Posted on 02/12/2003 3:18:03 AM PST by kattracks
(CNSNews.com) - A controversial African-American history initiative may be incorporated into the curriculum of public schools across the nation as early as September 2003. Twenty-four black scholars are currently finalizing lesson plans that focus on events such as the "Black Holocaust" and issues like slavery reparations that are typically not addressed by kids' textbooks.
Dennis Smith, a Milwaukee, Wis., teacher, is part of the elite group of African-American scholars from across the country who were chosen by the Thomas Day Education Project (TDEP) to participate in its 'Let It Shine' program. Both rely on federal grant money from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to support their educational efforts.
Smith and project partner, Yolanda Farmer, a fifth grade teacher in the Milwaukee Public School system, have been charged with the task of developing and promoting the "best teaching methods and practices" in teaching black history to public school children in grades K-12.
Smith told CNSNews.com that he and Farmer intend to develop a curriculum that will re-introduce African-American culture and history into the classroom.
"A lot of African-American kids have no idea of their culture. They have no idea what part of Africa they came from," he said. "If they know where they came from, in terms of their culture, then they'll know where they are presently."
Smith said his curriculum would rely on African-American historical resources and artifacts provided by the Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee.
"The Black Holocaust Museum is our history, just like slavery is our history, just like hip-hop, just like the Temptations or Elvis Presley. All of that is part of African-American history," he said. "African kids have to know and take ownership of that history, as well as white American kids must know African-American history."
Smith said the museum has already proven to be a great hands-on resource for teaching black history to local students of all races.
According to the museum's website, "America's Black Holocaust Museum was founded to educate the general public of the injustices suffered by people of African Heritage in America, and to provide visitors with an opportunity to rethink their assumptions about race and racism."
Smith said his curriculum as well as any other relevant attempt to teach African-American history should be taught when a child reaches kindergarten.
"Teaching of the young starts very early," Smith said. "You cannot wait until a child's in seventh or eighth grade and then try to teach them about their history."
He said it is important for African-American children to be able to trace their culture back to the African tribe that they are descended from, noting that he traced his own roots back to a "great empire" in Africa that existed more than 400 years ago.
But Smith said there is a greater lesson for kids, both black and white, in performing such genealogical research.
"Civilization itself started in Africa and it worked its way to this part of the world, but most African-Americans as well as white Americans don't know that," he said. "No matter how much we try to disprove that reality, it always comes back to the fact that civilization did start in Africa and then spread out throughout the rest of the planet."
The Path to Reparations
During the Civil War, Smith said black slaves were deceived into joining both Union and the Confederate armies under the false promise of free land when the war was over.
"But what both sides did after the Civil War was over, both in places like New York as well as in the South, is that they took that land," he said. "In places where there [were] promises made, promises [were] never kept."
According to Smith, racism has historically prevented African-Americans from being compensated for all of the pain and suffering that their ancestors endured.
"Every time there is a pain and suffering to someone other than a person of color, those persons are paid reparations for their pain and sufferings in order for them to be made whole, at least to some extent, restored the best you possibly can," he said. "African-Americans have suffered just as much as any group of people in this U.S. and deserve the same type of respect and care."
Smith compared the suffering and deaths of African-American slaves to the atrocities Jews suffered at the hands of Hitler during World War II and that of the Japanese-Americans who were placed in internment camps by the American government.
"After World War II, Jewish Americans [were] paid reparations because of the Nazi atrocities, and rightfully so. After WWII, Japanese-Americans [were] paid reparations because of the internment," he said. "One last example is the recent 9/11. Those Americans are being paid reparations."
"Don't look at in terms of just strictly that Let It Shine's talking about reparations," Smith said. "We'll talk about the history of a people and that will entail our history."
Smith said he would pursue funding from the Department of Education or the NEH upon approval of his curriculum by a panel of his fellow African-American educators from the Let It Shine project.
No Comparison to the Holocaust
"When people talk about 'the Holocaust' with a capital 'H', they usually refer to the holocaust against the Jews," said Neil Goldstein, executive director of the American Jewish Congress. "I don't know why one would need to take other people's terminology when it stands on its own."
Goldstein said African-Americans suffered a "horrendous" fate both in their overseas transport to the Americas and on dry land as slaves. However, he disagreed with Smith's rationale for comparing slavery to the Jewish Holocaust.
"I don't think that it's ever helpful to say that my suffering is worse than your suffering and to try to compare and contrast people's suffering," Goldstein said.
"What's particularly unique about the Jewish Holocaust is that there was an attempt to wipe-out an entire group," he said. "This was a conscious attempt to systematically exterminate all Jews. That's what was different about our particular experience."
Goldstein also disagreed with Smith's advocacy of monetary reparations for the living descendants of deceased slaves.
"Survivors get reparations. There are no survivors who are living from the days of slavery," he said. "Descendants of survivors of the Holocaust against Jews don't get reparations...it's the survivors themselves."
Black Curriculum Seen as a Social Equalizer
"It sounds like for even the white kids, they're going to find out their black roots, granted I mean we're talking probably the Stone Age when the migration of peoples [occurred]," said David Almasi, spokesman for the black conservative group, Project21.
"If you'd start teaching kids this in kindergarten, by the time they're in fifth or sixth grade, they're going to take it as fact and it's going to be going for the rest of their lives thinking that something is right when it's not," he said.
Almasi said Smith's curriculum could be compared to corporate sensitivity training sessions that are meant to foster diversity and equality amongst employees of all races, religions, sexes and sexual orientations.
Similar to sensitivity training, Almasi suspects that Smith's overall intention is to "strip everyone down to zero and start building up" as equals.
Almasi said Smith's emphasis on teaching kids of all races to trace their roots back to Africa is really an attempt to prove a history of white privilege and black oppression.
"If you want to kind of turn the argument on its head and just fire it back at [Smith], I mean, everybody has descendants that were enslaved at some point," Almasi said.
"My ancestors come from Eastern Europe and feudalism and all that was just prevalent there, so I'm sure I've got lots of slaves in my blood line. It just so happens they're hundreds of years before his," he said.
E-mail a news tip to Michael L. Betsch.
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Sadly, it is to indoctrinate. why become a newsreporter? Sadly, it is because you will be in a position to indoctrinate.
This philosophy that cannot survive the light of open discussion, this philosophy that must indoctrinate our young from day one is a losing philosophy. Sadly, the democratic party is behind this philosophy of diversity and multiculturalism and it is designed to destroy this great country.
Yes, you'll all receive a buffalo and a shoebox full of beads, perhaps some pots and pans. "we only want the best for you"
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