Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism.

Ewing begins by asking: “What is the purpose of schools?” (3). As an educator for the last 20 years, in a variety of settings, she has asked this question to her students many times. She generally gets similar responses, all of which revolve around preparing students for life, socializing them, and giving all children an equal opportunity at success.

Education is a key component of the American Dream. The general idea is that everyone, regardless of social status or heritage, can succeed in the United States. Central to that success is education. However, since slavery and the genocide of Indigenous peoples formed the foundation of the United States, race has long been a component of the American Dream.

Ewing argues that education plays a key role in the construction and continued upkeep of racial prejudice in the United States. She argues that, during the foundation of the United States, brutality toward Black and Indigenous peoples was facilitated through schools, which taught it to young children. The “original sins” of the title are both the violence perpetrated toward these people and the “creation of the idea that makes the violence morally permissible” (5).