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THE DOCTOR IS IN - I've fought too hard for equal rights for all individuals--especially African-American rights--to ignore the controversies surrounding what is true, what is debatable, and what is revisionist, with respect to African-American history, studies, and goals for a large group of Americans who too often get ignored.
It's easy to paint Florida Governor DeSantis as a wrong-headed bigot when there are no shortage of Americans, including African-Americans, who are concerned about one-sided propaganda that doesn't allow more than one side to weigh in on the tough issues surrounding African-American history.
But both the Republican and Democratic Parties each have such dreadful histories of exploiting African-Americans that the tendency to propagandize and exploit this historically-discriminated group of Americans that the need for an AP African American History test is as timely as it is controversial.
"These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference."
--Attributed with some uncertainty to President Lyndon Johnson
“I should not know what to do as to the existing institution [of slavery]. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own native land.”
--Abraham Lincoln, 1854 (years before being elected president)
"There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans; Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts "native" before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen."
-Former President Teddy Roosevelt, 1915
This is particularly true during these incendiary times. Take a gander at these longstanding controversies:
1) Use of the "O" word..."Oreo"...is as repugnant as is the "N" word. Neither of them should be allowed in public discourse...but yet one is acceptable and the other is not.
2) Ditto for the word "cracker".
3) Ditto for the word "n-gga", "ho", "nappy-haired", etc. They're all just horrible and dehumanizes people at a time when we should respect all human beings as, well, human beings.
4) What IS the story behind European vs. Arab slavers? Ditto for slavery in Africa vs. North America before the arrival of the European colonists?
5) Why did some freed African-American slaves become champions of civil rights and an end to slavery, while others became slaveowners?
6) What of Irish and other European indentured servants who were slaves (clearly not treated and thought of in the same manner as African-born/descended slaves...or were they?)?
7) Why are certain African-American political and other leaders allowed to be publicly trampled, while others are sacrosanct from any scrutiny?
8) What is the developing and evolving changes of the historical black/white historical civil rights struggles and battles, versus the newer black/Latino and black/Asian rivalries?
9) How are African-Americans treated in Democratic-dominated urban communities versus in Republican-dominated rural communities?
10) What are the similarities and differences between white/black violence versus black/black violence with respect to the wounding and slaying of African-American men?
Conservatives have forced revisions in the curriculum of the A.P. course in African American studies, and it's as debatable to discuss the revisions as the revisions themselves.
Neither conservatives nor liberals need be "right" or "wrong". Reparations, Black Lives Matter, and Critical Race Theory ALL deserve discussion and debate.
The truth ALWAYS lies between one side and the other.
So let the course be taught...but not by ANYONE who "knows" that he/she is "right", and who refuses and disallows debate from any student, source, or group.
(Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D, is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties, and is a proud husband to a wonderful wife and father to two cherished children. He was termed out of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC) twice after two stints as a Board member for 9, years and is also a Board member of the Westside Village Homeowners Association. He previously co-chaired the MVCC Outreach, Planning, and Transportation/Infrastructure Committees for 10 years. He was previously co-chair of the CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee, the grassroots Friends of the Green Line (which focused on a Green Line/LAX connection), and the nonprofit Transit Coalition His latest project is his fictional online book entitled The Unforgotten Tales of Middle-Earth and can be reached at [email protected]. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.)
