A Texas mom shocked (click here) that her son’s textbook merely called African slaves “workers” is thrilled that publisher McGraw-Hill has promised revisions. But changing a single caption is hardly enough to combat what some educational experts call a wave of ideologically-fueled school standards that downplay the role of race and slavery in shaping America today.
Roni Dean-Burren was horrified when her son sent her a snapchat of his McGraw-Hill World Geography textbook, an edition created especially for Texas’ new state standards adopted in 2010. Opening up to a graphic titled “Patterns of Immigration,” he snapped a photo of the map’s caption. The caption reads:
The Atlantic Slave Trade between the 1500s and the 1800s brought millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations.
Examining his book more closely, Ms. Dean-Burren realized that although European indentured servants are described as working for “little or no pay,” there was no further mention of black slaves; their presence is simply portrayed as part of “immigration.”
“Erasure is real y’all!!! Teach your children the truth!!!” she commented alongside a video of the textbook, which has already been viewed more than 1.6 million times on Facebook.
