Happy black history month? Do you celebrate it, or learn about black history during this month?

[Msputiton]

Updates

+1 y

So i see lots of white people asking why do we have a month dedicated to black history.
Thank you all for asking this. What a great lesson in black history to be shared during black history month.
It began in 1915 by charles G. Woodson black history exhibit
So eventually a petition for many years to include black history in us history, was refused by white America. Eventually they only allowed us 1 month a year but it will not be included as part of us history.

[abc3643]

I think Black History Month is important. Each year, I usually learn something. Today, I learned that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is, not surprisingly, a racist kowtowing to the MAGA ilk.

www.nytimes.com/.../...rican-american-studies.html
TITLE: The College Board Strips Down Its A. P. Curriculum for African American Studies
SUBTITLE: The official course looks different from a previous draft: No more critical race theory, and the study of contemporary topics — like Black Lives Matter — is optional.

By Anemona Hartocollis and Eliza Fawcett
Feb. 1, 2023

After heavy criticism from Gov. Ron DeSantis, the College Board released on Wednesday an official curriculum for its new Advanced Placement course in African American Studies — stripped of much of the subject matter that had angered the governor and other conservatives.

The College Board purged the names of many Black writers and scholars associated with critical race theory, the queer experience and Black feminism. It ushered out some politically fraught topics, like Black Lives Matter, from the formal curriculum.

And it added something new: “Black conservatism” is now offered as an idea for a research project.

When it announced the A. P. course in August, the College Board clearly believed it was providing a class whose time had come, and it was celebrated by eminent scholars like Henry Louis Gates Jr. of Harvard as an affirmation of the importance of African American studies. But the course quickly ran into a political buzz saw — first from conservatives after an early draft leaked to conservative publications like The Florida Standard and National Review. And then, once the curriculum was released on Wednesday, some academics and liberal groups protested the changes.

The dispute over the A. P. course is about more than just the content of a high school class. Education is the center of much vitriolic partisan debate, and the College Board’s decision to try to build a curriculum covering one of the most charged subjects in the country — the history of race in America — may have all but guaranteed controversy. If anything, the arguments over the curriculum underscore the fact that the United States is a country that cannot agree on its own story, especially the complex history of Black Americans.

The pushback began in January, when Governor DeSantis of Florida, a Republican who is expected to run for president, announced that he would ban the curriculum, citing the draft version. State education officials said it was not historically accurate and violated state law that regulates how race-related issues are taught in public schools.

The attack on the A. P. course turned out to be the prelude to a much larger agenda. On Tuesday, Mr. DeSantis unveiled a proposal to overhaul higher education that would eliminate what he called “ideological conformity” by, among other things, mandating courses in Western civilization.

In another red flag to the College Board, there was the possibility of other opposition: more than two dozen states have adopted some sort of measure against critical race theory, according to a tracking project by the University of California, Los Angeles, law school.

David Coleman, the head of the College Board, said in an interview that the changes were all made for pedagogical reasons, not to bow to political pressure. “At the College Board, we can’t look to statements of political leaders,” he said. The changes, he said, came from “the input of professors” and “longstanding A. P. principles.”

Moreover, College Board officials said Wednesday that they had a time-stamped document showing that the final changes to the curriculum were made in December, before the Florida Department of Education sent its letter informing the College Board that it would not allow the course to be taught.

Mr. Coleman said that during the initial test of the course this school year, the board received feedback that the secondary, more theoretical sources were “quite dense” and that students connected more with primary sources, which he said have always been the foundation of A. P. courses.

“We experimented with a lot of things including assigning secondary sources, and we found a lot of issues arose as we did,” he said. “I think what is most surprising and powerful for most people is looking directly at people’s experience.”

After the curriculum was released Wednesday, Bryan Griffin, the press secretary for Mr. DeSantis, said the state education department was reviewing it for “corrections and compliance with Florida law.” Florida already requires the teaching of African American history.

In light of the conservative criticism, the College Board seemed to opt out of the politics. The revised 234-page curriculum framework ranges widely through content on Africa, slavery, reconstruction and the civil rights movement. And there is content on redlining, discrimination and Afrofuturism, as well as stories of individual achievement and heroism

But the study of contemporary topics — including Black Lives Matter, incarceration, queer life and the debate over reparations — is downgraded. The subjects are no longer part of the exam, and are simply offered on a list of options for a required research project.

