[ The right has compiled a glossary of words like “abolition”
and “equity” that it deems suspect in classroom contexts.]
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EDUCATORS AND PUBLISHERS ARE FIGHTING THE RIGHT’S ATTEMPT TO ERASE
BLACK HISTORY (REVISED)  
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Eleanor J. Bader
April 17, 2023
Truthout
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_ The right has compiled a glossary of words like “abolition” and
“equity” that it deems suspect in classroom contexts. _

Ayo Walker / Truthout; Adapted: Norman Rockwell,

 

Judicial Watch [[link removed]] (JW), a deeply
conservative 29-year-old Washington, D.C.-based group that describes
itself as a “non-partisan education foundation,” asserts that our
military is “headed down the dark alley of anti-American wokeism.”

As JW sees it, the U.S. Air Force Academy is an egregious offender
[[link removed]] because
it “has made race and gender instruction a top priority in the
training of cadets.”

This conclusion, JW Executive Director Tom Fitton wrote in a March
press release, follows a September 2022 Freedom of Information Act
request that provided the group with 167 pages of documents. Included
was a description of Behavioral Science 362, a required class about
the impact of class, race, gender and sexuality on human development.

Neither Judicial Watch nor Fitton think that these topics have any
place in military instruction. What’s more, they argue that the
course is proof that the U.S. military is succumbing to “Marxist”
critical race theory, or CRT.

And they’re not alone. A bevy of conservative groups — including
longstanding organizations like the Heritage Foundation and newly
formed organizations like Moms for Liberty — have put aside their
differences to oppose what they’re calling critical social justice
in education. Their efforts have been aided by a Glossary of
CRT-Related Terms
[[link removed]] that
was compiled by the Center for Renewing America
[[link removed]] (CRA), a group founded in 2021
by Russell Vought,
[[link removed]] the
former head of the Office of Management and Budget under Donald Trump.
CRA’s goal? To “renew a consensus of America as a nation under
God, with unique interests worthy of defending that flow from its
people, institutions and history.”

The annotated glossary — a total of 69 words and phrases — claims
to “help concerned citizens comb through curricula, public records,
communications, teacher training, etc … to establish more quickly
whether or not any of these terms appear … to advance left-wing
ideas.”

Here’s a sample of words that are included: woke, whiteness, white
supremacy, white fragility, unconscious bias, systemic oppression,
systemic racism, social and emotional learning, restorative justice,
racial justice, privilege, patriarchy, multiculturalism,
intersectionality, internalized racism, identity, inclusivity
education, equity gap, culturally responsive teaching, cultural
awareness, critical self-reflection, critical pedagogy, anti-racism,
anti-Blackness and anti-bias training.

Particular theorists — such as Robin DiAngelo
[[link removed]], Paulo Freire
[[link removed]] and Ibram X. Kendi
[[link removed]] — are also highlighted as
“objectionable” in the glossary.

As you likely suspect, opposition to CRT
[[link removed]],
which is sometimes referred to as Marxist CRT, is front and center:
“CRT claims that such things as merit, standards, testing, grading
and objectivity are skewed to make white people and white culture the
standard by which all others are judged,” the glossary rails.
Equally appalling to CRA, these “apparently neutral concepts” have
been twisted to seem as if they elevate whiteness.

While the CRA word roster is clearly intended to rile up the base,
it’s important to recognize that the list’s release dovetails with
legislative efforts to stop the teaching of accurate U.S. history; as
of last count, 18 states had enacted laws
[[link removed]] to
keep supposedly “divisive concepts” like race, racism and gender
out of classrooms. Furthermore, these efforts are in tandem with book
bans, the watering down of Advanced Placement African American History
curricula by the College Board, renewed assaults on the rights of
LGBTQIA+ students, and a general upsurge in attacks on public pre-K
through college education, that began after Trump’s election in
2016.

At the same time, it’s worth noting that efforts to control what
students learn is nothing new. Shortly after Reconstruction, for
example, the United Daughters of the Confederacy began working to
elevate textbook depictions of Confederate leaders and defend Southern
secession. As _The_ _Hechinger Report_ notes
[[link removed]],
the contributions of Black people were ignored in virtually every U.S.
school book throughout the first six decades of the 20th century.

