In an open letter to the eighth grade social studies teacher who asked us to write about what we would have done had we been slaves,

“I wonder what you were thinking when you berated the class for giving unrealistic answers to that question. I wonder if it had ever crossed your mind that perhaps you didn’t frame the question properly.  It isn’t even as if we had studied any primary texts or other things to help us put your question into context. I never forgot that assignment. Actually, this might have been one of the things that made me think that I wasn’t interested in social studies or history for years. The whole thing seemed as silly to me then as it seems to me now.”

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