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The movement
to implement an appropriate African Centered Curriculum in
predominately African in America inner city schools is critical
to the ongoing struggle for the liberation of African people
in this country. If
this movement is to be successful, just like the impact of
the youth in the 1960s, it will be the youth of this era
that must rise up and take leadership in changing America’s
public school systems to teach the truth.
Throughout
the country, Africans in America are now becoming more sensitive
to challenging the racist and white supremacist basis of
the African public school curriculum. Through
the National Black United Front and its world African Centered
Education Plan, more Africans in America are beginning to
see the need for massive curriculum change in the public
schools of this country and the youth must take leadership
in this project.
There is
not a day that goes by that someone does not call my office,
seeking information and help on how to start the process
of changing the curriculum in their school. Parents are becoming
more and more dissatisfied with what their children are being
taught. They are also beginning to realize how much isn’t
taught.
It is clear
that the public school system is the place where African
America children receive a significant portion of their view
of the world and the history of the world. And, it also is
a place where large numbers of African in America youth are
miseducated under the system of white supremacy, through
the ideas and interpretation of history that is presented
to them.
Let’s turn
to Carter G. Woodson’s great book, The Miseducation
of the Negro, to get some further insights into this
problem. Woodson observes “the so–called modern education,
with all its defects, however, does others so much more good
than it does the Negro, because it has been worked out in
conformity to the needs of those who have enslaved and oppressed
weaker people.”
For example,
Woodson says, “The philosophy and ethics resulting from our
educational system have justified slavery, peonage, segregation
and lynching. The oppressor has the right to exploit, to
handicap, and to kill the oppressed.” Continuing on, Woodson
explains that, “No systematic effort toward change had been
possible for, taught the same economics, history, philosophy,
literature and religion which have established the present
code of morals, the Negro’s mind has been brought under control
of his oppressor.” Concluding on this point, Woodson states, “The
problem of holding the Negro down, therefore, is easily solved. When
you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about
his actions.”
Therefore,
it is inspiring to see so many of our people waking up all
over America and seeking the truth concerning the real contributions
of African people to the world. Through study groups, conferences,
Black talk radio and information network exchanges, African
Americans are coming into a new African consciousness that
seeks to reclaim the African mind and spirit.
Through
the Portland Model Baseline Essays, the work of the Kemetic
Institute, the Association for the Study of Classical African
Civilizations (ASCAC), and other writings and curriculum
materials, Africans are becoming much more aware of the following
points that must be incorporated into the curriculum.
-
Africa is the home of early man.
-
Africa is the cradle of modern man.
-
Africa is the cradle of civilization.
-
Africa once held a position as world
teacher, including the teacher for the western world.
-
There was and there still is a continental-wide
unity in Africa and in the African communities around
the world.
-
The first time Africans left the continent
was not on slave ships.
-
Africa and African people all over
the world have been under siege for nearly 2000 years
and only recently by European slavery and colonization.
-
There is an African Diaspora all over
the world today.
-
African people have resisted domination
on the continent and all over the world.
-
Even under slavery, colonization, segregation
and apartheid, African people have made monumental contributions
to arts, science and politics.
These ten
points, and others, have become the basis upon which we can
judge the white supremacy public school curriculum's content
in textbooks and other learning materials.
In other words, these points have become the basis of determining
whether the truth is being taught in the public schools of
this country.
The Truth will set us free!
BlackCommentator.com columnist
Conrad W. Worrill, PhD, is the National Chairman of the
National Black United Front (NBUF). Click
here to contact Dr. Worrill.
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