In Philadelphia and across the
country, 2020 was a year of public awakening
on issues of institutional racism and
long-standing socioeconomic inequities
plaguing Black people and other people of
color. The protests following the murder of
George Floyd raised awareness of racial
injustices rooted in an untaught history.
Overcoming our past means learning the
lessons of history — and requiring that high
schools offer Black, Latino, and other
ethnic studies programs.
Ethnic
studies
present history from the standpoint of
underrepresented groups in America, and
acknowledges the pivotal role of race
and
racism in society,
along with gender, class, sexual
orientation, and other identities. The
ethnic studies movement was a product of
the civil rights, Black Power, and
antiwar era of the 1960s and early
1970s, a time of heightened political
consciousness and self-identity for
young people.
In
1968,
Black, Latino, Asian, and Native
American students at San
Francisco
State University
formed
the
Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) to
fight against Eurocentric curricula, a
lack of diversity and inclusion among
students and faculty, and a racist
education system that marginalized their
communities. TWLF demanded Black studies
and other ethnic studies departments,
orchestrating the longest student strike
in U.S. history, at five months.
Students at Berkeley, Howard University,
and elsewhere followed suit, in a
struggle that has since resurfaced on
campuses.
Ethnic
studies
have impacted K-12 education, and in
more recent decades prompted backlash. A
2010 Arizona
ban
targeting
a
high school Mexican American studies
program prohibited curricula that
“promote the overthrow of the U.S.
government,” “resentment toward a race
or class or people,” or “ethnic
solidarity.”
Yet,
the
tide is in favor of such programs.
Philadelphia became the first major city
to require African
American
history
for
high
school graduation in 2005. Connecticut
will
become
the first state to require ethnic
studies in high school as of fall 2022,
with an elective course covering
“African-American, Black, Puerto Rican,
and Latino contributions to United
States history, society, economy, and
culture.”
In
California,
a law enacted in 2016 provides for an
ethnic studies “model
curriculum”
for
kindergarten
through grade 12 by March.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation
requiring an ethnic studies course for
students at California
State
University,
but vetoed
a
bill requiring ethnic studies for high
school students over disagreements over
content and concerns it “achieves
balance, fairness and is inclusive of
all communities.”
And
the
Oklahoma Department of Education is
taking a localized approach, announcing
this year a statewide curriculum to
teach the Tulsa
Race
Massacre of 1921,
when a white mob of an estimated 10,000
people burned the affluent Black
community of Greenwood to the ground and
lynched hundreds.
Gaining
momentum,
ethnic studies makes education relevant
and real for students. It boosts
academic
achievement,
critical thinking, and problem-solving,
encourages social-emotional
learning
and
respect
for other cultures, and instills pride.
However, as Columbia University
professor Gary
Okihiro
noted,
“ethnic studies is not multiculturalism,
identity politics, or intellectual
affirmative action. Not an act of
charity, ethnic studies was gained
through contestation. As was astutely
observed by Frederick Douglass, ‘Power
concedes nothing without a demand. It
never did and it never will.’”
I
was pleased to contribute to the
upcoming book, Four
Hundred
Souls: A Community History of
African America, 1619-2019,
edited
by
Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, as
an important addition to ethnic studies.
However, the book reminds me there is so
much untold history our children must
learn.
If
we
hope to have an honest discussion about
the future, we need a meaningful and
critical understanding of the past — the
whole story, not a whitewashing of
history. Philadelphia is the birthplace
of U.S. democracy and a constitution
that regarded Black people as
three-fifths of a person. This city has
a proud history of slavery abolition and
the AME Church, yet President George
Washington enslaved
Black
people
in
the
presidential
residence
at
Sixth
and
Market.
Philly also has a legacy of entrenched
segregation and poverty, of police
violence, and the MOVE bombing.
In
a
nation — and city — where the majority
of
youth are of color,
more should be done to bring racial
equity to the schools. One course is not
enough. Ethnic studies should be infused
in the entire curriculum.
This
commentary is also posted on Inquirer.com