And even that list, in a nod to local laws, “can be refined by local states and districts.”

The expunged writers and scholars include Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, a law professor at Columbia, which touts her work as “foundational in critical race theory”; Roderick Ferguson, a Yale professor who has written about queer social movements; and Ta-Nehisi Coates, the author who has made the case for reparations for slavery. Gone, too, is bell hooks, the writer who shaped discussions about race, feminism and class.

After the curriculum was released, Professor Crenshaw said that even if her name and others had been taken out of the curriculum because secondary sources — theorists or analysts — were being eliminated in favor of facts and lived experience, the decision sent a troubling message. “I would have made a different choice,” she said. “Even the appearance of bowing to political pressure in the context of new knowledge and ideas is something that should not be done.”

But she said she was also disappointed because she had believed the course would capitalize on a hunger of young students to learn “ways of thinking about things like police brutality, mass incarceration and continuing inequalities.”

Instead, she said, “the very same set of circumstances that presented the need for the course also created the backlash against the content that people don’t like.”

David Blight, a professor of American history at Yale University, said Wednesday that he had written an endorsement of the new curriculum, at the College Board’s request, and that he believed it had much to offer not just about history but also about Black poetry, art and the origins of the blues, jazz and hip-hop. But he withdrew his endorsement on Wednesday, after learning that some sections had been cut.

“I withdrew it because I want to know when and how they made these decisions to excise these people, because that’s also an attack on their academic freedom,” Dr. Blight said.

PEN America, a free speech organization, echoed that concern. While the College Board had said the changes were not political, the board “risked sending the message that political threats against the teaching of particular types of content can succeed in silencing that content,” said Jeremy C. Young, senior manager of free expression and education at PEN America.

The changes were also condemned by the National Parents Union and CFT, a California affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, representing education workers from childhood through higher education.

Dr. Gates, who was a consultant to the curriculum, said he was “sorry that the College Board’s policy is not to require secondary sources in its curricula.” He teaches Harvard’s introduction to African American studies, “and academic subjects such as ‘Intersectionality’ and critical race theory, the 1619 Project, reparations for slavery, Black homophobia and antisemitism are fair game, of course, for such a class,” he said in an email. The 1619 Project is an initiative by The New York Times.

Some conservatives were not completely mollified, either. Ilya Shapiro, director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, said he did not object to topics like the Black Panthers and the Black is Beautiful movement being included because “that’s certainly part of what was America.”

But after seeing the framework on Wednesday, he faulted it for omitting conservative or independent Black thinkers like John McWhorter, Shelby Steele, Thomas Sowell and Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court.

(more)

[abc3643]

“Maybe further changes could be made,” he said. “Even though they said they’re not responding to the specific concerns that Florida raised, it very much looks like they’re addressing the letter of them by making them optional.”

A. P. exams are deeply embedded in the American education system. Students take the courses and exams to show their academic prowess when applying to college. Most four-year colleges and universities grant college credit for students who score high enough on an A. P. exam. And more than a million public high school students graduating in 2021 took at least one A. P. exam.

But the fracas over the exam raises questions about whether the African American Studies course, as modified, fulfills its mission of mimicking a college-level course, which usually expects students to analyze secondary sources and take on contentious topics.

Chester E. Finn Jr., a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, said the College Board had come up with a smart strategy by not eradicating the “touchy parts,” but rather making them optional.

“DeSantis likes to make noise and he’s running for president,” Mr. Finn said. “But they’ve been getting feedback from all over the place in the 60 schools they’ve been piloting this in. I think it’s a way of dealing with the United States at this point, not just DeSantis. Some of these things they might want to teach in New York, but not Dallas. Or San Francisco but not St. Petersburg.”

(more)

[abc3643]

A. P. exams have incited conflict before. A U. S. History curriculum guide in 2014 had to be revised after it was attacked for calling Ronald Reagan “bellicose” toward the Soviet Union and giving more prominence to a Native American chief than to Ben Franklin.

There are hints that the College Board is embedding some of the disputed material, without being explicit about it. “Intersectionality” — a term that Florida says is foundational to critical race theory — is cited eight times in the draft curriculum, but only once in the new version, as an optional topic for a project.

