It’s easy to conclude after the events of this past year that human beings are too tribal to see past color, and racism is a “ permanent feature of American life.” These aren’t the type of people who made headlines in 2021, when White supremacists waved a Confederate flag at the US Capitol on January 6, racist conspiracy theories entered mainstream politics and new voter suppression laws were enacted across the nation. They zigged when everyone else around them zagged. They are White people who grew up in families and communities where racism was the norm, but they rejected those beliefs early on. One way to answer that question is to examine a group of Americans who rarely come up in discussions about race. He says he was surrounded by people who used the N-word, flew Confederate flags and wore T-shirts declaring “The South Will Rise Again.” Hawn grew up in a White community and says he didn’t have a single nonwhite classmate from kindergarten through high school. There is nothing in his background that suggests that he’d take such a public stand against racism. His plight has divided people in his conservative, heavily White city near the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.īut Hawn’s improbable personal journey is as dramatic as the headlines he’s provoked. Hawn became one of the most prominent casualties in an ongoing debate over how racism and history should be taught to students in the US. The former public high school teacher in Tennessee was thrust into the national spotlight after he was fired from his tenured job for the way he taught students about White privilege. Matt Hawn has become a focal point of one of this past year’s biggest racial controversies. The constant attacks have reduced him to tears. He’s been called a “racist P.O.S.” and accused of indoctrinating students.
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