Ohio lawmakers’ dangerous effort to suppress honest teaching about America’s past

Who wants to be a teacher? Raise your hand! Laura Hancock’s story in the April 18 Plain Dealer listed current education-related bills going through the state legislature (”More than 125 education bills wait — only some will pass”). Example: Republican-sponsored bills that would ban educators from teaching “anything that makes white people feel guilty.” Horrors!! It’s called whitewashing our history — literally.

House Bill 322 would force educators to teach that slavery and racism aren’t “anything other than deviations” of the founding principles of the United States, Hancock reports. Do I need to explain who are the deviants? Don’t we teach our children to learn from our mistakes? Why should the country’s mistakes … sorry, deviations … be an exception? And Republicans call Democrats radical? It is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Oh, my bad … of the pot calling the kettle white.

Maxine Brand,

Lyndhurst