We have failed Kyler Watkins

Kyler Watkins’ claim that he didn’t know blackface would be offensive is not as farfetched as many might think.

It reminds me of when I was working as a wardrobe mistress at the Indiana Repertory Theater on a smaller stage that produced educational plays schoolchildren would be bused in to see. In one play, a black father warns his son of the possibility of lynching. In the question and answer session that followed, the most asked question about this play was “What is lynching?”

We have failed our children. Education has been cut to the marrow. Students use 40-year-old textbooks because there is no money to replace them. Teachers live paycheck to paycheck. College graduates are so loaded with student loan debt it would make our parents blanch.

It is almost like some malevolent force is trying to make Americans dumber, poorer and weaker. Any history a student is taught, if they are exposed to history at all, is sanitized to the point of lying through omission. How can we expect youngsters to learn racial responsibility with no training? Why have the so-called adults of this nation not demanded an educational revolution?

It is entirely possible Kyler Watkins had never heard the word “blackface” and had no idea that it would be offensive.

We failed him.

This story was originally published April 26, 2018 at 1:30 PM with the headline "We have failed Kyler Watkins."