Following this election, I find that I am a target of hate. I feel that my country is split between those who feel the entitlement and right to deny me of my rights and those who are struggling for their rights. As a woman in this country who recognizes the struggles and wars women have fought for basic health care and equality, I feel betrayed that my very own country could overlook those efforts in a selfish, thoughtless election.
As I reflect on this election, I find that the prevention of a Trump candidacy goes beyond the reprimands for third-party voting, goes beyond those who didn't vote, and even goes beyond the gullibility of those supporters to buy into the fear and hate-filled rally cry upon which his campaign built itself on. What went wrong in this election is what's wrong in our educational system; we aren't telling our youth the whole truth.
Education-real education does not need to begin when the student decides if he/she is adapt for college. Education needs to begin when education begins; education of the truth needs to start with our younger generations. While the first years of education are important for teaching young children about the values of kindness, friendship, and compassion, that doesn't need to include blatantly lying to our children about the "early days". Let's stop pretending that we're not doing harm by teaching grade school children that the native Americans and the pioneers got along. Let's stop teaching our kindergartners that they lived in harmony, that the natives shared their land and learned from the settlers, because you're already installing a false hope in these children that there's no such thing as white supremacy, that hatred doesn't exist, and it's certainly not a part of our history. Because it is, and children can handle that.
Teach our middle school and high school students why slavery actually existed, how racism was really born. Let's stop pretending that hatred and segregation and superiority are natural human traits because they're not. The bible doesn't portray Adam and Eve and the KKK, so let's stop encouraging our kids to accept ignorance as such. Teach these kids the truth and horror and flaws in our nation's history so that they can all make tomorrow a bit better. A student shouldn't need a college education to understand the hate and systematic terrorism that their very institution is built upon. Teach our children about settler colonialism as more than Christopher Columbus, and while you're at it, quit this horrification bullshit within the public school system's history curriculum. You don't need a college education or a sociological elective to understand the evil that our founding fathers actually perpetuated.
Teach our children that sexism and feminine inferiority is not the world's natural order, but that it's creating came from the creation of Christianity, and that suppression and inequality are not a given they're enforced. Teaching the children the truth about our countries hatred and ignorant and culture determines a sense of self-worth, identifies the ability to identify wrong and evil, and increases the chances that hate will not be a nation-wide policy.
You can't just teach our kids that discrimination is wrong. Teach them where it came from, and teach them why.
Teach our children their voting rights, their voter duties, and the complications of our system. Teach our children the dangers of single-issue voting. Teach our children that our democracy IS FLAWED. Teach our children the complications of a third-party vote, and how it affects the voting turnout, but also teach our children the dangers and negativity of a two-party system. Teach our children that our country IS NOT great, that our country and our system IS FLAWED, but knowledge is key to progress.
Teach our children, so that they can teach theirs.
