History is Happening Today

History is Happening Today
January 6th, 2021.

My name is Cedrick Finnie, and I am a social studies teacher, in the capitol city of Texas, on January 6th.  Last night, I sat on my computer thinking about what lesson I wanted to teach to my World History students.  I thought about picking up where I left off, as today is the first day of the spring semester.  I sent a message on Microsoft Teams to my partner World History teacher and asked her what she was doing, to ensure we were on the same page (and secretly hoping that she already made a lesson that I could steal).  She told me that instead of picking up exactly where we left off, she would instead have her kids do a current event assignment.

Today is the day that a runoff election in the state of Georgia could have (and did) give the senate a Democratic majority, to compliment the Democratic majority in the house of representatives and a newly elected Democratic President.  Today is also the day that electoral college votes would be (and will be) certified, confirming the new Democratic President, and as previously mentioned, we are in the middle of a deadly global pandemic; so if there’s a day to complete a current event assignment, this is that day.  Not only is the assignment timely, but I figured it would give me a chance to talk about primary and secondary sources, and give me a little bit more room to just have a conversation with my kids as opposed to teaching at black boxes on my zoom screen.  January 6th, I copied a module from the Blend module of Rosalinda Rodriguez titled “History is Happening Today.”

As the students walked in and logged in on Zoom, I asked them about something that made them smile over the winter break.  I heard about kids spending time with their families and eating delicious food and receiving gifts.  I instructed them to complete the current event assignment and told them I would be playing NBC live news in the background because of the impact today’s election would certainly have on the country.  As we watched along, we heard updates about the Georgia runoff and the COVID pandemic.  When those students left and went to lunch, it was a still peaceful day, with the exception of President Donald Trump making a speech.  As lunch came to an end, President Donald Trump was still on TV and claiming repeatedly that the presidential election from November was fraudulent, and insinuated that Vice President Mike Pence was a traitor if he didn’t reject the electoral college votes.  

As lunch came to an end, the House and Senate met to certify the electoral college’s votes, knowing that objections were planned.  I greeted my Geography class after lunch with the same question; what is something that made you smile over the break, and the answers were similar to the history kids.  While the kids worked on typing out answers to their questions, the first objection was made about the state of Arizona.  

The answers were essentially the same - family, food, and gifts. I planned for the Geography kids to watch a couple of videos as a class and answer some questions over them together.  So after the greeting, I muted the live news and started watching the lesson’s videos and facilitated the class completion of the questions assigned.  We made it through both videos, and I thought a three-minute brain/stretch break would be good for us, so i set my phone timer and walked to my door for some fresh air while looking at my phone.  I saw a social media post where someone said Trump supporters were “Storming the Capitol.”  I immediately went back to the computer to see what they were talking about, and it was exactly what they said it was; Trump supporters (with Trump hats, shirts, flags to show who and what they were there for) had stormed the capitol building.  US Citizens had taken siege over the United States Capitol Building; a sentence that I never thought I would type.

I immediately ended the lesson for my Geography kids.  I told them that in a social studies class, there’s no excuse for talking about anything else while this is happening live on camera. I put out a tweet on my Teacher/Coach twitter account that reads “At a time like this, as a social studies teacher you HAVE to tune in and make sure your students see it. I’ve been telling them all day they’re living in a future history book.”  The tweet was essentially to cover my behind - because there was no way I was going to watch this happen and not tweet it out to my friends and peers while it was happening - but it also acknowledged my role as an educator and public servant to make sure these future voters know exactly what’s going on in the world around them. 

The next Geography class didn’t even walk into a greeting.  The news was on and remained on for the rest of the day.  I did my best to give them a run-down of what was happening, and told them that they are living in a future history book chapter.  I encouraged them to write down what they were observing and what they were feeling about those observations.  I told them that if they did so, there is a possibility that their feelings could be used on a future standardized test as a document based question.  I can’t tell them to write down their observations and feelings and not do so myself, so I’m writing this short essay.  

