Although textbooks are used as learning tools, there are times — especially when providing information on Black people — that there is not much to learn and more to cringe over. Here are seven inappropriate and often racist moments in textbooks.
Slavery was Beneficial To Black People
Elias Isquith from Salon Media Group reported that Arizona public charter schools were criticized for using controversial and racist textbooks by Cleon Skousen. According to legal scholar, Garrett Epps one of the textbooks argues that slavery was beneficial to African-Americans and that Southern racism was caused by the ‘intrusion’ of Northern abolitionists and advocates of equality for the freed slaves.” Another Skousen book also states “if [African-American children] ran naked it was generally from choice, and when the white boys had to put on shoes and go away to school they were likely to envy the freedom of their colored playmates.”
