The European Hand That Rocks the African Cradle

The other day I caught a couple of glimpses of Cheyenne Autumn, the 1964 film featuring Ricardo Montalban and Richard Widmark among others. The movie tells the story of how the Native Americans known as the Cheyenne tribe were led to starvation when the American government reneged on their treaty and refused to deliver promised supplies. Desperate and with little to loose, the native tribe makes the decision to travel fifteen hundred miles back to their original territory. Originally ordered to stop the natives, Captain Thomas Archer, played by Richard Widmark, learns to respect the tribal people and is moved to help them in their quest. I won’t spoil the movie for anyone who wants to see an old fashioned western.

But at the very end of the movie there was a white school teacher who was responsible for teaching all the native children. Before one of the little native children could leave her side to live the rest of his life he had to give the white woman the biggest hug of affection from a student to his teacher that barely remained legal. Interestingly, the child never showed his mother or father such affection. In fact, the Native Americans never showed much affection to anyone. On behalf of what remained of the Native American community and on behalf of my Chickasaw ancestors I was offended by the subtle messaging. Because the white woman was the source of the boy’s education chances are good he would always have some fond memory of the European culture that was so instrumental in the destruction of his tribe.

There is a special bond that develops between a teacher and a student. Such a bond could rival the bond between a child and the parents if people make the mistake of taking their relationship with their child for granted. It is normal for children to develop a respect for their teacher that could easily supersede the respect from their parents. A teacher’s word can challenge a parent’s word especially when the parent is not known as a source for guidance, discipline, order, or credible information. The parent’s power as a role model can be replaced by the adult at the front of the classroom that engages the child six hours a day, five days a week, for eight months out of the year.

Who teaches the impressionable children of the black community? Like most institutions in America the board of education is most often dominated by a white mindset. The institution of educations in the black community follows the example long established in America by the Europeans. Most people who work in the field of education are trained by the European model to perpetuate the European model. Therefore, a black school full of black teachers smack dab in the middle of the black community and controlled by a black board of education will still have the influence of a European mindset setting the standards of what is and is not important for our children to learn and for what our children are to value.

I have nothing but appreciation for the many teachers I have had in my life. They have taught me many things that I take for granted and many things that I hold dear. But through all of these teachings, my teachers were incapable of teaching me what should be important as an African American. Everybody understands that schools are important for the development of our children’s intelligence and social skills. Everybody understands that black schools are important for the development of the black community. But with a mindset so totally entrenched in the white mindset, too often even the black schools in the black community are inadequate for teaching the black experience from a strong black perspective.

Our schools only spend so much time on the history of slavery and the blatant racism of segregation, Jim Crow, and the civil rights movement. The only African history that is taught from this European white mindset perspective is the history of Egypt. And the history of Egypt isn’t even really taught as a black African history but more of a mulatto history heavily influenced by the Europeans. Few people realize that areas of study such as astronomy and metallurgy and mathematics actually are rooted in African history. Most people are ignorant of the contributions that black people have made in the earliest stages of humanity. Why?

My world history classes spent a great deal of time studying the cultures of the European and Asian continents. But little time is actually spent in the study of cultures in Africa, South America, or North America prior to the introduction of the European. The Americas didn’t exist until Columbus was credited for finding it even though the great grandparents of the grandparents of the grandparents of the native people called these lands home. Native Americans have lost their homelands in the most serious abuse of eminent domain and property condemnation. The very name of the native people is derived in European culture.

The board of education curriculum is fine for teaching our children reading, writing, and arithmetic. Schools are fine for teaching our children European history or the history ofAsia. But the curriculum for African American history is woeful. Black people don’t know the true history of our African community icons. I ask young people questions about the history of Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Harriet Tubman, even Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the answers you hear are sad. Dr. King is famous for his speeches. Rosa Parks is recognized for refusing to give up her seat to a white man. Black people should be thankful to Abraham Lincoln because he freed the slaves. The list of examples of oversimplification in the history of children of Africa goes on and on and on

Instead, black people are taught to respect Galileo, Christopher Columbus, the pilgrims, Lewis and Clark, and other icons of the white community. The result is a minimization of black culture, history, and value and an appreciation of white culture, history, values, and accomplishments. Of course the descendents of Europe could care less about this imbalance. But the insignificance of the black community should be seen by the black community as nothing less than the most devious form of racial psychological guerilla warfare on the black community.

Unfortunately, with so many people in the black community that went through a European based educational system, too many of us are reluctant to see the system that educated us as having any responsibility for keeping us where we are. Too many black people are more than happy to let the white hand that was there rocking our educational cradle to continue ruling our world. Like the little boy from the tribe in the Cheyenne Mountain movie we are embracing a culture that is doing its best to destroy what remains of the African American culture.