FILE - In this May 18, 2021, file photo, a teacher, center, and her third grade students wear face masks and are seated at proper social distancing spacing during as she conducts her class in Rye, N.Y. In response to a push for culturally responsive teaching that gained steam following last year's police killing of George Floyd, Republican lawmakers and governors have championed legislation to limit the teaching of material that explores how race and racism influence American politics, culture and law. The measures have become law in Tennessee, Idaho and Oklahoma and bills have been introduced in over a dozen other states. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)
FILE - In this May 18, 2021, file photo, a teacher, center, and her third grade students wear face masks and are seated at proper social distancing spacing during as she conducts her class in Rye, N.Y. In response to a push for culturally responsive teaching that gained steam following last year's police killing of George Floyd, Republican lawmakers and governors have championed legislation to limit the teaching of material that explores how race and racism influence American politics, culture and law. The measures have become law in Tennessee, Idaho and Oklahoma and bills have been introduced in over a dozen other states. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File) Credit: Mary Altaffer

I started out enjoying the piece from Robert Clegg (Monitor, 6/13) regarding the positive attitude he was raised with regarding the American melting pot. It reflected values I was raised with and ostensibly shared by the community in Portland, Maine in the 1950s to 1960s. However, was it real?

When in high school, my brother’s friend chastised me for not dancing with him at a dance, though I did “several times with that N-word.” While classes, band and sports teams were biracial, social clubs were not. Racism wasn’t overt, but it existed under the table, even in the northeast.

When later traveling to Virginia, I was horrified to see water fountains and restrooms labeled for Black and white. While aware of racism, it was easier not to confront the reality many of our fellow citizens were living.

We lived in England when my husband served in the Air Force. While attending the base chapel, we sat with the family of a co-worker of my husband. As a little boy of color walked by, I asked the co-worker’s son of about the same age if he was a friend. The child emphatically said no. I asked why. He looked stunned I would ask, then said, “because he is so, so, so blacky!” This, from a five-year-old.

Just because we lived with families or in communities where racism was an undertone doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. Horrific examples of racism in our country include slavery, voter suppression, forced segregation, burning crosses, homes and communities, sham trials and lynching. It is our American history.

We need to face it as the Germans must face the sins of the Holocaust. Only by learning about and facing it can we truly understand the enormous consequences to our society, like the inequality of opportunity, the costs to our medical and justice systems, our economy and more.

Courses about racism don’t cause hate any more than psychology courses cause students to become bi-polar, schizophrenic or depressed, and criminology doesn’t create murderers or thieves. They create an awareness of past sins and the problems and inequities of opportunity that deprive our society and economy of the very best all of our citizens can contribute. With knowledge and understanding, our kids won’t repeat a racist history.

(Edith DesMarais lives in Wolfeboro.)