The Roundup Top Ten for February 4, 2022
Black History Month Reveals the Deception Behind White "Discomfort"by Peniel E. Joseph"The erroneous narrative that teaching Black history provokes anxiety, discomfort, guilt or anger for White children has insidious roots" in a false consensus that has long suppressed the stories of Americans of color and denied racial oppression. |
Frederick Douglass's 1876 Reportby Laura K. FieldConservatives today invoke Douglass against supposed "woke" trends in history, but misread his critiques of racism in American institutions. |
SCOTUS Could Kill off Affirmative Action with Devastating Resultsby Keisha N. BlainAffirmative action policies have always aimed at changing the nation's long history of racially unequal education; that's why they've faced militant opposition all along, and why a conservative Supreme Court wants to destroy them. |
Blaming Teachers for COVID-Related Education Problems Misses the Big Pictureby Adam LaatsToo much of what plagues schools today is far beyond the control of teachers, but blaming them is easier for politicians than fixing inequality and underinvestment. |
Whoopi Goldberg's Confusion about Race and the Holocaust Matters Because it's Commonby Jonathan ZimmermanThe TV host's remarks about the Holocaust illustrate the pervasive hold of the idea that race is a biological fact instead of a set of social categories that have changed across time and place. Historians should take this moment to educate rather than condemn. |
Reducing Child Poverty Is a No-Brainer even Without Brain Scienceby Mical RazReducing child poverty is a good in itself; justifying policies to reduce poverty in terms of improvements in measures of cognition or IQ scores makes such programs vulnerable to backlash and risks validating racist and eugenicist arguments about race and intelligence. |
Book Bans Target Teaching the History of Oppressionby Marilisa Jiménez GarciaChildren, particularly those who are part of minority groups, have never been spared from horrors, in history or today. The rhetoric of book-banners is rooted in a privileged viewpoint and serves the interests of inequality today. |
Politics Dictating What Teachers Can Say About Racism is Dangerousby Robert CohenA University of Georgia math professor asked his students to write reflective essays after whites rioted over the school's desegregation in 1961. The results show the dire consequences that follow when teachers are afraid controversial lessons will cost them their jobs. |
Who's Afraid of Isolationism?by Stephen WertheimIt's past time for "isolationism" to stop being a dirty word in discussing America's relationship to the world. The use of the term as a pejorative has justified too many ill-considered military interventions. |
The Return of the Mass Protestby Elizabeth HintonAlthough mass protests are far more peaceful than they were in the 1960s, reviving nonviolent direct action tactics associated with MLK, the police response to them has been more heavily armed and violent. |