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IDKMYDE: Why They're Still Fighting Over Black History Being Taught in Schools · The Breakfast Club

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  Speaker 1: Why they're still fighting over black history in these schools.
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  Speaker 1: I welcome back Know. It als to another episode of
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  Speaker 1: the most anticipated podcast on the Black Effect podcast Network,
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  Speaker 1: especially in February, entitled I didn't Know, Maybe you didn't either.
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  Speaker 1: I'm your host b Dot and my thirteen year old
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  Speaker 1: daughter goes to a predominantly white school. Her mother and
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  Speaker 1: I have been blessed and fortunate enough to live wherever
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  Speaker 1: we want in the city of Charlotte, and it just
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  Speaker 1: so happens that the side of Charlotte we live on,
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  Speaker 1: my baby girl is a minority, and I ain't gonna
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  Speaker 1: cap It's a very conflicting dynamic. Because her mother is
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  Speaker 1: a product of North Carolina Anti State University, I'm a
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  Speaker 1: product of Winston Salem State University, and we know the
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  Speaker 1: importance of being black, We unapologetically black round here, and
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  Speaker 1: it's mandatory that we instill that in our baby girl.
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  Speaker 1: So I share this podcast with her. We have these conversations,
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  Speaker 1: and sometimes she takes them to school with her, and
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  Speaker 1: sometimes she comes home so confused. One time she came
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  Speaker 1: home and said, Dad, none of my teachers knew what
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  Speaker 1: an HBCU was. How deflating? How can the teachers there
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  Speaker 1: even reach the black and brown children if they aren't
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  Speaker 1: educated enough themselves on what an HBCU is. It just
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  Speaker 1: alarms me on what other black history is not being
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  Speaker 1: taught to my baby and her peers, Like if Black
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  Speaker 1: History Month started a hundred years ago. Here's a fair
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  Speaker 1: question why people still arguing about teaching it? Why our
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  Speaker 1: books getting banned, why our class is getting cut? Why
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  Speaker 1: does the truth keep needing a disclaimer? How about we
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  Speaker 1: open that case file today. But before we do, of course,
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  Speaker 1: you know, we've got to start the episode with three
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  Speaker 1: of the most useless facts you'll never need, not a
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  Speaker 1: day in life about black history in schools. Up first
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  Speaker 1: states have passed laws restricting how racism and black history
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  Speaker 1: can be taught, not denying it happened, just limiting how
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  Speaker 1: honest you can be about it. Please see Florida here
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  Speaker 1: your second useless fact about black history being taught in schools.
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  Speaker 1: Textbook battles over black history started almost immediately after segregation ended. Coincidence.
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  Speaker 1: My therapist Jackie Horton says, there's no such thing as coincidences,
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  Speaker 1: And your third useless fact, every major expansion of black
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  Speaker 1: history education has been met with organized pushback. Again, that's
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  Speaker 1: not coincidence, that's coordination. I didn't know. I didn't know.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. I
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  Speaker 1: didn't know. All right, here's the part people dance around.
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  Speaker 1: Black history ain't controversial because it's sad. It's controversial because
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  Speaker 1: it's explanatory. See when students learned the full story, how
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  Speaker 1: laws were written and how wealth was blocked, how systems
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  Speaker 1: were designed, well, suddenly inequality stops looking like a mystery.
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  Speaker 1: And that's uncomfortable because if you teach black history honestly,
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  Speaker 1: you also have to teach who benefited, who blocked progress,
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  Speaker 1: and even more importantly, who's still benefiting right now. So
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  Speaker 1: instead of them saying we don't want accountability, the argument becomes, oh,
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  Speaker 1: this makes kids uncomfortable, this is divisive, this is an
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  Speaker 1: age appropriate, but discomfort ain't the issue. Clarity is between
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty one and twenty twenty three, eighteen states pass
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  Speaker 1: laws restricting how race can be taught. At least sixteen
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  Speaker 1: hundred books been banned, many about black history, civil rights,
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  Speaker 1: or systemic racism. That's why the fight ain't about if
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  Speaker 1: black history happened, It's about how much context you're allowed
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  Speaker 1: to give it. And this is exactly what Carter G.
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  Speaker 1: Woodson warned us about in nineteen twenty six. He said,
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  Speaker 1: if a group's history is controlled by others, the present
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  Speaker 1: will be too. A hundred years later, we're watching that
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  Speaker 1: prediction play out in real time again. Carter G. Woodson
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  Speaker 1: didn't create Negro History Week because the schools forgot. He
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  Speaker 1: created it because schools refused, refused to tell the full story,
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  Speaker 1: refused to connect calls and effect refuse to let history
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  Speaker 1: explain the presence. That fight didn't end in nineteen twenty six.
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  Speaker 1: It just got louder microphones. And I didn't know. Maybe
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  Speaker 1: you didn't need the podcast. So if you ever wonder
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  Speaker 1: why black history still feel like it's up for debate,
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  Speaker 1: remember this The true thing dangerous, what it exposes is
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  Speaker 1: And I didn't know. Maybe you didn't either. I