CURIOUS ACCOUNTABILITY

In a time when the telling of history is like a battleground, I find myself walking a quieter path. More introspective.
Not denial.
Not dogma.
But something else entirely—A Curious Accountability.

This reflection began with a meme and deepened with a book. It’s not meant to lecture—only to share what I’ve learned, what I hadn’t known, and what I refuse to unknow now.

Today, I was doing what I often do in the dark and quiet of morning—scrolling. Thumb tapping, brain napping. Letting one post slip into the next like fallen leaves down a lazy creek. A butt-shaping jean for old men. A wide-eyed puppy meme. They didn’t stick, but I’ll give the algorithm credit—it knows me well enough.

Then, all at once, I stopped. Or something stopped me.

A meme. Red letters. White background. No photos. No fuss.
Just this:

IT’S NO ACCIDENT THAT…

You heard about “states’ rights” but not that slavery was mentioned 80 times in the secession documents.

You heard about the New Deal but not how Black families were redlined out of home ownership and generational wealth.

You heard about Watts and L.A. but not Tulsa or Wilmington—how entire Black communities were destroyed and then forgotten.

You were told George Washington had wooden teeth, not that he bought human teeth from enslaved people.

You learned about Helen Keller’s disabilities, but not her radical socialism, pacifism, or anti-racism.

You barely learned about W.E.B. Du Bois at all—one of the most important Black scholars and activists in American history.

Privilege is having history rewritten so you don’t have to face uncomfortable facts.
Racism is perpetuated by people who refuse to learn or acknowledge this reality.
You have a choice.

Well. That’ll wake you up faster than caffeine.

I sat there, thumb frozen mid-air, coffee cooling on the table. A quiet sense of grief settled in—more nod than sob. Like showing up late to a truth that had been waiting.

A few years back, I read a book called Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People. It shook something loose. It said:

“We cannot easily control our unconscious without first becoming aware of what it is.”

That was the first time I saw bias not simply as a flaw of character, but a trick of the mind—unconscious, inherited, quiet as background noise. That book handed me a lens. This meme? It held it up to my face.

They said the Civil War was about states’ rights.
But Mississippi’s secession document mentioned slavery right up top.
Eighty times, across the Confederacy.
It wasn’t coded. It wasn’t implied. It was the whole point.
The historical record shows that slavery wasn’t a side issue—it was the core.

They said the New Deal saved America.
And it did—if you were white.
Black families were redlined—cut off from mortgages, neighborhoods, futures.
It wasn’t just about who got a house.
It was about who got to build wealth.

They never told us about Tulsa.
A thriving Black community—doctors, teachers, shopkeepers—burned to the ground by a white mob in 1921.
Planes dropped fire from the sky.
Hundreds dead. Thousands homeless.
And for decades? Not a word.

They said Washington had wooden teeth.
That was the story—kind of folksy.
But the facts? His dentures were made from ivory, metal, animal teeth—and human teeth.
Historical records show he bought teeth from enslaved people.
It’s in his own ledger: a payment to “Negroes for 9 teeth.”
We still don’t know if those teeth ended up in his mouth, or the willingness of those people were.
But we do know this part in his ledger never made it into our textbooks.
It splinters the myth, doesn’t it?

They said Helen Keller overcame everything.
Blind, deaf, and brilliant—a triumph of spirit. And she was.
But they left out that she was also a radical socialist, a pacifist, and an anti-racist.
Perhaps that part didn’t fit the story they wanted to tell?

And they barely mentioned W.E.B. Du Bois at all.
Co-founder of the NAACP. A towering scholar.
A man who wrote, marched, agitated, and imagined a freer world.
You’d think he’d earn more than a footnote.
Seems history is curated for comfort.

I’m not young—but I’m still learning.
Still unlearning.
Still finding the pages they left out or tore out.

Because history, told right, doesn’t just glorify. It illuminates.

Maybe that’s what growth looks like now:
A meme. A memory. A quiet reckoning.

And the choice—not to look away.