“The Mis-Education of the Negro” (1933) by Carter G. Woodson argues that while education is needed to uplift blacks in the United States, the education that most blacks receive is poisonous propaganda.
Just like how the “justice system” is an injustice for blacks, so “education” is mis-education for blacks. Because white institutions serve white interests, not black ones.
What whites used to do with whips and chains they now do with schools and books:
“When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his ‘proper place’ and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit.”
Blacks learn little of their past and what they do learn is meant to show them and the world that they have never amounted to much and never will.
“What others have written about the Negro during the last three centuries has been mainly for the purpose of bringing him where he is today and holding him there.”
Woodson, by the way, is the one who came up with what is now Black History Month, known then as Negro History Week.
It is not just history that needs to be reworked. So does literature, philosophy, political science, music and art. Even law, medicine, religion and sociology, as taught to blacks, should centre on black concerns, not white ones.
Slave mentality: Blacks still think like slaves, looking to whites to guide them and serve as a model to copy.
Crabs in a barrel: Blacks also tear each other down instead of working together. Instead of having a few good insurance companies or a few good schools of theology, for example, they have way too many, none of them any good because what little money blacks have has been weakened by needless division.
The talented tenth: W.E.B. Du Bois in 1903 argued that if a tenth of blacks got university degrees, that would be enough to uplift the race. In practice, though, you got:
Mis-educated Negroes: College-bred blacks, the supposed talented tenth, turn up their noses at black churches and black businesses, yet lack the vision and confidence to create anything better. Because they believe that everything black is necessarily second-rate. They look to serve whites or just themselves. And even when they do serve blacks, like as teachers or physicians, most of them just go through the motions – providing second-rate service!
“Most of them are satisfied with receiving their pay and spending it for the toys and gewgaws of life.”
As long as they have a nice house and a nice automobile, most of them do not care.
For those who do care, Woodson recommends “The African Background Outlined: A Handbook”.
– Abagond, 2017.
See also:
- my 1949 media diet
- Not in H.G. Wells:
- The White Default
- Black History Month
- Du Bois
- Senghor
- Fanon
- Orwell: 1984
523
Reblogged this on The Militant Negro™.
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it was well known when i was coming up via the nj star ledger etc the =discrepancy between the let’s say atlantic city HS and east orange, with broken windows, no heat,kids wearing parkas in class with not enough/old books etc etc
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south orange, camden, jersey city, in philly they have the magnets and vouchers i was hacking and took my friend and her kids to like 3 widely distant schools (like pre high school), in jersey it’s all about the high property taxes and local school taxes to pay for especially jersey is known for special needs and so forth
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and extremely virulent and persistant union presence!
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i shouldn’t gripe, but i guess i’ve bought into the private sector contractor thing. don’t get sick now and good hunting, my competition!
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This is interesting. I believe what I am reading is there is no true history of the blacks in this nation that is legitimate.
What is not suggested is where do you find such a history?
If you go to any other nation on the face of the earth, you will get a narrative about the local people. It may not be true; but, it is what people think. In China they call portions of it myths.
How can blacks overcome the brain washing they have received when no history was recorded? Being mis-educated means you would have to have read something. What a person reads is their choice.
Perhaps, the solution is to start out today. Read every book which mentions a black accomplishment. Evaluate the work of those blacks who are accepted today as historians.
Approach the black universities and have new books prepared that meet your rules as true black history.
Do not ask the white man for any funds because he will not give any unless thing are prepared as he desires and if you accept any help from them the project will forever be tainted.
Do not accept any further assistance from anyone other than blacks, because any gift comes with demands.
If you survive you will then have a pure history.
A second choice is to read the many books, other publications and letter that are currently published and convince blacks that they have every reason in the world to be proud of the blacks that came before them and suffered unbelievable hardships while always moving forward.
Stop looking back thinking that somehow if you would have lived in the past you would have done better.
We have many great black figures we can look to that are documented, if one reads. A person must read, read, read!
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The Negro at the time was Mis educated because the white oppressor wanted to keep us out of key jobs in medicine, science, nursing, and research
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Reblogged this on Project ENGAGE.
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Centering my arts from my past in future
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“…they believe that everything black is necessarily second-rate. They look to serve whites or just themselves. And even when they do serve blacks, like as teachers or physicians, most of them just go through the motions – providing second-rate service!”
It is extremely frustrating to support Black-owned businesses when many are so lackadaisical. I have lost count of the times that I have gone to Black owned restaurants and retail stores only to be repelled by trash-strewn store fronts, dirty windows, un-swept floors and surly workers.
