Pam Y. Fields

A friend shared a news feed with me where people were rejecting reality-based curriculum being taught in schools.

Reality, Truth, Facts – It’s not always pretty but Truth is necessary for healing. Looking at the reality of our society, the truth, and facts – We are a structurally racist society that was founded on the principle of white supremacy.

As I scrolled down the post trying to get to the end of the comments, I gave up. A feed like that, where people go down a rabbit hole of positive and negative comments, is not productive. It is not even dialogue even though there is a back and forth.

My questions:

• When did reality and truth become a bad thing?
• When we had a president who consistently lied and incited hate and violence? Being confronted with this bad behavior for a president, there were not calls from every neighborhood and state for his removal from office.
• When we saw him push his racist agenda forward and hope became embedded in his lies? The hope of fellow racists, insurrectionists, ‘patriots’ and other white supremacists to take their country back from all the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) who have flooded this land; this land that does not belong to them anyway.

The bible that I read says, the truth shall set you free. I believe in this word of scripture; thus, I believe we are way past the time of telling the truth about OUR country. It is more imperative now as we balance precariously between the way of truth and all that is good for our country and the way of lies and a reversal of all the accomplishments made for justice and peace.

We need to teach not only our children but also the numerous adults who do not know of the atrocities, obstructions, and oppressions in US history. We need to expose them and receive healing as a nation. We also need to expose the myriad of ways from slavery and even into present day where the system has been and continues to be infused with racism and oppression toward BIPOC, especially Blacks.

We need to know these things so we can understand why there are calls for equity and justice in every aspect of society. In Joshua 24:15 it says, ‘Choose ye this day!’ Today, I choose peace and justice!

What do you choose?