America is engaged in a national debate about teaching black history.
Democrats and those on the left accuse Republicans and conservatives of not wanting blacks to know their history. Nonsense! What is really happening is Democrats only want their version of black history to be taught – and it is a highly politicized and a highly censored spin on history.
It can be fairly argued that up until the mid-20th Century, black history was not adequately represented in elementary and high school history and civic classes. (Thanks to left-wing academia, we essentially do not have civic lessons anymore.)
It has been more than 70 years since a more expansive black history was being introduced as part of core curricula – and when colleges created Black History courses. The controversy arose because the very liberal academic establishment began to tell a history founded on today’s political environment – a black history that placed emphasis on partisan political advantage over objective review.
While black history in the past gave short shrift to the contributions and accomplishments of Negros throughout American history – and tended to follow the predominantly Democrat imagery of blacks as lazy, ignorant, and immoral.
It was not until college that I learned the first fatality of the Revolutionary War was a black man named Crispus Attucks … of the Negro military units that fought in World War II … of the accomplishments of people like Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and Percy Julian (whose nephew was a friend of mine).
We were taught about the wrongness of slavery … that the early presidents owned slaves … of the 3/5 Clause, the Civil War, Emancipation, and Reconstruction. There was no mention of the black Republicans who entered Congress after the Civil War, however.
I did not need my school to teach me about segregation in the South and de facto segregation in northern cities – such as my own Chicago. I lived it. I saw Democrat Jim Crow laws in action. Traveling in the South, I saw the “colored only” signs. I saw on television the dogs and cattle prods used as instruments of law enforcement. I lived through the Republican’s successful efforts to pass civil rights legislation in 1965, 1960, 1964, and 1965 – although Democrats and the left steal the credit.
The problem with the new black curricula is that it is designed to indoctrinate along partisan lines – to produce political support for Democrats and the left. The new racial curriculum is not educational but politically biased. It is underscored by the left-wing bias that casts all things American in a negative light.
So-called African studies are used to attack modern Republicans (conservatives) by condemning traditional American values. It claims that the GOP is the party of racists and racism. The new black curriculum is based on racism against whites of European ancestry – and intended to divide rather than unify.
If you have any doubt that the black-oriented education classes have become a political cudgel against folks with conservative values – even distorting the definition and meaning of the word “conservative” – you only need to listen to the radical views of the professors who teach those courses – and they are featured regularly on left-wing cable news platforms.
They include Professors Eddie Glaude (Princeton), Jason Johnson (Morgan State), Michael Dyson (Vanderbilt), and Cornell West (several professorships) – to name a few. White left-wing historians – such as Jon Meacham and Michael Beschloss — are also part of the cabal of historians who teach and proffer the false history of the partisan left. None of them are objective teachers of history but are radical partisan advocates of left-wing ideology.
The underlying themes of black education in this country are based on several falsehoods – (1) that America is a pervasively racist nation, (2) that white folks are inherently racists, (3) that white conservatives are especially racists, (4) that white folks are in constant fear of being “replaced” by people-of-color, and (5) that Republicans are racists and Democrat Party is the Party of equality.
To maintain this ideological bias, the left completely cancels and censors all the FACTS that expose the underlying dishonesty of the propaganda. The so-called African studies courses virtually never reflect the role of the Democratic Party in institutionalizing and maintaining black oppression throughout American history – to this very day.
In fact, calling attention to the Democratic Party’s factual fundamental role in black segregation and oppression brings outrage from the left. In the view of the left, America’s “original sin” can be discussed – but only without mention of the sinners.
I have often said that Black History Month should be two weeks because it only deals with half of the reality of black history.
Allow me to emphasize Republicans, conservatives, and white people have no interest in “white washing” the tragic history of black enslavement, segregation, and history. But we do oppose the gross distortions of both history and contemporary reality that are the bedrock of much of the current approach to black history.
The campus attacks on the Founders – and even President Lincoln – demonstrate just how far modern black history – in schools, in the media, and in entertainment – has traveled from reality, truth, and objectivity.
During this month, I will offer an occasional commentary of the subject of black history and racism in America. I will likely include facts you may not have known or considered.
It will certainly call to task the left’s dishonest and harmful spin of black history – and how black history is crafted and censored to fit the modern left-wing political agenda by spinning elements of the history to deceive and conceal rather than enlighten.
So, there ‘tis.