Every Lesson They Taught Us Was a Choice — and
So Was Every Lesson They Didn’t

We cannot address systemic racism in education without first naming it for what it is.

Every lesson was a lie by design. There is no such thing as a neutral curriculum.

Systemic racism in education is not ancient history —
it is the air our children still breathe every time
they walk into a classroom."

Every choice about what to teach — and what not to teach — is a political decision.

When schools spend weeks on Greek and Roman civilization but never
mention the Egyptian civilization that our ancestors built,
that is a choice. When our children learn about the
Founding Fathers but nothing about our
kingdoms of Mali, Songhai, or Kush,
that is a choice.

These choices reflect a deliberate effort
to maintain a racial hierarchy — one that
positions white history as universal history
and our history as an afterthought or footnote.

He argued that American education was designed to produce Black
people who were psychologically dependent on whiteness —
people who had been taught to see themselves through
the eyes of their oppressors. It was not a lack of
education. It is the type of education
weaponized against our minds.

They Integrated the Buildings and Left Our Story Outside

When Brown v. Board of Education was decided in 1954,
many of us believed it was the beginning of true educational equality.
What actually happened in our communities told a more complicated story.

The evidence of systemic racism in education didn't disappear
after Brown v. Board — it just put on a new suit.

Our schools were closed.
Our principals and teachers —
many of them deeply committed educators
who had spent their careers serving our children —
were demoted or dismissed.

Our children were bused into white schools where
they were often unwelcome, where the
curriculum still did not reflect our
history, and where the expectations
placed on them were frequently lower.

I attended an all-black elementary and high school until the tenth grade.
I had all-black teachers, men and women; all-black principals and administrators.

After so-called integration, the school system went from one hundred
percent black to three percent. The logic behind the change?

After decades of an all-black system, suddenly,
there were not enough “qualified” black educators. 
That is the part of the result of “school racial integration. 

So the buildings changed, but the lies didn’t.

Systemic racism in education did not disappear when the law changed either — it evolved.”

To this day, most of our children graduate without ever learning
that Africa was the birthplace of human civilization, that our
scholars in Timbuktu were preserving and producing knowledge
while Europe was in the Dark Ages, or that our enslaved ancestors
brought sophisticated knowledge in agriculture and engineering that
directly built this nation's wealth.

Our People Are Descendants of Greatness

Real education about our people does not begin with enslavement.
It begins in Africa — the continent where all of humanity began.

Real education teaches that the ancient Egyptians, who gave
the world mathematics, medicine, architecture, and philosophy,
were our ancestors. It teaches that Cheikh Anta Diop spent his life
proving, with scientific rigor, that our civilizations were the foundation of world civilization.

Real education does not make our children feel like victims.
It makes them feel like the descendants of greatness —
because that is exactly what we are.

Understanding systemic racism in education is the first step
toward dismantling it — and reclaiming what was stolen from us.

We were not given the full story. But it is never too late to reclaim it.

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Read Part 1 to understand how this system was originally built against us. 
Then join us in Black History Unfiltered — and start learning what 
they never wanted us to know.

© Professor Kenyatta | professorkenyatta.com