“The time is always right to do what is right.”
~Martin Luther King Jr.
More than 150 years after the end of race-based slavery, statistics show that racism is still a major problem in America. But why is that? The answer is quite simple: it’s because America’s education system has not yet required a class in high schools that teaches the science, history and truth about what race really is. Students are left guessing as to what’s true, and when confronted by the many instances of racism that exist in today’s society, the public education system has left them largely helpless, without a scientific or biological understanding of the concept race.
A compassionate, equal and safe society depends on a compassionate, equal and complete education; one that includes teaching students the facts about race. Together, we can work to implement such a class in all high schools within the United States, and use the proven way of education to end racism.
Here Are 7 Reasons Why All High Schools Need A Required Class On Race:
1. Race Is Not A Real Biological Grouping According To Science, And The Majority Of People Do Not Know That.
The idea of race is an idea which was invented hundreds of years ago; before the days of modern science, before the days of computers, cars, phones, and the radio… before the days of modern biology, before the discovery of DNA, even before the first discovery of cells. The idea of race was invented during a time when the majority of the world’s population believed that the world was flat.
Race is the ancient idea that the human species is divided into distinct groups on the basis of inherited physical and behavioral differences. Genetic studies in the late 20th century disproved the existence of biogenetically distinct races: the human genome project which mapped out human DNA from across the world proved that all humans have genome sequences that are between 99.5% and 99.9% the same, and concluded that the concept of race has no genetic or scientific basis.[1]
Science has shown that biological races are not real, but people’s appearances can vary. Skin color differences occur due to the amount of sunlight in any given area of the Earth. If a population of humans stays put for as little as 1,000 to 8,000 years, skin color begins making changes and adjusting to the optimal pigmentation to protect the body from UV radiation; both from dark skin to light skin, and light skin to dark skin. 8,000 years is the blink of an eye in terms of evolution, a very, very short time, and while some very small outwardly visible changes, such as skin color, have taken place, it has not been nearly enough time to develop any considerable differences between any two humans on our planet, regardless of ancestry.[2]
See Also: Here Are 7 Scientific Facts Related To ‘Race’ That 95% Of People Don’t Know
2. Racism Is Still A Major Problem Today, And It Causes Tens Of Millions Of Lovable People To Suffer Needlessly.
A survey reported that 64% of Americans agree that racism is still a problem in American society, and 40% of African-Americans reported that they had been treated unfairly in a store or a restaurant due to their skin color, within the past month.[3]
Why does racism continue to be a problem, more than 150 years after the end of skin-color-based slavery in America? Simply put, it’s because the educational system in America has all but ignored teaching the facts related to ‘race’ in schools. After the civil war and during the reconstruction of America, the Union’s main goal was to unite the country by any means necessary, as long as the defeated confederacy complied with ending slavery. The south was allowed to continue educating students and the public on deeply racist ideas; segregating people with black skin into the backs of buses, into ghettos and into poverty for more than a century. A class which teaches students the facts related to race shows the equality of all humans on Earth; creating a much needed environment of acceptance and compassion for all.
3. Statistics Show That Education Decreases Racism
Knowing the facts related to race through a required public high school class is the only way to truly defeat racism. Ignorance prolongs racism, while education decreases it. Research has shown that higher education levels and higher intelligence levels are connected to decreases in racist opinions and attitudes.[4]
In 2016 researchers from the University of Toronto examined three decades of data from the General Social Survey, which has periodically tested and measured Americans’ attitudes on a wide range of topics since 1972. Of the 44,873 surveyed for verbal ability and education levels, 28.8% of the highest scorers held opinions considered racist, compared to 45.7% of the lowest scorers who held opinions considered to be racist.[4] Head researcher Geoffrey T. Wodtke concluded that, “Higher verbal ability is closely linked to rejection of overtly prejudicial attitudes among cohorts socialized during or after the 1950s and 1960s.”[4]
A study conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found that 43% of Americans with no college education held anti-semitic beliefs considered racist, compared to 27% with some college education, to just 18% of those with a four-year college degree holding anti-semitic beliefs considered racist.[5]
Another study from Bowling Green University found that as education levels increased, racial tolerance also increased and that racist opinions decreased, concluding that, “higher levels of tolerance are more likely to be found in individuals with higher levels of intellectual development.”[6]
4. Racism Is The Single Most Dangerous Threat To American Society That Has Ever Existed.
From race-based slavery, to the civil war, to world war 2, the greatest historical threats to America have all been centered around race.
For hundreds of years in America, the painful bondage, forced labor and inhumane cruelty of slavery[7] imprisoned millions of men, women and children under the guise that their ‘race’ and black skin categorized them as sub-human property, rather than as equal human beings. Over 2 million people died in unimaginable conditions aboard slave ships in the Atlantic,[8] Over 4 million people died while being kidnapped and captured from their homes in Africa and led in chains on “death-marches” to the ships,[8] and an untold number of African American slaves living in captivity in America were murdered at the hands of slave owners who attempted to forcibly claim ownership over other human beings.