All of those elements are within the power of the owner to control, but they just don’t seem to care. What hurts is how they perpetuate the vicious cycle of Black people boycotting Black owned businesses.
Not much has changed since Woodson’s time.
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@Afrofem: I sadly concur. I want our people to want better and do better in respect of serving our communities.
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This off topic, but I couldn’t find any contact info on your site. I’m trying to organize a group dedicated to debunking “race realism” online and I read your post on the subject. It would be great to have you involved. We don’t have a lot of members at the moment (3 people) but I’m trying to get some mods for our sub-reddit, then go from there.
Email me if you’re interested.
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@ericrhetoricamubu There have been black doctors, Engineers, and individuals in all other fields. We have had blacks graduate from black colleges and white colleges and they have succeeded.
The problem is too many blacks do not see the importance of reading. They say it is hard and it is more satisfying to watch a game, play sports or just do nothing. Than they want to say that someone hid something from them.
How many black colleges are there in this nation where a black can get black information?
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zperhaps you should start purchasing online. Etsy, for example, has lists of Black owned businesses. Online shopping is the wave of the future. Disclaimer: I just shop till my feet drop off! I do not sell online.
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@Justin
I can handle the
“We Wuz Kangz!/Africans have no civilization before Euros” meme, the MAOA allele nonsense, and that its because blacks can’t farm that Zimbabwe is poor. I’m also trying to gather crime rates for black majority countries, as well as Cambridge high-school exam results.
There really needs to be an r/EnoughRacistSpam
You can reach me at iamsatanforce [at] gmail dot com. But do it quickly.
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Indeed there is miseducation for Black students and for white ones as well. The miseducation is not simply eliminating histories but more so the mis interpretation of history. I have noticed that while teaching, black students unfortunately, see themselves through a white lens. When doing this, it conjures up an internal conflict. What they are learning doesn’t really make sense. For example, they are told that violence is bad and using violence is abhorrent. Yet, they read text books glorify murderers and label them as Great men, (Alexander, Napoleon, Charles Martel, Columbus, etc.) the two conflicting thoughts cause a cognitive dissonance. Because they are unable, or have not been taught to look at the narrative with a critical lens, they accept things that don’t make sense. This seems to keep many stuck on stupid.
The murders, atrocities and outright exploitation committed by white people toward one another is overlooked and ignored.. The focus on European royalty and achievements are overly glorified when taking into consideration all the exploitation that existed. The history books focus mostly on African royalty selling off other royalty. Where in history was the benevolent ruler? The mis education begins with a misinterpretation.
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@ firsttimeinghana
“…they are unable, or have not been taught to look at the narrative with a critical lens, they accept things that don’t make sense.”
Since you teach, how much emphasis do you place on teaching critical thinking skills to go along with the Eurocentric “facts” of your curriculum?
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@ericrhetoricamubu Have you ever looked at the blacks that graduated from Oberlin College since 1835. Have you ever looked at the graduate of the Black Colleges. Have you even given credit to the many black college graduates.
Only so many people are going to climb to the top, the rest are going to fit somewhere below.
The amount of knowledge required today is far greater then the 40s. So much has happened that some subjects just are not taught unless a person chooses that field.
When I was young we had one doctor in town. Today we have to have many doctors, each knowing their own field of endeavor.
In order for one to gain access to college one must study. Stop making excuses for black failure, blacks that try are not failing. They just have not yet become president or leader of some of the major organizations yet. Take a look at the US military at the black generals and other senior officers and non commissioned officers at the highest grades.
I have seen blacks name every player in sports along with the stats; yet, they claim they do not know how to learn.
It is what a person is interested in that counts.
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@Afrofem When I was young I collected stamps. That is the only way one could know anything about the world.
We studied World history as it was known then. A very short course which we spent more time on maps than people. We studied Civics. Than along came World War II. We started to hear about places in a different manner. After WW II it became more difficult to grasp all of the vast required knowledge.
By the way even though were in the same school we did not mix with whites so we did not get to know about the many foreign nationalities.
Decisions had to be made as to what knowledge was needed. Different parts of this nation today teach different subjects, and some Southern states have even rewritten history. It is not what they are teaching blacks it is what they (everybody) are learning. They fought against the Common Core and blocked it at every turn.
Each state decides how much money they are going to spend educating the population. Now we have a new thing called Charter Schools which are going to end up being “separate but equal” with the majority of poor being in less equal schools. There will be rich black charter schools and there will be poor black charter schools and the same will exist for the whites. The public schools systems will end up with as little as it is possible to give them.
