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The Spreading Disease and the Creation of Monsters
On my social media feeds over the past year, I have seen individuals post about the fact that the individuals who screamed at students outside schools in Little Rock, Memphis, New Orleans, and elsewhere don’t want history taught because it will illuminate their actions. I understand this argument; however, what I’m more interested in the ways that white supremacy, patriarchy, and other ideoligies get passed down from generation to generation. I’ve written about this countless times on this blog, detailing how I am only five generations removed from an ancestor who fought for the Confederate States of America during the the Civil War.
Over the past decade, I have encountered countless texts that explore the ways that vile ideology moves through time from generation to generation. I’ve looked at this in relation to antisemitism and Nazi ideology in the work of Anna Seghers and others. I’ve looked at in relation to enslavement, examining Edwin Epps’ son in Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave. We know that children are impressionable, and they seek to please those who have authority over them. They learn from adults and older siblings. They trust authority figures: teachers, pastors, others. If individuals espouse hate, then the children take it into their own beings.
