The morning bell rang at Republican High (“Home of the Fightin’ Pachyderms”) as students shuffled in. Gretchen Niedermeyer dry swallowed a couple of pre-emptive aspirins and reminded herself as she did every morning that she was just 16 months and – a glance at the calendar – seven days from her pension.
“Good morning, class,” she said. “As you know, oral reports on African-American history are due this morning.” She ignored a chorus of groans. “Tommy, you go first.”
Tommy Weissmuller stood. “My report is on slavery,” he said. “Slavery is when they made the black people work really hard. Like, they even had to work on weekends. And the Founding Fathers were surprised when they heard about this. They thought it was unfair, so they had a war with the South to make them stop. Then the South realized the Founding Fathers were right and together, they ended slavery. The end.”
Mrs. Niedermeyer willed herself to stop grinding her teeth and marked a B+ in her grade book. In the old days, she’d have given him an F. But that was before 2021, when Republicans banned Critical Race Theory, the 1619 Project, museums, history books, Spike Lee movies, Spike Lee, dreadlocks, Black Panther comic books and anything else that made white people uncomfortable.
Mrs. Niedermeyer sighed. Sixteen months and seven days.