Hicks: Censoring history has never been a good idea. History proves that. – Charleston Post Courier

South Carolinas greatest strength has always been its history and the people who made it.

This is the land of William Moultrie and Mary Moultrie. One defended the city from British invasion in 1776, the other defended Charleston hospital workers from being criminally underpaid in the 1960s.

It is the home of a patriot named Isaac Hayne, who went to his death rather than fight his countrymen in the Revolution. And its the home of Septima Clark, an educator who stood beside Martin Luther King Jr., taught adults to read and was part of a group of South Carolinians who forced the most momentous Supreme Court decision of the 20th century: desegregating public schools.

And this state is the birthplace of John C. Calhoun, South Carolinas most accomplished statesman and one of the most influential American figures of the early 19th century.

Point is, our states history has seen more than its share of the good, the bad and the ugly on our journey to create a more perfect union. In a state as diverse as this, some of that invariably brushes up against issues of race.

So, itd be a shame if some cynical elected officials and perpetually perturbed malcontents prevent future generations from ever hearing those stories.

See, state lawmakers are promoting a series of bills allegedly to ban critical race theory from South Carolina schools. What they actually want to stop is the teaching of history.

Critical race theory is an academic concept mostly taught in law school (and in no South Carolina public schools), and concerns racial bias baked into institutions redlining in the banking industry, etc. Few people understand that. Even these misguided lawmakers concede they didnt know exactly what CRT is.

So they made up their own definition.

In one House bill, the first line of the definition says public schools arent allowed to teach that any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin is inherently superior or inferior.

So these geniuses are inadvertently banning Calhoun, who once said, The Whites are an European race being masters, and the blacks are the inferior race and slaves. Thats according to William Montgomery Meigs The Life of John Caldwell Calhoun published in 1917.

Some of this is pandering and plain ignorance, but mostly its about courting voters who also dont know what critical race theory is, but they sure are mad about it.

Fact is, they want to ban anything that presents African Americans or Native Americans as victims of discrimination. They fear unvarnished history, as opposed to the whitewashing it got back when we (and they) were in school.

This is happening in many places today; the Florida legislature wants to bar teaching anything that causes white discomfort. Which sounds like one of the side effects of those nebulous pharmaceuticals advertised on TV.

Who is so sensitive they melt down anytime they hear that someone in the past, with no relation to them other than skin color, did something bad? Identity politics much?

Truth is, history is messy, and doesnt fit neatly into any one box. A few years before South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond ran for president as a Dixiecrat on a pro-segregation platform, he was honored by the NAACP for his role in prosecuting a Greenville lynch mob that took a black man out of a jail and killed him.

The people who cry that moving Confederate monuments erases history now want to do that exact thing where it matters most. Some even want to ban books, when anyone who really knows history realizes that book banners are never the good guys.

All this is stirring because race is again center-stage in our national shouting match (debate is too dignified a word). Even Charleston City Council is having a tough time creating a Commission on Human Affairs and Racial Conciliation.

Council members have been bashed by folks who falsely claim that the committee is intent on paying reparations and defunding the police. Which is baloney.

Fact is, this proposed commission is clearly meant as a compromise to those low-information voters. When an ad hoc commission did recommend such radical ideas last year, City Council wouldnt even take official possession of the report that included them. Proposing a more modest, and moderate, commission like cities around the country have had for decades was a polite way to show the first group the door.

But thats not good enough for people who believe only what they choose, what matches their narrow worldview. Those people clearly dont know history and therefore are doomed to repeat it.

Too bad they want to drag everyone else into that scarcely illuminated safe space with them.

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Hicks: Censoring history has never been a good idea. History proves that. - Charleston Post Courier