Nearly a century later, Sen. Joseph McCarthy
[[link removed]]’s
fear-based campaign that textbooks might promote communism or
“sexual immorality,” the term used to denote homosexuality,
prompted wide-scale book censorship and led to the firing of teachers
[[link removed]] suspected
of being either a communist or LGBTQIA “ menace.”

Then, in the 1980s, the right turned to the purported “evils” of
secularism. According to Frederick Clarkson
[[link removed]], a senior
research analyst at Political Research Associates
[[link removed]], a Massachusetts think tank that
studies and monitors conservative movements, these efforts gained
significant traction. “The current effort to control curricula and
ban books would not be an issue if the Christian right did not have
power,” Clarkson told _Truthout_. “The current fight over
particular words or phrases is a symptom of a larger disease: the fact
that the right has allies in elected office who are willing to move
their agenda forward.”

Longtime teacher Jesse Hagopian [[link removed]],
co-author of _Black Lives Matter at School: An Uprising for
Educational Justice_
[[link removed]],
agrees. “It is astounding to see attempts to narrow the curriculum
to what right-wing zealots find acceptable,” he told _Truthout_.
“School boards in Florida have banned the showing of a Disney film
about Ruby Bridges
[[link removed]],
the first African American child to integrate a Southern elementary
school. When Disney films are considered ‘too radical,’ we know
we’ve reached a crisis point.”

Publishers, Hagopian says, are also running scared and are
capitulating to the demands of the right. As _The_ _New York
Times_ reported
[[link removed]] in
March, Studies Weekly, [[link removed]] a curriculum
that is used in 45,000 schools across the country, created three
different versions of a lesson about Rosa Parks to appease critics.
“The most limited version completely leaves out her contributions to
myriad struggles, and Jim Crow is thrown down the memory hole in an
account that removes the dehumanizing role of racism in Parks’s
life,” he said. “It presents her as being asked to move to a
different seat and simply not doing so. It never mentions her race.”

And then there’s the College Board, which “had previously
articulated support for multiculturalism in the classroom,” Hagopian
said. “Nonetheless, after the right complained about the AP African
American history curriculum that had just been introduced, the College
Board complied with their demands and watered down the course
material. We have seen very little forthright confrontation from
mainstream Democrats on this.”

If they had the will, Hagopian continues, Democratic leaders could
organize a mass uprising against censorship, book bans, anti-trans
bigotry and legislative attacks on public education. “They could
organize teach-ins and bring people together to speak out at state
legislatures. Sadly, they seem uninterested in doing this.”

But that’s not to say that there has been no pushback.

Ailen Arreaza, executive director of ParentsTogether,
[[link removed]] a digital organization with more than
3 million members, says the group is sending pro-public education and
anti-censorship messages to lawmakers. “A loud minority of parents
are inflaming the debate, but our members are working to shift the
narrative, lift up children’s voices, and campaign in support of
inclusive education. They’re also making clear that they support
trans kids,” she told _Truthout_. “Our parents are focused on the
diverse coursework that most school children want and need.”

Although it appears that no one has to date organized to demand that
textbook publishers stand up to conservatives and seek out and print
accurate and inclusive social studies and history books, several
localities and states have passed legislation to require the teaching
of Black history.

Scott Abbott, director of social studies for D.C. public schools from
2012 to 2022, told _Truthout_ that many school districts throughout
the country have moved away from textbooks in favor of more diverse
and nuanced materials. In D.C., he said, elementary school educators
now utilize primary sources that focus on the Incas, Mayans and
Aztecs. “We want to provide students with windows and mirrors. We
want to reflect their cultures back at them. We also want to open
windows into cultures that are different from their own,” he said.

Abbott is now at the Biden School of Public Policy and Administration
at the University of Delaware and adds that thanks to a new law, every
public school in Delaware — including charters — now has to teach
Black history in grades K-12. Similar
[[link removed]] mandates
[[link removed]] exist
in Arkansas, California, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island,
South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington State, although who controls
the content of instruction is often contentious.