But the concept, which refers to the way different forms of discrimination work together, seems to sneak into required course content, under the heading of essential knowledge. The writers Gwendolyn Brooks and Mari Evans, the curriculum says, “explore the lived experience of Black women and men and show how their race, gender and social class can affect how they are perceived, their roles and their economic opportunities.”

Acceptance for the new curriculum is important to the College Board, a nonprofit, because A. P. courses are a major source of revenue. The board took in more than $1 billion in program service revenue in 2019, of which more than $490 million came from “AP and Instruction,” according to its tax-exempt filing.

Teachers who are trying out the draft curriculum said it has been popular.

Sharon Courtney, a high school teacher piloting the course in New York State, said the backlash frustrated her, as every teacher tweaks and refines a new curriculum.

“You’re critiquing something that isn’t finished,” she said. “Wait until I cook the meal.”

[LiamJHayden]

I kind of celebrate black history all year long, at least musically. From Scott Joplin, to Robert Johnson to Charlie Christian to Louis Armstrong to Cab Calloway to Ray Charles to B. B King to Chuck Berry to Mahalia Jackson to Aretha to The Ronettes to the Supremes to the Staple Singers to Jimi Hendrix to Sly and the Family Stone to Stevie to the J5 and on and on and on.

[Msputiton]

Love the oldies

[Emiliamazing]

I think the school that our children go to does an excellent job of covering history, and it is most definitely not race dependent history. This is a big change from when my husband and I were in elementary and middle school. I'm always happy to learn more, and we often do when our oldest child comes home to talk about a variety of topics, not just history :-)

[melanieeeB]

We don't really have that here but I will try to give my best to contribute 🙏🏼

[Msputiton]

I appreciate it, but you don't gotta do it, unless it's something you really interested in

[RolandCuthbert]

Well, soon I will find the time to watch the original "Imitation of Life".

Fredricka Washington. What an actress!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/goLr4nSfQfQ

[Msputiton]

Yeah i just read your post i am planning to watch this now i know about it

[RolandCuthbert]

There is a more modern version. It is a good movie too.

[Msputiton]

I rather watch the original in support of her life

[RolandCuthbert]

Me too!

:D

[Hallix26]

Since that's an American invention no, but I personally defer to what Morgan Freeman said on this and the overall topic, and what he said regarding black history month might be well known but otherwise:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/GeixtYS-P3s

[Msputiton]

And i agree with him. But black history month was not something we asked for.
We asked for our history to simply be included in American history.
They refused and gave us 1 month a year.
So we have no choice but to celebrate our history once a month.
If i and many of us had it our way we could and would be able to learn about our history just like other American history year round.
But they do not want our history included so we have to accept what was allowed of us

[Hallix26]

I don't see why it'd be like that now though. If you'd simply start considering American history as the history of all who has lived there and gave up black history month, who'd stop you?

[Msputiton]

They would first have to add it to the curriculum.
Right now black history month is the time of year it is taught.
If they would include it, in the rest of the school year. I would be very happy.

But i agree. I would be more than happy to get rid of it. If they would go let's just make it us history, and put it through out the teachings of American history.
But the problem is so many people have become so adjusted to. Well it's just the way it always been, they forget to even attempt to say hey maybe we should revisit including it.

[Hallix26]

Put in a motion for it I say! Here in Sweden, political topics can often be raised to parliamentary level by first being observed on the local scene by debate articles and such, which any citizen can write and submit to papers. It's easier if you belong to any of the political parties however as you can then raise the question internally and party members already in government can catch it.

[lightbulb27]

I wouldn't say celebrate, I think I'd be laughed at by my black relatives if I did that.

I always find some interesting stories to read or videos to watch. I prefer inspirational stories of African americans... so far.

There's a movie I've been wanting to watch and will do so.

My wife and I went to the "slavery museum" in New Orleans. I could go back, there's a lot of stories to it didn't have time for.

[OfMiceandMen]

I don't have cable or satellite out in the sticks, can someone recommend a documentary on Netflix or Prime.

I would be interested in learning more.

Thanks.

[Msputiton]

Watch ruby bridges if you can find it

[OfMiceandMen]

I will try and find it, greatly appreciated.

