When we, as white folks, recognize our lack of knowledge and understanding of Juneteenth, I hope that we can see it as a SYSTEMIC failure of our education system and not simply the lack of a single event within our curriculum or textbooks.

We don't start to fix this with the addition of a single lesson. We start to fix this with a systemic change in how we teach our children. We start to fix this by recognizing that when we say our schools perpetuate white supremacy, we mean it is built into the curriculum.

The history we teach to our students, too often, centers only the story of white Americans and paints a false picture of perpetual progress and a country that is constantly improving. We do not teach the consequences of that growth.

We do not teach the ways white Americans took advantage of others in order to make that growth. And we do not teach the stories of the many other groups of people whose stories have always intertwined with those of white Americans.

Not only do we not teach those things, but we do not teach our students that those things even exist, so they dangerously come to believe that the only truth that exists is the one that is presented in their textbooks. These are the things that need fixing and changing.

And we have the power to do that. But it is hard work and long work and not the kind of work that can be done with a single lesson. But it is possible work and I hope that we can hold on to that as we walk into the coming school year.