Lessons on Social Injustices from Anne with an “E”

During 2022, my daughter and I started watching Anne with an “E” on Netflix. She was at the end of sixth grade at the time. While watching Season 2, it brought up talks with my daughter about how Black people were treated back then and her asking why they don’t teach Black history in school. Sure, she might have learned a cursory bit about the occasional Black person in American history during all her years in elementary school, but I thought back to my own private and public education all through high school in the Midwest, and we never learned that much either. I was so glad for her to learn lessons on social injustices from Anne with an “E” that she would probably never learn at school.

I had to explain why Black people had been treated differently – and terribly – all those years ago and how it’s carried over to today still. We talked about how men were not allowed to marry other men and women other women until after she was born, and about how Black men and women weren’t allowed to marry white people until after her grandparents were born. Then, she asked if they just were able to date each other but just couldn’t get married. I had to tell her that Black men were often killed if they tried to be with a white woman (we didn’t even get to the part about how Black men were killed back then for looking at a white woman – or a white woman claiming a Black men made an overture towards her, even if he never did). 

Black slaves built this country, but they were the property of white men, so white men got to write the history in this country. It is our responsibility as parents to educate our children fully and NOT rely on their schools to teach them about true history and about Black history. First, we have to educate ourselves and then we educate our children. A lot of horrors of injustices are only a generation or two back; a lot of horrific injustices are still happening to this very day.

I had grown up loving watching the Anne of Green Gable series and reading the books. I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy the new Netflix series, but my daughter was the one that roped me into watching it with her. I am so, so grateful that I did! I had no idea that they would share so much of REAL history in North America and about what her Black ancestors before her had to go through. Season 1 was good, but the conversations that happened through us watching Season 2 together was even better.

Whatever ethnicity you, your family, or your children are, I highly recommend watching Anne with an “E” and having those hard and real conversations together. It will all make this world a better place for our kids’ generation and generations to come after us.