Cancelling Black culture
7th February 2022 · 0 Comments
We should take Carter G. Woodson’s sage advice to heart as we enter Black History Month. In “The Mis-Education of the Negro,” Woodson, the father of Black History Month, warned about the consequences of not teaching Black children about their culture and history, which is an integral part of American history.
“The ‘educated Negro’ prefers to buy his food from a white grocer because he has been taught that the Negro is ‘not clean,’ the ‘educated Negro’ is disinclined to take part in Negro business because he has been taught in economics that Negroes cannot operate in this particular sphere. If the ‘educated Negro’ could go off and be white, he might be happy,” Woodson wrote in his classic 1933 thesis.
Woodson said that if Blacks are not taught about the contributions and accomplishments of iconic Black Americans and the challenges Black Americans face, they will be miseducated and led to believe whites are superior and inferior. Put another way, they’ll think the white man’s ice is colder.
Today, attempts are being made to squash any teachings about the Black experience in America, and efforts to silence Black voices come in the form of book bans.
More puzzling is the irony of people who have been crying about “cancel culture,” but are now doing everything they can to cancel Black culture and whitewash American history?
White parents and state lawmakers in nine states have successfully banned books about racism, which is, in and of itself, a racist act.
These book ban enthusiasts claim these books might make white children feel discomfort and ashamed to be white. In reality, those advocating for removing the books from classrooms and school libraries want to hide the ugly truth and the past and present reality of white Americans’ oppression, mistreatment and hatred of Blacks and other people of color.
Demanding that Critical Race Theory not be taught in schools – which it isn’t – was the most recent excuse for whitewashing American history. Before that was a ban on teaching the 1619 Project edited by a Black woman, and before that, making it a crime to teach enslaved people to read and write.
It’s often said, “Give a person an inch, and they’ll take a mile,” and that is the case here. Black authors and the Black experience are under siege, but books about gender identity, sexuality, religion and political views are challenged and banned.
Ground Zero of the Book Ban Movement is in Texas, where parents want 50 books banned from school libraries. NBC News published the list based on the records it gathered.
On the list is “The Bluest Eye,” by the Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison. According to a parent in the Fort Worth suburb of Birdville, the book should be banned from schools because it includes a graphic description of rape.
“When Wilma Rudolph Played Basketball” by Mark Weakland was banned because a parent in a Dallas suburb said the children’s book, which touches on the racism that Olympian Wilma Rudolph experienced growing up in Tennessee in the 1940s, should be removed from school libraries because “it opines prejudice based on race.”
“Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You,” written by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds, was banned and challenged in 2020 because of the author’s public statements and because of claims that the book contains “selective storytelling incidents” and does not encompass racism against all people, according to the American Library Association, a member of the Banned Book Coalition.
However, some Black parents are fighting back and winning. Last year, the Round Rock Black Parents Association (RRBPA), who lived near Austin, Texas, resisted attempts to cancel “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You.”
“White parents demonized it like most books about to be banned, but the RRBPA collected over 3,600 Change.org petition signatures and saved the book, which continues to be taught,” The Black Wall Street Times reports.
To be fair, “To Kill A Mockingbird,” “Huckleberry Finn,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “Animal Farm,” “1984,” and other classics have been banned. Some Asian countries have even banned the “Bible.”
However, bans on books by Black authors are about silencing Black voices about racism.
Nic Stone’s “Dear Martin” was stripped out of North Carolina classrooms because of a complaint by one parent who claimed to have seen the “N” and “F” words in the book.
“Dear Martin” is a young adult novel that debuted at No. 4 on The New York Times Bestseller List. The book follows Justyce, a Black high-schooler attending a predominantly white preparatory school. After a police officer turns violent, Justyce begins writing a journal of letters to Martin Luther King Jr.
Superintendent Dr. Bill Nolte cited “the amount of profanity and innuendo” as the reason for banning the book without reading it.
Michael Boatright, an education professor at Western Carolina University, said “Dear Martin” may have been targeted for depicting the reality of racism in modern-day America.
However, a Tennessee school district’s banning of “Maus” drew a swift rebuke. “Maus” is a nonfiction comic book by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman about his father’s experiences as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor.
Not only did “Maus” make The New York Times Bestseller List, but a comic bookstore owner promised to ship “Maus” free to anyone who asks in that Tennessee school district.
Question: If whites fear the truth about racism and don’t want their children to learn about it, why are they fighting to keep Confederate statues in public spaces?
Maybe we should all buy “Dear Martin,” “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You,” “The Bluest Eye,” and other Black authors’ banned books.
We need to send a message that we will keep writing the truth about America and the Black experience. Our children will learn about the invaluable contributions both past and present that our people invested in America, even if we have to teach them ourselves.
This article originally published in the February 7, 2022 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
