hope raises no dust

things i wish i’d learned in high school  

hobbitdragon:

lovebelikeawhirlwind:

1. everything in your history books, with few exceptions, is filtered through the lens of white Eurocentric eliminationst thought. you will only learn what a board of educators, working with a biased, racist agenda, decide is fit for you to know unless you go out and educate yourself. unless you sit down, shut up, and listen to other voices
2. history is not something you absorb and passively take in. history is something you wrest from the mountains of bullshit, something you piece together from bits here and there, something you follow in a patchwork pattern, not a linear progression, something you are constantly expounding on and working with.
3. the contributions of marginalized groups do not exist in high school history except as tokens there to contribute to a vision of sanitized and non-threatening ‘diversity’. whatever marginalized group you belong to, you will not see any realistic representation of it in class or in texts.
4. the most beautiful truths to be found in global literature are unlikely to be found in your required texts.
5. sometimes it is not about learning, but unlearning, and recognizing your privileges and dismantling them. this is not a process with an end. this is a process you choose to engage in for the rest of your life. it is not meant to be easy or comfortable. it is meant to hurt, to disrupt, to be real.
6. people have a vested interest in keeping you ignorant.

Yes. YES. THIS.