This recent article in the Washington Post is a must-read. This conversation against CRT keeps us from having the more important one of expanding African American, Mexican American, Asian American, Native American and Indigenous Studies, Women's and Disability Studies to the entirety of the K-12 curriculum.
Among so many other things, these courses illuminate struggles over symbols, difference, and narrative power and who gets to tell what history of Texas, Florida, and the United States.
The irony of the situation is staggering.
This is an agenda that is about narrowing curriculum and ensuring thought control ("Don't say gay") in a context that screams for more humane policies where both teachers and their students are getting the tools and resources they need to manage the meteoric rise in knowledge and information over the last several decades to the point of risking getting buried under it.
Geez, then you, as a kid, have to split your brain and put up with a backwards, hostile, uncaring curriculum just to make it through your day?!
How will all the children subjected to such hostility and contempt then be able to do well—that is, to "succeed" in this reduced, dumbed-down, uninspiring way? One possible consolation is that many of them already never had a just and caring curriculum and pedagogy to begin with.
That said, what's different in the current context is that unlike previous generations, our Gen Z youth are within a click of all that so-called "dangerous knowledge" that our governors seek to curb.
It's all so predictable.
Even if some good things still happen in school, it's an education that our youth will mostly not believe in. Not that it has ever been Nirvana by any stretch of the imagination, but rather that the racial animus embedded in the policy intent is clear and will inescapably show up in the implementing of these retrogressive policies and policy agendas.
We must collectively fight and stop this nonsense.
Gen Z, you have a major stake in the outcome of these battles.
One good way is to fight back is to advocate for Ethnic Studies. Go before your school boards and engage them in the matter. Get involved and be a voice to reason. Run for office.
Remember that it is a vision for greater peace and justice that motivates and inspires. African American Studies is precisely anchored in these same ways of knowing and being in the world.
Everyone should at least have one chance in their lives to take an African American or other Ethnic Studies course. They provide the intellectual tools—and thusly, a quality mind—that helps students to understand the world in which they live. A sociology course would also help, but would likely not equally serve as a vehicle for healing and reconciliation, beginning with oneself.
Within the academy, we totally need to hold onto our Ethnic Studies and Women and Gender Studies programs as these are the spaces within which difference can be discussed in deep and meaningful ways. At their best, they also double as a second home to all of our communities, on an off campus.
One day, I trust, all of our Ethnic Studies programs will simply be called "a good education."
-Angela Valenzuela
DID POLITICS SCRUB ‘SYSTEMIC’ FROM AP AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES PLAN?
Writing and editing the Advanced Placement course framework was a tense exercise in a polarized America
A politically charged adjective popped up repeatedly in the evolving plans for a new Advanced Placement course on African American studies. It was “systemic.”
The February 2022 version declared that students should learn how African American communities combat effects of “systemic marginalization.” An April update paired “systemic” with discrimination, oppression, inequality, disempowerment and racism. A December version said it was essential to know links between Black Panther activism and “systemic inequality that disproportionately affected African Americans.”
Then the word vanished. “Systemic,” a crucial term for many scholars and civil rights advocates, appears nowhere in the official version released Feb. 1. This late deletion and others reflect the extraordinary political friction that often shadows efforts in the nation’s schools to teach about history, culture and race.
The College Board, which oversees the AP program, denies that it diluted the African American studies course in response to complaints from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) or his allies. But a senior College Board official now acknowledges the organization was mindful of how “systemic” and certain other words in the modern lexicon of race in America would receive intense scrutiny in some places.
“All of those terms were going to be challenging,” said Jason Manoharan, vice president for AP program development. He said the College Board worried some phrases and concepts had been “co-opted for a variety of purposes” and were being used as “political instruments.” So the organization took a cautious approach to the final edits even as it sought to preserve robust content on historical and cultural impacts of slavery and racial discrimination.
“We wanted this course to be adopted by 50 states, and we wanted as many students and teachers as possible to be able to experience it,” Manoharan said. His acknowledgment underscored the inherent politics behind promoting a course that deals so squarely with race in America.
Documents and interviews with several people involved in the course’s creation, including university professors in the field, show the process was both routine and fraught. While Florida, a major state, raised objections behind the scenes, there is scant evidence tying its complaints to specific changes in the course.
[More states scrutinizing AP Black studies after Florida complaints]
Course developers had long discussions on how many weeks should be devoted to origins of the African diaspora and a student research paper on an elective topic — a back-and-forth typical for academia. Those decisions squeezed time allotted to contemporary issues. But the tense political atmosphere guaranteed the winnowing of lessons on topics such as reparations and movements for Black lives would be second-guessed even if experts deemed it necessary for pacing of the course.
