As we enter Black History Month, it comes time to reflect on Black History. But, unfortunately, some have chosen instead to avoid, disregard, and destroy the truths of our nation’s dark history.

Black History Month is about celebrating the accomplishments Black people have made throughout American history, but it is also about acknowledging the challenges, discrimination, and unrelenting horrors our nation has subjected them to. After all, it is impossible to do one without the other; without the context of slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, and mass incarceration, there is reason to celebrate the progress and culture that Black Americans have built.

On his first day in office, Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed 11 executive orders. The first of his 11 executive orders made it clear that he was going to follow his campaign promises regarding education. 

Executive Order One was summarized as follows: “Political indoctrination has no place in our classrooms. The vast majority of learning in our schools involves imparting critical knowledge and skills in math, science, history, reading and other areas that should be non-controversial. Inherently divisive concepts, like Critical Race Theory and its progeny, instruct students to only view life through the lens of race and presumes that some students are consciously or unconsciously racist, sexist, or oppressive, and that other students are victims. This denies our students the opportunity to gain important facts, core knowledge, formulate their own opinions, and to think for themselves. Our children deserve far better from their education than to be told what to think.”

Youngkin’s administration has doubled down on attacking educators and education  by creating a tip line that allows parents to report, as he said in a radio interview this week, “any instances where they feel that their fundamental rights are being violated, where their children are not being respected, where there are inherently divisive practices in their schools.” The initiative is a part of a broader push by Youngkin to identify and root out what he says are elements of critical race theory in the state’s curriculum. 

Make no mistake about it, this is not about identifying and eliminating elements of critical race theory. Critical race theory is not taught in public schools in Virginia. It is a graduate level theory that is most commonly used in law schools to educate lawyers about the systemic oppression of people based on their race. 

This is just the start of his plan to eliminate any teaching that exemplifies the racist history of both Virginia and the United States as a whole. This is a blatant attempt to whitewash classrooms in a way that is designed to handcuff educators even more. 

This is an attempt to turn public schools and classrooms into political battlefields ahead of the 2022 elections. Youngkin and his faction used critical race theory as a bogeyman during the 2021 gubernatorial race in Virginia, and the strategy brought them victory. Now, they plan to use the same strategy of fear mongering with misinformation and disinformation to continue winning elections.

Youngkin’s executive order does not just seek to ban critical race theory but “divisive concepts,” a term that can only be described as just as vague as it sounds. What qualifies as divisive in the digital age when politics has become more polarized than ever? There are conspiracy theorists who literally believe that John F. Kennedy, Jr. is going to rise from the dead and join their cause. 

What qualifies as divisive? Are people afraid of their children learning about Selma and Bloody Sunday? Are they afraid a child will take the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to heart? Are they afraid that if we tell children that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, then the Founding Fathers may no longer be held up as false idols? 

An old and well overused adage says that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, so why are some people so eager to forget history?

Black History Month cannot exist without teaching divisive concepts. We must acknowledge the truth regardless of how morally abhorrent it is. Segregation was divisive. Redlining was divisive. Mass incarceration is divisive. Slavery was so divisive that there was an entire war about it. And Dr. King had a 75% disapproval rating when he was assassinated, according to history James C. Cobb.  

Black History Month is about teaching about divisive concepts.

Fortunately, Senate Democrats have begun to fight back against his measures by voting down a bill aimed at controversial instructional materials in public schools.. 

For Youngkin, this may just be a temporary setback. He will likely continue to attempt to suppress educators and tear away at the fabric of our public schools.