I used to think of history as a series of facts and dates with some areas of argument, mostly due to my high school education convincing me that history textbooks and teachers were infallible. Since coming to college and studying work like Dr. Hayter’s, I have learned to critically analyze every piece of writing and find the argument that the author is trying to convince you of. For example, I had always learned that MLK was the main cause of desegregation with little to no help from others. I had never learned about the background work behind the movement and the extreme amount of planning and thought that it took to accomplish, which seems incredibly ignorant in retrospect. To know that so many people, especially black women, were historically ignored simply because they did not appeal to white people is extremely frustrating but easy to believe. MLK was an incredibly well-spoken, highly-regarded pastor and man, which automatically gained more of a white following than any black woman could. In this sense, he was the strategic choice for the face of the movement, but the work of other people in the movement should not be ignored as it currently is. Taken into today’s events, I wonder how the BLM movement will be remembered and historically told. Will people in 50 years know that 3 black women began the movement to protest another murderer walking free, or will they see it as a series of riots across the US? I guess that will depend on who is writing the history, but it is interesting to consider.
On a very different note, I liked that Dr. Bezio mentioned that the people of the past are not so different from the people living today. I always picture historical figures living in black and white or gray-scale worlds, like they are depicted in movies through color-grading, but this is obviously not true. There are key differences in core beliefs and daily practices, but the body and mind of an ancient Egyptian are nearly identical to my own. Maybe I’m alone in this, but I find it incredibly strange to think about it this way, and I’m not entirely sure why. I want to distance myself from historical figures because their lives seem so much different from mine, but in reality, we are mostly the same.
I think as our society becomes more technologically advanced, people often think that people themselves have also become more intelligent. To a degree, we have become more educated, but we really haven’t change intellectually. This false perception defiantly makes people perceive that the past is unimportant. However, we know now that history often repeats itself, which makes history important to understand.
I really relate to what you say about your own high school education, as the same notions were told to me in my high school education. Although history seems to never be told completley accurately, as each perspective tells it differently, I think with the advances in technology and access to records such as social media, it will be much easier for historians to record history more accurately and various perspectives, including the “common” perspective, moving forward.
I can relate to having trouble imagining historical figures as real people who thought and felt and experienced the world the way I do. I think that part of the reason for that disconnect is the way that history is taught. You’re right, from the time we’re young, we read about these people, and they’re always presented as if they were robots who just made rational decisions. We gloss over any accounts of their actual thoughts and feelings, which makes it harder to humanize them.
My high school education felt a lot of the same as yours. It was presented as pretty binary; good guys and bad guys, and only ever talking about the good guys in a positive light. In reality, very few if no people are completely “good”. My high school never taught me about George Washington owning slaves, or that there were other influential civil rights leaders than Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks, and Malcom X. A critical reexamination of history and the way it is taught is necessary for us to fully understand our own past.