Ross: Censoring our history of racism won’t make it go away
Sep 8, 2020, 6:40 AM | Updated: 10:56 am

President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference on the North Portico of the White House. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
According to , the president wants to cancel what he鈥檚 called “divisive” training sessions on race, including those where white employees are required to say they 鈥渂enefit from racism.鈥
I admit, that would make anyone feel pretty awkward.
But these sessions don鈥檛 stop there 鈥 they also urge you read more deeply about civil rights history. And when you start reading quotes from 150 years ago, it聽really gets awkward:
“Everybody was a white supremacist so they said exactly what they thought and exactly what they meant,” said Jeffrey Robinson with the ACLU.
I did a podcast last year with Robinson, who says it鈥檚 time to teach about documents like Texas鈥 Declaration of Secession. I鈥檇 read it to you, but it鈥檚 pretty offensive. Just Google the phrase 鈥渆stablished exclusively by the white race鈥 and you can read it yourself.
“I understand why many white Americans are saying ‘the Civil War ended 154 years ago, why are you still complaining about it?'” Robinson said. “I understand that because based on the history we鈥檝e been taught, that鈥檚 a perfectly legitimate question.”
It was also just last year that Texas schools started teaching slavery鈥檚 true role as the main cause for the Civil War.
So, maybe these awkward training sessions work, maybe they don鈥檛. But the bigger problem here is that major chunks of American history have been censored from our textbooks. And censoring something doesn鈥檛 make it go away.
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