In the photo, the male student is seen holding a sign reading: “If I was Black, I would be picking cotton, but I’m white so I’m picking you for hoco?”
The photo is being shared far and wide locally, with the appropriate outrage from teens and parents.
One thing missing in the ongoing discussions is context.
Like it or not, somebody needs to point out that Augusta County went 72.7 percent in 2020 for Donald Trump, who openly embraces the racist and antisemitic ideologies of the far right, and 77.9 percent in 2021 for Glenn Youngkin, who whipped up his campaign rallies last fall with promises to ban the teaching of so-called “divisive concepts” on race from Virginia schools, and has come under fire for removing mention of the role that enslaved laborers played in the history of the Executive Mansion from public tours.
The first Trump presidential campaign, in 2016, ushered in a new era of normalized racism across the country, which Youngkin then built on in his 2021 gubernatorial campaign, so it shouldn’t be surprising to see kids growing up in an era when it is said that there are “good people on both sides” and being protected from having to learn about slavery and Jim Crow being blissfully unaware that it’s not at all OK to make light of “picking cotton.”
It’s like we’re taking a big step backwards in terms of our capacity to want ourselves to be able to understand and empathize with people who have different backgrounds and experiences, and that this is maybe by design.
No doubt the local school system will throw the book at this kid, whatever good that will do.
What the story of this photo illustrates is why we need to educate our kids to be able to view certain things within the lens of race, and that consciously not doing so denies them the opportunity to gain important facts, core knowledge, formulate their own opinions, and to think for themselves.
That paragraph there was inspired by the executive order that Youngkin signed earlier this year “ending the use of inherently divisive concepts” in Virginia K-12 education.
What that executive order is actually doing is perpetuating the kind of thinking that has kids thinking it’s OK to use slavery as a prop to get a date for homecoming.
Share
Chris Graham
