The Ban on Teaching Black History in Schools

There have been at least 36 states in 2022 that have endorsed laws to restrict teaching about race and racism in classrooms. In 2020 President Trump signed a bill that prohibits the teaching of critical race theory. This has largely affected the teaching of African American history and white privilege.

 

Many point out that the banning of critical race theory should not affect the teachings of America’s history on race. Kenyatta Grant, a dental assistant points out how proclaimed states who are prejudiced and have specific political agendas use the ban of critical race theory as an advantage to not teach African American history. 

 

“ That’s not okay because why y’all trying so hard to cover up what blacks went through like is it embarrassment or… cause I would definitely be embarrassed, “ she said. The ban on critical theory has raised concern for parents of African American children not being taught their history. 

 

An HR representative for trucking logistics, Christopher Turremtine express concern over children not knowing their history. “ I learned about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King …overall everyone show knows about slavery I mean that’s a big thing that we still deal with today that goes into racism. I feel like that should definitely be kept because of the way I deal with racism. And it's not just blacks but other races Mexicans, Hispanics, and whatever, they deal with racism too,” he said.

 

The teaching of  American African history not being taught in the classroom is a national debate. Some agreed taking out black history is not explaining the majority of America’s history. Jermany Cooper who is self-employed has agreed that African American history should be taught but not in too much detail to certain age groups.

 

Some things about African American history shouldn’t be taught in detail to children k-8 because it could lead to bully. “ I believe it shouldn’t be taught because it starts racism early and causes problems with their parents too. Because you dealing with Causicassian they might not want their children to learn about that… if you start teaching them now and the more they learn about it they’ll get angry and start doing more racist things. Most kids don’t start doing racism until they are in middle school when they start to learn the N-word and they start using it wrong,” he said. 

 

 Some people think that African American history isn’t taught in-depth or beyond as it should be. A freshman at MTSU, Jasper Sanders expresses the only African American history that is known in schools today is only slavery. “Throughout school pre-k through 12th grade. They didn’t really teach us about black history all they really taught us was about Martin Luther King and that was even, later on, they just told us that, they basically make it seem to where black history started at slavery and we don’t hear nothing about it before,” he said.

 

Many people can debate the issue of the restriction of African American history is taught. But Kinsey McBride a junior at MTSU doesn’t see the point of limiting or banning African American history when it's not taught in its entirety.

 

“It just ended with the civil rights movement. We never taught about it again and so it's like how it's progressed today? How is it changing today, especially with the Black Lives Matter Movement and everything like that? I think it's really important to study the progression over time. I think it should be explored, in every way possible. And I think that it's really important that it be taught in a way as … entire history obviously what happened in 2020 like there’s still a lot of racial issues in our country today and we can’t just overlook that... So no I don’t it should be banned,” she said.