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Comment by kian | Hacker News Reader

The first step to doing something about it is actually believing you're capable of it. I believe what the person you are responding to is trying to get across is that if we first focused on the achievements of a people, then when they later learn of the hardships endured, they will have a belief in themselves that they have the power to change it.

And as importantly, that doing things in the other direction may have the effect of blunting that.

Which, given that it's pushed so strongly, and mostly by upper class whites, is starting to feel like the point.

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Do Jewish parents "save their children" from history lessons and postpone them?

When is the holocaust and other info about historic anti-semitism introduced?

I would be surprised to hear that they delay this, I believe some of these historical stories/events are part of their religious studies as children.

Giving the oppressive system a pass for X number of years and letting children walk through society ignorant of the threats they face is an even bigger disservice that any demoralization that may or may not occur in my opinion.

Black children literally get murdered by the state for benign activity, I think by 13 (the age Tamir Rice was murdered) they are old enough to start learning why.

We are not saying to "postpone" history lessons, but to contextualize them with other historical facts that are more important. While the holocaust is extremely important, I believe that a celebration of their shared culture, including the Torah, occurs first in Jewish homes, as the accumulated wisdom, the greatest and longest-lasting achievement of the Jewish faith and peoples.

Likewise, in a documentary series on any given people, perhaps episode two could focus on the difficulties, after episode one contextualized them with their successes?

I don't believe anyone suggested hiding or otherwise not sharing the history of oppression of any people in this comment thread. I recommend that you look back through and consider why you came away with a different impression.

>We are not saying to "postpone" history lessons, but to contextualize them with other historical facts that are more important.

Please give me some examples of these "facts that are more important" where racism and WS are concerned.

>I don't want my kids to be taught that there's this amorphous but pervasive "systemic racism" and "white supremacy" out to get people who look like them, but which they can't do anything about.

That final qualifier is the red flag to me, nobody teaches that "they can't do anything about it" (stating that seems purposely dishonest), the goal of these teachings is in large part about changing/fixing systems through awareness.

Side note: This history is also for white children who in many cases are negatively affected by these systems in non-obvious ways and are an important population to inform as they are potential future participants in the correction.

My intuition tells me when important and uncomfortable historical facts come up and certain people bend over backwards to make you look away, the goal is to distract, hide, and obfuscate.

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