A massive historical threat to the United States of America was undoubtedly when the nation divided into two during the civil war; when conflicting ideas over ‘race’-based slavery tore the nation apart.[9] Over 600,000 American soldiers died, consisting of nearly one-fifth of the entire southern confederate male population.
In the 1940’s, in the largest war the world has ever seen that left an estimated 85 million people dead,[10] World War II centered around the German Nazi party’s belief that their citizens were a superior ‘Aryan race’ and that other ‘races’ were only fit for death, submission, deportation and slavery. False and twisted ideas that claimed religious Judaic beliefs somehow turned people within a religious following into an inferior biological ‘race’ of ‘Jews’ led to the cruelest torture, abuse, and genocide the world has ever seen; where over 6 million men, women and children were tragically killed over an untrue and dangerous idea of ‘race.’
A required high school class on race gives students the education they need to make accurate and informed decisions when it comes to ideas related to race, and it empowers them to say no to the harmful and misleading claims of racism.
5. All Humans Across The Globe Are Equal In Terms Of Mental Ability, Physical Ability And Musical Aptitude, Regardless Of Their Ancestry Or Skin Color.
People need to know this, not just as a moral principle, but as a scientific fact.[11] For hundreds of years, false narratives claiming that people with black skin were less intelligent than people with white skin were spread. While most people today agree that this is illogical, studies and testing results have proven that people with black skin perform equal to people with white skin when given an equal education and access to equal resources.[11]
The IQ test score results from Bermuda are examples of how equal education and equal opportunity created equal performance for black students. In recent years, the black students of Bermuda have outperformed American white students in terms of IQ testing, as social scientist Sandra Scarr explains in her study;
“In Bermuda, we found that black children have IQ scores at the norm for white children in the United States at age 2; at age 4 their average IQ score is 99, and by sixth grade they score 2 years above U.S. white children in vocabulary, reading, and math on the California Achievement Test.” [12][13]
To separate genetic factors from rearing conditions, 130 Black and interracial children adopted by advantaged White families were studied. The socially classified Black adoptees, whose natural parents were educationally average, scored above the IQ and the school achievement mean of the White population.[12]
If any concepts concerning lower intelligence and people of black skin color were true, then these test results from Bermuda would not be possible. The fact is that when given equal education and equal opportunity, black children and white children perform the same; skin color is not indicative of intelligence, and all humans on Earth have the same intellectual abilities. Understanding this truth ends discrimination and the pain that it causes for so many lovable children.
6. Each Generation Of Children Is Susceptible To Being Manipulated By Racist Authoritarian Leaders, Such As Hitler, Who Base Their Beliefs On Racial Falsehoods And Promote Cruel And Brutal Violence.
One of the last surviving concentration camp prisoners of World War 2 spent his days educating students on how to: “Never let it happen again.” He told of his desperate struggle to survive the intense whippings, beatings, starvation and labor of the concentration camp as a child. He explained how Hitler came to rise to power in Germany: first by demonizing Jews in the media, by blaming Germany’s many problems on their existence, by referring to them as animals, as less than human, and by pushing Germany to deport as many as possible, and to put the rest into concentration camps, where they were there sent to gas chambers. This brave man chose to spend the rest of his entire free life educating students, because schools did not teach how to watch for and how to be safe from dangerously persuasive racist propaganda.
The youth of America are left as sheep amongst the wolves without a proper education on the topic of race; left being educated in racist ways of thinking through uninformed family members and an often ‘racially’ charged media, and are doomed to accept ‘racial’ stereotypes from the past without an accurate public education on ‘race’ to challenge their ways of thinking.
7. Every Generation Needs To Be Taught The Same Lessons Regarding ‘Race’ and Given A Compassionate View Of Human Variation.
Every generation needs an education on the scientific evidence which proves that ‘race’ is not a real biological grouping, but rather is only a false imagined social idea, created before the days of modern science. They need to be taught the human history related to the dangers and cruelty of ‘race related ideas’ and of racism, and need to be taught the scientifically backed evidence that proves that all humans, regardless of skin color, are equal in terms of ability for intelligence and social behavior.
Imagine a world where the public education system teaches students the facts about ‘race’, and where racism finally dissipates and a safe society for everyone is created. Societies will be more compassionate, safer, and countries will be protected from the threat of possible future wars centered around racism, as have happened in the very recent past. It’s not a matter of time, it’s a matter of education.
Let’s support the creation of a required public high school class teaching the facts related to ‘race’ so that we all may truly understand race: moving beyond the compassionless and ancient ideas of racism, and promoting a safe and loving world for us all.
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You are Loved.
