Legitimacy of Learning

It is disturbing to think that within the halls of academia there are areas of study that must still fight for an admittance of legitimacy or simple acknowledgment of a valid and important academic effort. We live within a society/nation that has made the terrible mistakes of fervent and organized racism. The results of this were the horrid events and images associated with the black struggle for equality. These events and images have brought such shame and embarrassment to a nation that the study or research of these times is often ignored or institutionally urged to do so. I was told by a friend who had grown up and been educated until college in Germany that the holocaust and the years in which it existed are not discussed or spoken of in educating youth of Germany's history. We can find a similarity here in that the very shame that prevents the German educational institution from teaching of these years is the same that prompts the denial of an education in African American history. While the shame and embarrassment is warranted, this should be no reason to deny students and faculty alike the opportunity to research and teach about significant events that have shaped the history of our nation and its people. In order to prevent this education, the powers that be then attack the legitimacy of not only the subject matter but those who are scholars within this area. Discussion of this history does bring about questions and a revelation that our nation is not flawless, but to attack the quality of one's education or to deny the ability of students to be exposed to such subject matter is yet another protective device implemented in order to protect the vaguely pristine image our nation but to also prevent unsatisfactory opinions of said nation by its citizens.