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Speaker 1: Why they're still fighting over black history in these schools.

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Speaker 1: I welcome back Know. It als to another episode of

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Speaker 1: the most anticipated podcast on the Black Effect podcast Network,

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Speaker 1: especially in February, entitled I didn't Know, Maybe you didn't either.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host b Dot and my thirteen year old

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Speaker 1: daughter goes to a predominantly white school. Her mother and

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Speaker 1: I have been blessed and fortunate enough to live wherever

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Speaker 1: we want in the city of Charlotte, and it just

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Speaker 1: so happens that the side of Charlotte we live on,

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Speaker 1: my baby girl is a minority, and I ain't gonna

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Speaker 1: cap It's a very conflicting dynamic. Because her mother is

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Speaker 1: a product of North Carolina Anti State University, I'm a

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Speaker 1: product of Winston Salem State University, and we know the

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Speaker 1: importance of being black, We unapologetically black round here, and

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Speaker 1: it's mandatory that we instill that in our baby girl.

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Speaker 1: So I share this podcast with her. We have these conversations,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes she takes them to school with her, and

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Speaker 1: sometimes she comes home so confused. One time she came

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Speaker 1: home and said, Dad, none of my teachers knew what

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Speaker 1: an HBCU was. How deflating? How can the teachers there

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Speaker 1: even reach the black and brown children if they aren't

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Speaker 1: educated enough themselves on what an HBCU is. It just

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Speaker 1: alarms me on what other black history is not being

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Speaker 1: taught to my baby and her peers, Like if Black

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Speaker 1: History Month started a hundred years ago. Here's a fair

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Speaker 1: question why people still arguing about teaching it? Why our

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Speaker 1: books getting banned, why our class is getting cut? Why

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Speaker 1: does the truth keep needing a disclaimer? How about we

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Speaker 1: open that case file today. But before we do, of course,

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Speaker 1: you know, we've got to start the episode with three

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Speaker 1: of the most useless facts you'll never need, not a

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Speaker 1: day in life about black history in schools. Up first

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Speaker 1: states have passed laws restricting how racism and black history

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Speaker 1: can be taught, not denying it happened, just limiting how

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Speaker 1: honest you can be about it. Please see Florida here

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Speaker 1: your second useless fact about black history being taught in schools.

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Speaker 1: Textbook battles over black history started almost immediately after segregation ended. Coincidence.

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Speaker 1: My therapist Jackie Horton says, there's no such thing as coincidences,

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Speaker 1: And your third useless fact, every major expansion of black

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Speaker 1: history education has been met with organized pushback. Again, that's

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Speaker 1: not coincidence, that's coordination. I didn't know. I didn't know.

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Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. I

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Speaker 1: didn't know. All right, here's the part people dance around.

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Speaker 1: Black history ain't controversial because it's sad. It's controversial because

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Speaker 1: it's explanatory. See when students learned the full story, how

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Speaker 1: laws were written and how wealth was blocked, how systems

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Speaker 1: were designed, well, suddenly inequality stops looking like a mystery.

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Speaker 1: And that's uncomfortable because if you teach black history honestly,

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Speaker 1: you also have to teach who benefited, who blocked progress,

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Speaker 1: and even more importantly, who's still benefiting right now. So

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Speaker 1: instead of them saying we don't want accountability, the argument becomes, oh,

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Speaker 1: this makes kids uncomfortable, this is divisive, this is an

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Speaker 1: age appropriate, but discomfort ain't the issue. Clarity is between

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty one and twenty twenty three, eighteen states pass

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Speaker 1: laws restricting how race can be taught. At least sixteen

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Speaker 1: hundred books been banned, many about black history, civil rights,

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Speaker 1: or systemic racism. That's why the fight ain't about if

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Speaker 1: black history happened, It's about how much context you're allowed

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Speaker 1: to give it. And this is exactly what Carter G.

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Speaker 1: Woodson warned us about in nineteen twenty six. He said,

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Speaker 1: if a group's history is controlled by others, the present

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Speaker 1: will be too. A hundred years later, we're watching that

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Speaker 1: prediction play out in real time again. Carter G. Woodson

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Speaker 1: didn't create Negro History Week because the schools forgot. He

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Speaker 1: created it because schools refused, refused to tell the full story,

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Speaker 1: refused to connect calls and effect refuse to let history

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Speaker 1: explain the presence. That fight didn't end in nineteen twenty six.

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Speaker 1: It just got louder microphones. And I didn't know. Maybe

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Speaker 1: you didn't need the podcast. So if you ever wonder

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Speaker 1: why black history still feel like it's up for debate,

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Speaker 1: remember this The true thing dangerous, what it exposes is

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Speaker 1: And I didn't know. Maybe you didn't either. I