My feelings are all over the place.  I left school and immediately jumped into a car with my lovely family, and my 3 and 1 year olds were oblivious to the history happening around them (obviously); they were just happy to see their daddy. And I was happy to see them.  2020 was an exceptionally tough year for myself, like it was for millions of other people. I lost a lot of people in my family and extended family, including my grandfather, and my normal outlets, sports and social gatherings, were no longer safe.  Just a couple of weeks ago on Christmas Eve I told a longtime friend and sorority sister of mine that “I have no more capacity for sadness.” 

I found out yesterday that I will have a son in June, and I’m excited about it.  But that excitement is clouded by the fact that this pandemic is putting my already existing family at risk, and making it impossible to attend ultrasounds and doctors appointments with my partner.  I had just made a post about how upset I was that I couldn’t be there for the appointments before all of this started. My post was critical of citizens that wouldn’t do their part to stop the spread of the virus, but I am a firm believer that leadership - namely president Donald Trump and his republican senators who, until today, seemed to follow along with whatever wacky idea he had - is fully responsible for the popular response (or lack thereof) to COVID 19.  

Multiple times, they said it was a hoax, or that it wasn’t a big deal, or that it’s just another flu, or that it will magically disappear.  If a country’s leadership constantly downplays the severity of a Global Pandemic and undermines world and national health officials, how can anyone expect the people of that country to do the right thing?  How can we expect people to stay home and avoid in person work, but then not provide them with the resources they need to survive if they don’t go in?  The evidence shows that you can’t.  The virus rages on, and people are still jobless, still struggling, still being evicted, and most importantly, still dying or causing permanent damage to their bodies.  

The Citizens that stormed the Capitol just walked right in. There is a video of police literally opening the gates for the insurgents to walk in.  There is a video of police taking selfies with people that took siege over the building.  There is a video of police holding terrorist’s hands as they walk out of the building.  There are pictures of a man who infiltrated Nancy Pelosi’s office, stole some of her mail from her desk, and walked out of the building unscathed.  I can’t help but think back to the protests over police violence and how it disproportionately affects Black People, and how the police greeted those protesters with more violence.  I can’t help but think about how the national guard pepper sprayed a crowd of peaceful protestors for no reason other than to take a picture in front of a church sign while holding a bible (separation of church and state?).  I think about the juxtaposition of the two movements and I’m offended.  I’m hurt.  I’m sad.  I’m disgusted.  I’m angry. I’m disappointed.   I’m not surprised.

I get those same feelings every time I see Trump mention voter fraud.  I get those same feelings every time I see someone use the term “both sides,” as if this issue doesn’t sit squarely on the shoulders of one man and all in his party who indulged him for four years.  I get those same feelings when I read about how Facebook and Twitter finally decided to take his posts down for being false and harmful, 4+ years too late.  I get those same feelings whenever I hear someone say “this is not who we are,” because this is exactly who we are, and exactly what this country voted for back in 2016.  I get those same feelings whenever I hear Republican senators, who sat idly by as Trump blatantly called for the insurrection that happened today, say that they condemn the actions of those people like they didn’t ask for it.  I get those same feelings when I think back to 2016-17, and how I was blackballed from some teaching jobs because I had the nerve to disagree with the man who caused all of this while working in 2 extremely white towns and school districts.  I get those same feelings when I think about being blackballed, because people were, in effect, willing to see my daughter starve because I didn’t agree with this man and this system which I knew for a fact would cause the carnage and destruction that came to a head today.  I get those same feelings when those same people, who wouldn’t hire me back then, make posts about how they’re disgusted with the leadership and disgusted with what happened today.  

I saw someone on twitter say something to the effect of “hopefully this is the rock bottom that we needed to hit,” and I couldn’t agree more.  Eddie Glaude said that this country is unique in the fact that we refuse to acknowledge our sins, and I feel that we have to come to a reckoning.  This country’s sins are no longer deniable.  They’re right here in our face, and if we don’t finally learn the lesson that we should have learned hundreds of years ago, this moment that we hope is a “rock bottom” will just be the beginning of a free fall, and I, along with millions of others, will continue to have those same feelings of hurt, disgust, sadness, ander, disappointment; and those are feelings I hope my two daughters and future son never feel. 

History is Happening Today.  History has happened today.  Whether this is the end to a very dark chapter in our future history books, or the continuation of something much darker than it already is, is yet to be seen.  I’d like to say I’m hopeful.  I really would like to say that.