If you are rich or have a medium income you will be happy. Your voice will soon be quiet.
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@ Allen Shaw
“If you are rich or have a medium income you will be happy. Your voice will soon be quiet.”
Not true for people who have a heart and a conscience, no matter their income level.
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Miseducation is when textbooks in Texas referred to enslave black people as “workers. Miseducation is pediatric neurosurgeon and now Secretary of HUD Ben Carson ignorantly referring to enslaved Africans being bought to America in the hull of slave ships in chains being beaten by a slavers lash as “immigrants.”
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An educator who is culturally biased can be detrimental to black students especially in regard to American history many instructors like to revise and whitewash history.
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@ Mary Burrell
“An educator who is culturally biased can be detrimental to black students”
Agreed.
Also an educator who blames students for something they have not been taught yet or refers to them as stupid is like a workman who blames his tools for a poor result.
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@Afrofem: The idiom about “The poor workman blaming his tools” many school children have been harmed by callous words from subpar teachers who no business working in education.
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*who have no business working in education * ^^^typo
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@ Mary Burrell
“…many school children have been harmed by callous words from subpar teachers who no business working in education”
That describes most of my elementary school teachers.
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@Afrofem some of mine, too. I was screamed at in math class and have hated math ever since.
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@Afrofem Some people walk the walk and some people talk the talk. You are absolutely correct.
I have heard many speeches in my lifetime. I have seen very few people walking the walk individually.
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@ Afrofem
I would say simply that: don’t support or patronize any business not worth for.
If you do, you become also partially guilty of why they remain sub-standard and that doesn’t help any Black cause.
In my observations of the social environment I noticed that human beings do not usually make more effort than solicited. One of the strongest incentives for any player to do better is to open his/her field to the concurrence. As soon as they realize that things they have taken for granted are not reserved anymore, they put more effort in doing things better.
In my own country I have see that some set of transformations along the years have concurred to make some services to the population better and in the meantime some other have remained bad. In hindsight, one can see that one – if not the – major difference between the two sets is monopoly. The kind of services that were exposed to concurrence became better whereas other remained mediocre.
After the independence most services were delivered by the state. Even the production and distribution of bread. It was the socialist model of running the economy. As a result the quality of bread and other goods consumed by the population was seldom above average and mainly with a very narrow range of varieties.
Even after the socialist model was replaced by an open market model the state retained the control of certain sectors. In some cases this was the only alternative, but not always. A paradigmatic case was the introduction of mobile telecommunication in the 90’s. In the beginning we had only a state company running that business. After a brilliant beginning their services tended to froze in their evolution although the prices gradually became higher along the years. This scenario changed only after a private company was allowed to enter this same business. Once the monopoly of the telecom state’s company was over, its own services evolved considerably and today, with 3 telecoms, we never had better services in that field.
An opposite case are the various services delivered by the municipality of the city of Maputo, to give one example, were monopoly remains. Be it garbage collection, fill road potholes, or others, they don’t deliver good services because we don’t have an alternative. Or, maybe we have alternatives during the elections that happen once each 4 years. But in the context of our infant democracy not always the best wins so mediocrity remains in the order of the day concerning some/many municipal services delivered to the population.
Because of our history of being socialist oriented first and market oriented later, we tend to believe that private business will deliver always the best products and services. But looking things closely even private business can become mediocre if they sense that they are operating in an environment of monopoly or quasi-monopoly. If one patronizes a certain business it become similar to a monopoly in a small scale (for example a barbershop that you always look after). He/she knows that you’ll come back whatever the level of service delivered. This is a bad signal.
Related to this is the opening of a national market to foreign players.
One example in my country was when the government decided to open the retail market to foreigners in the end of the 90’s. At that time many local voices opposed the move alleging that powerful and well-established foreign players would flood our market killing our nascent class of entrepreneurs in the field. Today and in hindsight, what I see is an excellent result from the point of view of the level of services of that kind to the population. The foreign brands came in and in the process elevated the standard of services to a level that local entrepreneurs are obliged to emulate or change their business. Anyway, the retail market business has various strata and the various players can accommodate themselves in the stratum where they see fit. Some people sell things in the streets, some in open markets, some in small shopping houses and others moved to large shopping-centers. And in all levels you can find locals operating despite the fact that large shopping-centers are more likely to be operated by foreigners (especially South African brands: Shoprite, Game, Pick’n Pay, eXtra, Spar, etc*)
To end my dissertation and as an advice: patronize Black business yes, but only to the extent that they maintain an acceptable level of services and products.
