, we will discuss her role in helping to organize the United Farm Workers, and the ways that she's completely bought into the American capitalist system and "democracy." We will discuss these things because these heroes are human, brilliant, hard working and flawed. We shouldn't protect kids from that, because then we are teaching kids to try to hide from their own flaws, their own humanity. Our heroes helped worked to make our world a better place, and kids can think critically and make up their own minds about their accomplishments. They can respect the leaders for being human. And if there are accomplishments they want to replicate or further, maybe they'll know they can, because they, too, are human. Plus, nobody can fall off a pedestal if they were never there in the first place. ------ EDIT: NEW SECTION. VERY REPETITIVE, NEEDS A RE-READ AND LOTS OF HEAVY EDITING. LISA, GET ON THIS SOON. Honestly, I am writing this because this feels like a matter of life and death to me. As long as America’s deeply entrenched system of capitalism exists, it will need state sponsored policing. Therefore, we are teaching our future cops, judges, correctional officers, and attorneys. We are teaching children who will drive, go to pools, sleep on their grandmothers couches, buy skittles from local corner stores and wear hoodies. So, we need them to value each other’s humanity, to innately respect each other for simply being alive. So that they may all continue to live.
In her collection of essays, Bad Feminist, Roxane Gay writes eloquently about what kind of characters in literature and in television shows are allowed to be human. Gender and race both play a role in this. White people, much more frequently than people of color, are allowed to be complicated characters that make unlikable decisions. Men, much more frequently than women, are allowed to be “There are many instances in which an unlikable man is billed as an antihero,” she writes, “earning a special term to explain those ways in which he deviates from the norm, the traditionally likable.” She cites Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, protagonists in the novels of Philip Roth and Patrick Bateman of American Psycho as just a few examples. I would argue that men have the most opportunity to be human, in both fiction and in real life.
These (mostly) white, (mostly) male characters get to be complex in our literature, on our television programs, and in the world. But people of color are reduced to one dimensional caricatures in those same venues and in our every day world. Ms. Gay tells the potential danger of this when she writes, “this is fiction, and if people cannot be flawed in fiction theere’s no place left for us to be human.” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been warning us about  the danger of a single story for six years. Some us are just beginning to get it.Â
When black people (and especially black women) dare to show their humanity/complexity/flaws [like, say, react with indignation when getting pulled over for moving out of the way of a speeding cop car], (white) people don't know how to react. They get scared, so scared that they kill us. The danger of the single, sanitized story is the continued death of black people.
Recent events have shown us that even a lion gets to be more human than black people. So, it is imperative that we help our students expand their thinking around who gets to be human. Who gets to be flawed, make mistakes, and still be interesting and liked and live a full life. Who gets to get angry, be troubled, and live to tell about it. And who doesn’t. Who gets killed when they dare reveal their humanity is more than a one dimensional stereotype. Whose life matters?
What we teach about the people we want our kids to admire matters. We need to make the connection between how we hero worship, and who in our country gets to be human, and therefore whose life gets to matter. Roxane Gay urges us: “We need to overcome our deeply entrenched positions and resistance to nuance.” We need to do this in every aspect of our teaching and living.Â
