A Washington mother said she was outraged after her daughter brought home a 55-page packet from her AP history class accusing African-Americans of lacking sound work ethic, while also taking jabs at the effectiveness of Black Lives Matter and President Obama.
Suspense novelist and archaeologist Rachel Grant took to Twitter Thursday to express disgust and disbelief at the historically inaccurate and offensive assertions a Washington state educator was spewing to her daughter and other students in the advanced history class.
Grant posted screenshots of the lengthy packet, titled “U.S. History Special Victims Unit,” to her timeline. In it, the document states African-Americans took “full advantage” of welfare programs created by President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society,” which essentially eroded the “strong work ethic” Blacks used to have during slavery.
“The long-term results … have been devastating,” the document reads. “Over three centuries of a strong work ethic, cohesive families, the thirst for education and Christian values as vital parts of the African-American heritage gave way to long-term dependence on the government and the erosion of the work ethic.”
It went on to cite the decline of the Black family as “inordinate numbers of Black men abandoned their responsibilities and single parent homes became normal” — which was “indeed possible” when a family receives government assistance.
Grant couldn’t contain her disbelief.
This is what her AP history teacher is including as part of the curriculum! Advanced US history with a sharp lesson in present day racism.
— Rachel Grant/R.S. Grant (@rachelsgrant) September 29, 2016
I think I'm going to vomit. This man is teaching my daughter.
— Rachel Grant/R.S. Grant (@rachelsgrant) September 29, 2016
Another section of the packet asserted that “Black lives did not matter so much” to President Obama because he presided over a “disastrous economy for eight years,” which it claimed ravaged the Black community harder than any other ethnic group. The document also criticized the president for lending his support to the Black Lives Matter movement, which was born out of protest over police killings of Black Americans.
“Rather than acknowledging the significant gains in civil rights or addressing the important issues … Black leaders since the 1970’s have been more inclined to fan the flames of Black resentment,” the document read in a section titled “Tremendous Gains in Civil Rights, but Trouble in Paradise.”
The packet even took a few jabs at Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who it accused of setting back the women’s movement by choosing to stand by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, while he battled rape and sexual harassment claims from multiple women.
On Twitter, Grant stated this was the second year her daughter had this particular history teacher. She said she took issue with his offensive lesson plans in the past, but never spoke up because she didn’t want it to seem like she was complaining just because she didn’t agree with his political beliefs.
“[But] this isn’t politics,” Grant tweeted. “This is an agenda.”
Other parents across the country have taken issue with questionable school lesson plans — especially when those lesson plans concern the history of Black people in America.
Last year, Texas mom Roni Dean-Burren penned a scathing letter to textbook publisher McGraw Hill when she saw that her child’s textbook described enslaved Africans as “immigrants” who simply came to America to work. Dean-Burren’s demands for the publisher to change the incorrect information, along with social media backlash, ultimately prompted McGraw Hill to correct the information in all of its text books.
According to Atlanta Black Star, Texas social studies textbooks were also blasted for treating slavery as a “side issue” and completely omitting Jim Crow and the KKK from history books.
“[Slavery was] a side issue to the Civil War,” said Pat Hardy, a Republican member of the Texas State Board of Education. “There would be those who would say the reason for the Civil War was over slavery. No. It was over states’ rights.”
Grant said she plans to scan the offensive 55-page document and voice her concerns to the school board.
