My daughter is
scheduled to go on a field trip where she will get to "pretend" to be
a fugitive slave. Here is a description from the materials:
"--During
this program I/we will be betraying the part of a pre-Civil War fugitive slave.
--This program
is designed to simulate the experiences of the fugitive slave, and includes the
use of aggressive language and intimidation. Program props include: sounds of
gunshots, whips and shackles."
The program
apparently also includes simulations of being sold on an auction block, and
includes pursuit by bounty hunters.
(This is worse
than the time my child and other black children were told to pretend to be
escaped slaves who ran to New York and came in through Ellis Island. This is
because the teachers running the program on the immigrant experience apparently
did not understand or believe that there were actual black immigrants who came
through Ellis Island. Never mind that I showed them evidence of my child’s own
Ellis Island ancestors and other black entrants. So, they made up this sadly
ahistorical, entirely fictitious gobbledygook. I wish I were kidding. While
there are many excellent programs in our schools, there are also some that fail
miserably.)
While the field
trip materials indicate, “At no time during the program will the visitors be in
physical danger,” this claim is belied by the quite lengthy and detailed
release and hold harmless agreement also contained in the materials. In this release
parents and students are warned that participation “may involve risk of
personal and bodily injury.” Though this release language may simply be legal
boilerplate meant to insulate the venue from what they hope is the unlikely
event of a lawsuit by a child participant or her parents, it also stands as a
clear acknowledgement that even pretend beatings, gunshots, intimidation, and
pursuit have very real risks.
This field trip
betrays a shocking level of obtuseness given all of the issues with race
relations today. As one black child (who,
like my daughter, will not to go on the trip) said to my daughter, “Why would I
want to go on a field trip and pay eight dollars so somebody can pretend to
beat me in order to frighten me?” My daughter is similarly dubious about the
value of such a trip. She has learned a great deal about slavery, much of it
through reading portions of a socio-legal history I am writing about a real
fugitive slave (some of which is chronicled at https://www.facebook.com/ThePrincetonFugitiveSlaveJamesCollinsJohnson.
My child understands, as do many other children, that we are not living in the time of slavery. But we are living in times when some of our children’s ancestors were enslaved not very far outside of living memory. And worse yet, we are living in times when incidents like the killing of twelve-year-old Tamir Rice (who, sadly and ironically, was playing with a toy or simulated gun when he was shot by the very real gun of a policeman) remind our children that the treatment of African-ancestored slaves is at the foundation of many present-day situations of social and economic inequality, injustice, racism and hatred aimed at African-ancestored people. Even in 2015, we live in the long and heavy shadow of United States enslavement of African ancestored people. Sadly, many of our children do not need situations of simulated racial hatred and oppression in order to understand it. They have seen it, and some have even experienced it.
It is important
for our society to teach our children about the history of slavery and its
legacy. However, we must do so
with, as my esteemed colleague Dr. Pearson (see below) notes, an appropriate perspective, with sensitivity, respect, and in a setting conducive to meaningful discussion. Despite the claim by the program provider that their
program has been vetted by educators and others, it is difficult to understand
how anyone, whether educator, mental health care provider, or any other
professional, could responsibly coach children through enacting trauma,
violence and injustice. Some may argue that having children who participate in
such programs be "cast against type," that is, having white children
play slaves, and black children play white masters, depersonalizes and
desensitizes the program for both black and white children. With this I
vehemently disagree. Because such "living history" presentations by
necessity trade upon the fact that all participants are pretending and live in
far more comfort than did enslaved Africans in the United States, it is simply
not to possible to replicate the experience of those enslaved persons. It is
grotesque and offensive to try to do so, perhaps all the more so when casting against
type is used. Such role-playing trivializes and makes a game of one of the
major tragedies of our country and in the history of the world.
Could we envision,
for example, a child-staffed representation of the Holocaust that involved simulated
incarceration in a Jewish ghetto or concentration camp, or a simulation of the Irish
Potato Famine that involved the mock starvation and eviction of Irish tenant
farmers by their English overlords? I think the answer is no, and for good reason. These sorts of
historic traumas are generally treated with sensitivity and respect. We
should question why this is not more often the case with African slavery.
One friend,
college classmate, and academic colleague, Dr. Kim Pearson, kindly shared with
me a link to an article that offers resources for teachers on how to teach
slavery, especially to middle school children. The link is here: http://www.blogher.com/how-parents-and-teachers-should-teach-children-about-slavery.
I urge parents, educators and curriculum designers everywhere to read Dr. Pearson’s article and to look
at these resources, many of which are drawn from the Association
for the Study of African American Life and History, an organization whose
members are historians, educators, and other professionals in the field of
African American history.
We owe all of
our children an education about United States slavery that is intelligible, thoughtful,
nuanced, sophisticated and sensitive.
