The top story in Saturday’s Washington Post was headlined “Fraught fight over AP’s new course: Politics forced changes to the African American studies plan, critics say.” As usual, the “critics” of the new Advanced Placement curriculum for high schools are leftists who hate Ron DeSantis for challenging this radical tilt.
Reporter Nick Anderson began by noting the politically charged word “systemic” was repeated throughout the curriculum’s first draft:
The February 2022 version declared that students should learn how African American communities combat effects of “systemic marginalization.” An April update paired “systemic” with discrimination, oppression, inequality, disempowerment and racism. A December version said it was essential to know links between Black Panther activism and “systemic inequality that disproportionately affected African Americans.”
But by February 1, 2023, the word was gone.
“All of those terms were going to be challenging,” said Jason Manoharan, vice president for AP program development. He said the College Board worried some phrases and concepts had been “co-opted for a variety of purposes” and were being used as “political instruments.” So the organization took a cautious approach to the final edits even as it sought to preserve robust content on historical and cultural impacts of slavery and racial discrimination.
“Robust content” is a fancy term for overt propaganda. Most of the advisers on the AP curriculum are still supportive, but Anderson found dissent from the left:
Some insiders rue omissions from the course plan. Joshua M. Myers, an associate professor of Africana studies at Howard University, who contributed to the project as a content writer, wrote in an email that intensive examination of contemporary issues is essential for a course that is about much more than history.
“There is a deep and enduring relationship between Black studies work and what happens in the streets, in the community and everywhere else there is Black resistance,” Myers wrote. “It’s hard to imagine a course in Black studies that doesn’t recognize that.”
They didn’t explain Myers is a radical leftist who wrote a book celebrating Cedric Robinson, the author of Black Marxism. The bolded text was highlighted inside Saturday’s paper in a text box. It underlines that the Left wants to use the schools to push for “Black resistance” that will then move into “the streets.”
This is why you can giggle when the Post reporter writes DeSantis “has accused the course architects of promoting ‘a political agenda.'” This appears to be quite obvious, but they’ve curtailed the egregious activism because they want this course to be adopted and funded by high schools across America.
Now, the Post finds the propaganda was watered down:
The word “queer” appears nowhere in the 234-page document released Feb. 1. Nor does the name Kimberlé Crenshaw, an architect of critical race theory, which is a lens for analyzing systemic racism that many Republicans attack. Crenshaw had appeared in earlier versions.
Crenshaw’s “lens” and Black Lives Matter and reparations and intersectionality have all been relegated to the sample topics for the course-ending research paper, alongside black conservatism.
Everyone should remember these are only guidelines. “Resistance” educators in many high schools will probably pump up the leftist volume once the class enters the curriculum.