These efforts got a boost following the release of a survey
[[link removed]],
conducted in Fall 2022 by the Campaign for Our Shared Future, which
supports the claim that both parents and kids favor education that
gives students access to truthful accounts of history. In fact, the
study found that 87 percent of parents expressed support for lessons
about civil and human rights movements; a clear majority also
expressed support for curricula that covers slavery, the ongoing
impact of racism and systemic racism.

Progressive publishers are also responding to the right, and are
defying censorship efforts and book bans.

Beacon Press [[link removed]], Haymarket Books
[[link removed]] and Seven Stories Press
[[link removed]], among others, have donated books to
community organizations, libraries, after-school programs, and
individual instructors in places where it’s become difficult to
access books about gender, gender identity, sexuality or race.

They’ve also opposed bans and reaffirmed their commitment to
publishing an array of titles and authors.

“We do not change content to accommodate the right,” Ruth Weiner
of Seven Stories Press reports. “We’re more likely to double down.
We’re not really doing our job if we don’t ruffle some
feathers.”

Similarly, Beacon Press Director Gayatri Patnaik told _Truthout_ by
email that “the right’s anti-woke hysteria has only strengthened
our resolve and commitment.” Beacon has also worked with the Zinn
Education Project to build lesson plans
[[link removed]] around Jeanne
Theoharis’s book, _The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks_
[[link removed]],
and has distributed copies in almost every state.

For its part, Haymarket has made several free book downloads
available
[[link removed]] and
has mailed more than 850 books to Florida readers whose right to read
has been limited.

Throughout the rest of the country, resistance has also ramped up and
includes the formation of Banned Book Clubs, public celebrations of
Banned Book Week, free book distributions, lobbying statehouses, and
marching, protesting, petitioning and speaking out against legislative
attacks on students, teachers, unions and progressive pedagogy.

Not surprisingly, Florida, and presidential aspirant Gov. Ron
DeSantis, have been frequent targets of progressive students and
educators. “The playbook is being written in Florida,” Fedrick
Ingram, secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers
(AFT) told _Truthout_, “but this is a national effort to whitewash
history and defund public education.” In response, the AFT is
reaching out to Black and Brown students at Historically Black
Colleges and Universities to encourage them to pursue teaching as a
career. The AFT has also launched a free book distribution
effort, Reading Opens the World
[[link removed]]; to date, more than
1 million books have been distributed.

Educator Gregory Tewksbury, an adjunct professor of educational
leadership at Brooklyn College, lauds these efforts. At the same time,
he cautions that it is essential for progressives to understand why
the right is so threatened by curricula that include progressive Black
and Brown theorists like Paolo Freire. “Freire is one of the
right’s targets in his home country of Brazil as well as here in the
U.S. His work lifts up the possibility that the life we are born into
is not the only life that is possible,” he said. Literacy, Tewksbury
continues, can be liberatory. “For Freire, literacy provides the
tools to understand the forces that shape consciousness. We’re not
just exploited laborers. We can be critical thinkers. Freire taught us
that good teachers nurture questions and help students make moral
judgments. This runs up against Christian nationalists who believe
they know what’s best for everyone.”

_Truthout_ reached out to both Judicial Watch and the Center for
Reclaiming America about their anti-woke campaigns. Neither responded.

_[ELEANOR J. BADER is an award-winning journalist who writes about
domestic social issues, movements for social change, books and art. In
addition to Truthout, she writes for The Progressive, Lilith
Magazine and blog, the LA Review of Books, Fiction Writers
Review and other online and print publications.]_

_Copyright © Truthout [[link removed]]. Reprinted with
permission. May not be reprinted without permission._

_Truthout provides daily news, in-depth reporting and critical
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* Black History
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* Critical Race Theory
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* CRT
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* African American history
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* Racism
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* Equality
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* African Americans
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* abolition
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* slavery
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* Equity
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* Classroom Education
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* Education
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* wokeness
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