By Bob Gaydos

Identification badge of a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps.

   There are not two sides to every story. With some stories, there is simply the truth. Any other “side” is self-serving justification, a lie or misinformed opinion. There’s a lot of the latter going around these days.

     In Texas, an administrator responsible for curriculum and instruction in a local school district recently told teachers who might be instructing students on the Holocaust to “Make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust, that you have one that has an opposing, that has other perspectives.”

     A new law in the state, she advised the teachers, required them to present “opposing viewpoints“ on “controversial“ subjects.

        In the land of avid anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers and supporters of the Big Lie, it shouldn’t be surprising to also find Holocaust deniers. Still.

        …The good news in this story is that residents of the school district packed the next school board meeting to voice their outrage at this advice. There are not two sides to the Holocaust, they told board members. And the school district’s superintendent agreed with them, issuing an apology that said there “are not two sides of the Holocaust.”

       The mayor of the town served by the school district, embarrassed by the national attention it brought his town, also issued a statement, saying, “There simply aren’t opposing viewpoints on the issue of condemning that monstrous evil, and I don’t know anyone who thinks there are.”

        Apparently the administrator who gave the bad advice does know some doubters. A teacher at the seminar on book selection asked, “How do you oppose the Holocaust?” 

         “Believe me,” the curriculum administrator replied, “that’s come up.”

          The administrator did get some support from one person, who pointed out that, as spokesperson for the school district, the administrator was “caught off guard” by the new law. Maybe so, but she’s being paid not to be caught off guard and actually sounded more like someone who was concerned about keeping her job.

      That’s an inevitable consequence of a law driven and written by legislators operating out of fear. There’s also a lot of that going around, too.

        The law was approved by a Republican-controlled state legislature and signed by a Republican governor, in response to a claim that Critical Race Theory was being taught in public schools. It was and is not. No one ever bothered to check where this story originated in the first place.

           Republicans’ problem with Critical Race Theory is that it teaches that there was slavery in America and racism that existed for centuries and kept blacks from being part of the “all men are created equal“ concept in the Declaration of Independence. Republicans want teachers to teach the good stuff about slavery and to present opposing views about racism in America. In Texas, apparently some politicians also don’t mind if schools teach opposing views on genocide.         

     They want to present the other side of the story, but in this one, too, that side doesn’t exist. Only lies and misinformed opinions. Schools are supposed to help students formulate informed opinions on controversial issues based on facts. On truth.

        The Republican Party is all in on the Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. That Joe Biden is not a legitimate president. They repeat this story even though most of them know it is a lie. They do this because they are scared to death that Trump will support someone else when they run for election. It is a position of cowardice, greed and ignorance. That is my informed opinion. I also submit that it is the truth based on the facts at hand. There is no other legitimate side to the story.

       I am willing to consider amending my view when local Republican elected officials begin telling the truth about the 2020 election. For the most part, they have chosen to remain silent, apparently in the hope that no one notices that their state and national party leaders have built their future on a lie. It is a political approach based on fear, steeped in racism, bigotry and hypocrisy. It is devoid of any moral standing. Indefensible.

      Many residents of the Texas school district called for the firing of the curriculum administrator. I have another suggestion: require her to enroll in a history course on the Holocaust. Maybe that will convince her that some stories need to be retold just the way they happened, with all the ugly, uncomfortable truths.

     Even in Texas.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com.