“Chattel Slavery Made America Great!”: The Purging and Rewriting of Black History
Politicians not only want to purge Black history, but they want to rewrite it to make slavery and White supremacy sound beautiful.
During my freshman year of college, I was required to take a history class for my journalism major. I recall that U.S. History was one of the few classes with open slots. I was not excited — I was not looking forward to memorizing dates of when old white men declared wars and reading about how they committed genocide against Native Americans. But I reluctantly signed up for it.
The White professor I had was very energetic and loud, making it impossible to take naps like I used to do during history class in high school. I doodled most of the time, ignoring him. That was until one day when he said:
“A lot of people say slavery was bad, but I don’t think that’s so. Someone had to do the work.”
I stopped drawing. My eyes widened. My jaw dropped. I looked around the room and couldn’t help but notice I was one of about three Black students in the auditorium. In retrospect, I wish I had tracked them down after class and talked to them.
