The legislatures of our backward states are bubbling with legislation intended to prevent teachers from teaching the truth about American racism. Republican legislators are horrified at the prospect of white students coming to realize the race-centered sins of their ancestors and contemporaries; they affect to be aghast at the prospect of anyone coming to feel guilty or ashamed because of his/her race; and so on and so forth. They intone frightening segregationist slogans that they have exhumed and given some cosmetic treatment for contemporary consumption. 

Of what are they really so afraid? They are afraid that the devil that has infested America from its foundation is about to be exorcised. They are afraid that buried truths that question America’s self-esteem will be laid bare to generations to come. They are afraid of change. The actual fears of these legislators and the voters to whom they appeal can be  summed up in their prayer: “Don’t make me think, don’t make me change.”