The right-wing crusade against inclusive curricula is a victim of its own ignorance.
The conceit behind bans on these kinds of writings — often, bans of Black authors — appears to be that obscuring them from view makes them less available, less valid and less impactful.
But the very history that conservatives want to hide doesn’t depict Black people lying down. In fact, there were literal rebellions waged — and won — against white oppressors who, much like today, saw themselves as authorities on what Black people should be allowed to learn or teach. I differ from many conservatives — I think white kids deserve to learn true American history, which tells the story of these racist efforts and the human costs incurred as a result.
But conservatives are centering white fragility in this debate over school lesson plans, which seems fatally ignorant of the righteous resistance that has and will come in response to their efforts.
Renowned poet and author Maya Angelou knew better.
The writer has been targeted by conservatives who’ve sought to keep her work away from students. Today, I’m highlighting her 1990 poem “Equality” during our “Black History, Uncensored” series, which is focusing on Black authors targeted by right-wing bans.
Maya Angelou’s idea of equality isn’t presented as a request — she demands it, she declares it hers.
It feels appropriate, because Angelou’s idea of equality isn’t presented as a request — she demands it, she declares it hers. And I don’t think she’s speaking of equality simply along racial lines. She’s speaking as a Black woman who has experienced anti-Black and anti-woman behavior.
I think it would serve conservatives well to see this as representative of many Black people’s posture toward their attempts to rewrite history and undermine the Black experience. Many simply won’t tolerate it.
“Yes, my drums are beating nightly, and the rhythms never change,” Angelou wrote in the poem. “Equality, and I will be free.”
Read the full poem below:
You declare you see me dimly through a glass which will not shine, though I stand before you boldly, trim in rank and marking time.
You do own to hear me faintly as a whisper out of range, while my drums beat out the message and the rhythms never change.
Equality, and I will be free. Equality, and I will be free.
You announce my ways are wanton, that I fly from man to man, but if I’m just a shadow to you, could you ever understand?
We have lived a painful history, we know the shameful past, but I keep on marching forward, and you keep on coming last.
Equality, and I will be free. Equality, and I will be free.
Take the blinders from your vision, take the padding from your ears, and confess you’ve heard me crying, and admit you’ve seen my tears.
Hear the tempo so compelling, hear the blood throb in my veins. Yes, my drums are beating nightly, and the rhythms never change.
Equality, and I will be free. Equality, and I will be free.
Read previous “Black History, Uncensored” posts on Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Kimberlé Crenshaw and bell hooks.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.