#sparkchamber 013122 — LaGarrett J. King
February is Black History Month, and #sparkchamber is going to celebrate all month long with some context and perspective. We start with the controversial topic of teaching American history to the children of this country. Which comes down to the struggle to decide who exactly is empowered to decide what “history” was.
The National Council for the Social Studies is a professional association devoted solely to social studies education. Its membership represents K-12 classroom teachers, college and university faculty members, curriculum designers and specialists, social studies supervisors, and leaders in the various disciplines that constitute the social studies — history, civics, geography, economics, political science, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and law-related education. They envision a world in which all students are educated and inspired for lifelong inquiry and informed civic action.
On the NCSS website, they offer Black History is Not American History: Toward a Framework of Black Historical Consciousness by Black history educator, professor, scholar, writer, and consultant, LaGarrett J. King. A few sections are excerpted below:
“Black history is American history,” is a popular phrase used by a multitude of people seeking to legitimate Black history to the general population. Notable personalities have communicated versions of this slogan to emphasize that Black people’s histories are deeply rooted within the America story.
The motto is usually a two-fold response to concerns about the disregard of Black history. First, “Black history is American history” is used to criticize [and in some cases educate] Black History Month’s utility. The slogan is used as a reminder that Black history education should be a yearly project, not a novelty taught only during February. Second, the phrase is used to discourage plans for separate K-12 Black history courses in schools. If segregated, a Black history course may be perceived as less important than the required history classes.
Plus, many believe that the only way Black history should be taught is to seamlessly infuse Black history within the general American history narrative — we cannot tell America’s story without the story of Black America. [While that sentiment is factual] in practice, the axiom can be problematic. While well intended, the saying is a non-controversial, palatable, and whitewashed discourse that maintains the status quo and interferes with truly improving Black history education. It is a feel-good phrase because it celebrates and identifies the country’s diversity and supposed inclusive mission as a democratic nation. Most problematic is that the phrase insinuates a sort of shared historical legacy between white and Black people, which is not entirely accurate.
In general, what is historically significant to white people may not be historically significant to Black people. For example, July 4, 1776, is insignificant to the majority of Black Americans who are descendants of enslaved people. Yet July 4th is considered U.S. Independence Day despite the reality that around 20 percent of the population was still enslaved. The official social studies curriculum rarely explores historically important Black independence days such as Juneteenth, National Freedom Day, and the many Emancipation days celebrated throughout the Americas. The exclusion of these histories [whether innocuous or not] leaves the idea that Black history, and more specifically Black independence and traditions, are insignificant to the American story and not worthy of studying.
“Black history is American history” promotes a singular historical consciousness, which centers white people as the main protagonists and Black people as outliers of the American narrative. How we have taught Black history is through European contact or white people’s importance — our knowledge of Black history comes from the perspectives of white people, not Black people.
This article continues and is wonderful. We highly encourage you to take the time.
1.] Where do ideas come from?
The Black history we teach is not necessarily history that’s taught through Black perspectives or voices. It’s more of a sanitized, white version of what they think Black history is and who they think Black people are, so it’s this imagined aspect of what Black history is or what they want Black history to be.
We can’t get Black history education right because we teach about Black history instead of through Black history. Teaching about Black history has meant that schools teach from how white people imagine Black histories. Teaching through Black history should mean listening, writing, and teaching narratives from the actual historical experiences and voices of Black people.
2.] What is the itch you are scratching?
In dismantling white epistemic logic, we should ask the question: are we developing Black history through the oppressor’s historical lens, or do our histories represent and center Black perspectives and voices? To be clear, I am not arguing for an essentialization of Blackness; Blackness and Black people are complex and multifaceted; but I am interested in throwing away the Eurocentric ways we think about Black people throughout history. Black history constructed in such a way is essentially foreign to Black people’s existence.
3.] Early bird or night owl? Tortoise or hare?
When you teach through Black people and through Black history, you see a history that’s totally different. There’s this ideological shift that needs to be made within history education for Black folk in terms of this notion of Black history. Typical renditions of Black history education would be Black history began with European contact and colonization. That makes it seem like Black people didn’t have a history before white people found them.
4.] How do you know when you are done?
History is not supposed to be something that makes you feel good. If history always makes you feel good, then you’re not necessarily teaching history. You may be teaching nostalgia, but you’re not teaching history.