Orwell in Real Time: An English Teacher’s Musing on Events in Minneapolis

This week I’ve been getting my seniors ready to read Animal Farm. It’s the one book on the senior curriculum that I’m excited to teach. To prepare the students to understand the allegory depicted in the novel, I’ve done activities that have introduced them to some key themes and historical events they need to be familiar with. One of the things we’ve discussed is propaganda. As a kid growing up during the Cold War, I struggled to really understand how propaganda worked. How could society be so malleable, so susceptible to being brainwashed? How could people absorb a dictator's words so completely without bothering to do their own research? As a teacher, I had trouble conveying to my students the power of words, the way in which people believe fallacies simply because they were repeatedly told that these deceptions were reality. After all, I live in America, land of the free—Free Press, Free Speech, Freedom of Religion. Our Founding Fathers deemed the First Amendment to be invaluable for a country determined to be independent and free of tyrannical rule. The purpose of freedom of speech and press was to ensure that the truth could not be buried, that citizens had the right to speak out against the government and the press had the right to report events accurately regardless of the consequences. 

But that was back in the eighteenth century, back when our fledgling country was struggling to meld itself into a cohesive whole. The First Amendment came of age at a time when information traveled slowly and news was printed in weekly newspapers and pamphlets. Today, with the rise of social media, information travels far more quickly and news is being published continuously on various online platforms. Unfortunately, much of what we read online is not accurate. Ten years ago, we elected Donald Trump as president, and it was not long after he took office that the term “Alternative Facts” entered our vocabulary. Alternative facts, as any well read and well educated American knows, is simply a euphemism for lies. By the end of Trump’s first term, COVID had already claimed the lives of millions of Americans, but Trump and his base, refusing to believe science, began spreading misinformation via social media. Suddenly, the First Amendment was reinterpreted by MAGA to encompass the right to speak, share, and spread information that is not factual. We were leaning into the realm of propaganda, and still I could not comprehend how anyone could believe what they read online or heard on Fox News when it so blatantly contradicted experts in various fields. 

Part of the problem is people only read what the algorithms feed them. They make no effort to consult outside sources. They see something online and retweet it or share it without bothering to do any research. And if you pay close attention to Fox News, and the way in which they idolize Trump and vilify liberals, their tactics are akin to state run media in countries run by authoritarian governments. They continuously report events from only one extremely skewed perspective, and they interview people who repeatedly tell you what to believe instead of simply sharing the facts and leaving the audience to make their own conclusions. When the masses are told what to believe, it removes the need for critical thinking, and instead of analyzing evidence on their own and comparing multiple accounts, people begin to parrot what they hear with increasing confidence that it must be the truth. 

When I first introduced propaganda to my students in the framework of preparing them to read Animal Farm, it felt like an abstract concept. I tried to make it more tangible, but my examples fell flat. My students are not very familiar with history, so each historical example I offered required me to provide a brief historical lesson. Unfortunately, my students got lost in the mire of all this background information and tuned out before I could completely convey my point. As for current, real life, tangible examples, well, I shied away from using them as a form of self preservation. This year I started a new job at a district in which I am happy. Therefore, I want to keep my job, and as a first year teacher in the district, I felt it safest to avoid explosive political issues. It was best, I felt, to not openly express my political views, especially since it is possible that they run counter to the administrators who will ultimately decide my fate next year. However, just because I chose not to bring politics into the classroom, didn’t mean my students were immune from connecting the political dots and sharing their rage with me.

For four months, Lorenzo sat in my class and was not terribly engaged with the subject material. It’s an honors class, so he was relatively good about completing all assignments, but the only time I heard his voice was when he was off topic talking to his friends. That all changed on Tuesday when we read the short story “Those Who Walk Away from Omelas,” by Ursula Le Guin. Before reading the story, I posed the question: “Your world is perfect. You have everything you ever wanted; achieved every goal you ever set out for yourself? Would you give it up if you discovered that one person had to suffer and endure loneliness so you could prosper? Explain.” Nearly everyone was in agreement that they would not give up their happy lives and they offered various justifications as to why. Lorenzo was more nuanced. He started out agreeing but then hinted at the idea of a rebellion or revolution. By the time we were halfway through the story, he blurted out that he changed his mind. He absolutely would walk away. I’d never seen him so animated, so invested in a story. With a few minutes remaining before the end of class, he started to draw parallels between the suffering we discussed in the story and suffering in real life. This prompted me to make a comment about propaganda, bringing the conversation back to a lesson we had done before winter break, but before we could delve deeper into it, the bell rang.