A related reflection: How did Korean business “penetrated” Black neighborhoods in some American cities? Is it not the case that they delivered better services compared to the previously existent local Black operators? Or is something else?
South African brands in retail business have world-class quality and after the end of Apartheid in the mid 90’s they began an expansion to the African continent (mainly sub-Saharan Africa). They landed even in Nigeria, a country with a sizable class of capable entrepreneurs in various fields. An interesting exception is Kenya were the retail business has already strong local actors. But these local actors there, are mainly families of Asian (Indian/Pakistani) descent, or so it seems.
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“The poor workman blaming his tools” many school children have been harmed by callous words from subpar teachers who no business working in education.
My sister is a high school teacher, she can attest to that.
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ERRATA:
I apologize for some mistakes. The word “were” must replaced by “where” in:
An opposite case are the various services delivered by the municipality of the city of Maputo, to give one example, were monopoly remains.
and
An interesting exception is Kenya were the retail business has already strong local actors.
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@ Allen Shaw
“I have heard many speeches in my lifetime. I have seen very few people walking the walk…”
Same here.
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@ munubantu
Very discerning observations.
You gave me a lot to think about, with a lot of specific examples coming to mind. I plan to respond to individual points you made in future comments.
Thanks, munubantu.
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@ munubantu
“A paradigmatic case was the introduction of mobile telecommunication in the 90’s. In the beginning we had only a state company running that business. After a brilliant beginning their services tended to froze in their evolution although the prices gradually became higher along the years. This scenario changed only after a private company was allowed to enter this same business. Once the monopoly of the telecom state’s company was over, its own services evolved considerably and today, with 3 telecoms, we never had better services in that field.”
It has also been my experience that monopolies and quasi-monopolies stifle innovation and lower standards of service while increasing prices for consumers. In the USA, once corporations achieve monopoly or duopoly status, they bribe legislators to pass laws to protect their monopoly. The US telecom industry has paid for state legislation to prevent cities, small towns and counties from wiring their locations for broadband.
The industry claimed those government enterprises would “unfairly” compete with private enterprise. The industry would then make public pronouncements about how they couldn’t afford to expand broadband to rural areas or inner cities. They have left whole swathes of the American population without reliable or affordable access to the Internet: rural White people and Black people, low-income urban Black and Latinx and some Native American tribes are all shut out of the modern economy. This is all due to the greed and sloth of aging “legacy” US telecom companies.
From what you wrote, Mozambique’s experience with concurrence aka healthy competition is similar to the Japanese experience. The Japanese national telecom resisted the entry of private competitors for years. Once competitors entered the market, the national telecom improved the fiber network, increased speed and reliability and dropped the price to consumers. Now Japan is #4 in the world for speed and the USA is not even among the top ten countries for internet speed.
https://www.fastmetrics.com/internet-connection-speed-by-country.php#average-internet-speeds-usa
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@ munubantu
One observation about Nigerian and Kenyan entrepreneurs. When I visit business and technology sites, Nigerians and Kenyans are there in droves. They are serious and committed to excellence—-and they are opening businesses of all sizes, in manufacturing and the service sector.
It is pretty exciting to watch them from afar. The next few decades could see them play a more substantial role on the world stage.
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@ Afrofem
Yes. I’ve noticed that too.
Relative to this same topic, see my challenge to our dear host:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/open-thread/comment-page-1/#comment-379432
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I read this book a couple of years ago but for whatever reason can’t remember anything from it. I’ll have to dive back in to my copy to see if I can’t pull more meaning from it. The overall theme of the book, to me seems spot on. We really haven’t been taught much about ourselves from formal education. I wonder if that doesn’t have something to do with the fact that when we inevitably discover that we have been lied to by white institutions for most of our lives, that we get really mad and go “extreme”.
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@Allen Shaw
I grew up well off, but the reality of nearly an entire globe being in perpetual poverty with people in the United States– sadly, primarily minorities– living in regions no better than “third world countries” partakes me to avoid silence. It is unnatural to consider the current state acceptable, especially as it relates to the handling by European powers. Trying to take the world as is should only be done by people who cannot strive for a better world, not people who have the means to make a difference. But coming from someone such as yourself, I can imagine you lack the genuity and creativity to prepare for such an occurrence.
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@ofbordelloandmen
What do you mean
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