[Wish4UrB00ty]

I don’t really try but I do often take advantage of the extra info the month tends to provide.

[Msputiton]

🥰🥰🥰

[DesiUwU]

it's part of the school curriculum now, so yeah.

[DesiUwU]

we do learn about it in school

[Msputiton]

True

[Sixgunsound]

Celebrate learn and soon enough teach as well.

[Msputiton]

🥰🥰🥰

[loveslongnails]

No more than I learn about history any other month, except that more of it will come across my feeds this month, and that's fine.

[loveslongnails]

What YOU said is why I agree with Morgan that it's more of a slap in the face than a heartfelt attempt at anything: " Eventually they only allowed us 1 month a year but it will not be included as part of us history."

[Msputiton]

Yup. I try to take advantage of the exposure and hope one day it can just be apart of American history but just not there yet

[KittyKat90210]

I always make a point of shopping at local black-owned businesses during black history month. To me it's just a quiet way of showing my support and acknowledging the importance of diversity.

[linka_pat307]

Never knew it was there.. WELL am learning a lot from you

[Msputiton]

🥰🥰🥰

[Jennz6]

They show movies on television about people during the Black History Month

[Msputiton]

So true

[Jennz6]

Lots of good stories and educational

[Fuentes]

https://www.youtube.com/embed/WFY2kJ96jNY

Yup!!

[Msputiton]

💪🏾💪🏾💪🏾

[BJP21]

The majority of Motown 50s rock and roll were Black Music artists.

[Msputiton]

Very true.

[BJP21]

Individuals such as Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, a Chubby Checker and many more all over came racism in the music industry and their music is still listened and danced to this day.

[DizzyDesii]

I dont go out of my way to celebrate it but I’m proud to be black

[DaveJord]

No not really... I mean I have history degree so it not news to me.

[HippieVeganJewslim]

You, too! I don’t really celebrate it, but I find history quite interesting. I learnt that many Africans sold fellow Africans to slavery on Quora.

[Bklynbadboy12]

Yes I do and I'm always open to learn more about black history

[Msputiton]

Same.

[NewsReader]

Don't care. Every month is the same to me. Plus, why do we need one day, week, month to enjoy or celebrate something?

[Msputiton]

Because they won't allow black history to be taught with American history.
They refused us that right to be included in American history. So they separated it from the rest of American history.
It is a good question why white America did not want our history included in American history

[NewsReader]

It is included in American history classes. I learned about it throughout middle school. Everything worth knowing is already included. What you read about the Florida thing is misleading. Not only is black history included but it's also required. So they do teach all the important stuff. What got rejected is material that has nothing to do with black history and stuff that is not for the purpose of educating but for indoctrination. It makes perfect sense. If I was a parent, I would be 100% against having my kids be indoctrinated with false claims that have a leftist political agenda.

[Msputiton]

During black history month.

[NewsReader]

Same thing. Everything related to black history is included. There is nothing more left. Feel free to browse online for whatever info sounds interesting to you. Just don't brainwash our children with false claims and push political ideologies on them. It will screw with their mental health and give them a false sense of reality. Our children are already messed up because of covid restrictions. It's gonna take decades to recover from that.

[Msputiton]

🤣🤣🤣

[Msputiton]

How bout we remove the white history and allow y'all to find your history online and teach ours in school year round

[NewsReader]

That would be discrimination. White and black history is already taught in school. It's required because both are part of American history. You can't teach one without the other.

[SmokinAces2000]

I haven’t done anything today but I’m planning on watching some black history documentaries this month

[motownplayer2000]

I don’t celebrate anything when it comes to time of year.

[Straight2thepoint]

Learn about evey history. Therefore we can all understand our own.

[Babygirl_S]

It's not celebrated in my country. We don't have any such month.

[Charliefretz329]

To be honest, I don’t celebrate any of the assigned months or days.

[legalboxers]

Im all for it and interested in it..

Downrate in 3..2..1.

[Anonymous]

I ignore it as much as possible and go on with my month as any other. Its not something I celebrate.

[Anonymous]

Shop at black owned businesses.

[Iron_Man]

Happy Black History Month,

[Msputiton]

Same to you.

[humanearth]

Nope, We do not

[Hispanic-Cool-Guy]

Nope.

[TallAnon]

I can't say I care.