Later that afternoon, while scrolling through Instagram, I learned that Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The video showed Jonathan Ross firing three times through Good’s window. It was gut wrenching and terrifying to watch. Following the shooting, the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement in which they accused Good of weaponizing her vehicle. As a result, one officer was hit. He was taken to the hospital and later released. This statement, released by the Federal Government, completely contradicted every video I saw. While Good pulled into the street, it appeared that she was waving to ICE to pass her. Instead, officers jumped out of their vehicle and not only demanded that she step out of her car, they attempted to pull open her doors. At that point, she reversed—slowly and not very far—adjusted her wheels to turn AWAY from the officers, and then tried to drive away. Her driving never appeared manic, aggressive, or weaponized, but before she could get away, an officer drew his gun and fired three times—through the windshield and the open driver’s side window—the gun aimed each time intently at Good’s head. The evidence my eyes saw did not at all match the rhetoric of the government. Immediately, I thought of Orwell’s well known quote from 1984, “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” I was not the only one. Within hours, the quote was trending on social media. My second thought was, “Damn, I’m teaching the wrong novel.” 

The next day, I was closing a window in the classroom when Lorenzo walked in, dropped his bag, and hurried over to me, “Bro,”---yes, he calls me Bro all the time; it’s not a battle I care to fight, besides, I’ll take Bro over Miss any day—“Did you see it? Yo, it’s getting worse. And they’re trying to tell us that what we saw was wrong. But Bro, my eyes work. I saw it. He killed her. But people believe what they’re telling us.” His hands flew to his head in exasperation. “It’s so messed up. I mean, I saw it. We all saw it.” And suddenly, the lesson I tried to teach earlier on propaganda was instantly tangible. Lorenzo saw it real time. He watched it play out on TicToc and every other social media outlet. He heard the government tell us not to believe what we saw, but what they said. And he saw how America reacted, those who called bullshit, and those who bowed down and worshiped the lies.

I read Orwell’s 1984, probably twenty years ago. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t exactly like it either. But twenty years ago we elected Obama. America was a much different place. It wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t on the verge of an authoritarian nightmare either. I think it’s time I revisit the novel, especially on the heels of the Minneapolis murder and teaching Animal Farm. It’s terrifying to live in a society where government agents can shoot citizens in their cars and the government will adamantly state that the agents were justified—even when video evidence contradicts their statement. 

In 1946, Winston Churchill gave a speech in Missouri warning Americans of Soviet influence and aggression in Europe. During that speech, he declared, "An iron curtain has descended across the Continent." The Cold War was in its infancy, but clearly, England and the United States already regarded the Soviet Union as the enemy. Three years later, George Orwell published 1984 to warn the English speaking world about the evils of an authoritarian government. By the time 1984 rolled around, I was in fourth grade and we were five years out from the fall of the Berlin Wall. I learned about Communism as a kid, but the Soviet Union was far away and far removed from my life. I gave it little thought. In fact, despite being well educated and well read, I gave little thought to Orwell and the possibility of a totalitarian regime taking control of America. Orwell’s novel was fiction and though I strongly believe that fiction can speak to us more strongly at times than non-fiction, that it can divulge truths more real than reality, his words never invoked fear because I didn’t think it could happen. Not here. Not to me. Not in America. I was wrong. 

In all my years of teaching, never has a real life event so clearly illustrated a concept I was trying to teach. Never have I seen a student so animated as he connected content from class to the real world. For the briefest of seconds I was excited. I experienced the euphoric high that teachers get when a genuine “Ah-ha,” moment occurs in their classroom. Lorenze got it and I was thrilled, until I remembered the circumstances surrounding his enlightenment. ICE agents should not be murdering Americans, but they are. The question is: what are you going to believe, your own eyes and ears, or the Party that’s telling you to ignore the facts. Orwell warned us. We didn’t listen. So now what are we going to do about it? Perhaps that should be the next question with which I begin class.