California Ethnic

I recently found out that California now has mandated ethnic studies for any student to graduate from high school.

I find this a striking fact amid concerns that Trump will politicize the education system.

Having taken a look at the model curriculum, it’s not as bad/dishonest as you might think.

Now, there is a bizarre inclusion of Egyptian philosophy and Religion under some “African civilization,” attributing Egyptians like Imhotep to this “African” civilization and Egyptian concepts like Maat and Kemet to this “African” tradition. This is then framed as part of the ethnic background of African Americans.

Obviously, that’s idiotic. There is no cultural connection whatsoever between Egyptian civilization and the West African peoples from whom African Americans are descended. Ideally, California would instead have a curriculum that drew on genetic and material evidence to talk about the Bantu expansion and perhaps discussed the other peoples of Southern Africa (Pygmies, the Khoe-khoe and the San, Chadics, Nilotics, Kushitics, and others). It would be cool if they discussed interesting, unique peoples like the Dogon and the Lemba. But that’s probably too much to ask for.

Still, the curriculum could be worse. Sure, there is little desire to engage with reality, and the general ethno-nationalist attitude of of the whole thing is objectionable. But the discussion of racial inequality is mostly grounded in fact and accurate ancient history isn’t the most important thing in the world. The curriculum seems to mostly be pretty positive, highlighting the accomplishments of individual groups, rather than encouraging race-hatred against Whites.

One curious feature of the curriculum is that students are encouraged to engage in economically leftist chants, rather than just ethno-nationalism. In particular, students are encouraged to chant their faith in the seven principles of Kwanzaa, which include Ujima:

“COLLECTIVE WORK AND RESPONSIBILITY To build and maintain our community, together your worries mine. My worries yours, whatever!,”

And Ujamaa:

“COOPERATIVE ECONOMICS, “THAT MONEY MAN!” To build and maintain our own stores, our own shops, our own businesses, getting props. Sharing profits, feeling fine, I’ll buy your goods, you buy mine (Believing people come before profits do. Power to the people, to the me … To the you.”

I am amazed that California liberals feel that it is appropriate to be indoctrinating children with the idea of “collective responsibility” for each others’ economic fortunes, and an idea that we should have a nationalist-socialist attitude toward the economy, wherein we should share profits wtihin the community (which appears to be an ethnic one) and should restrict our economic activity to within the community.

I am not sure that California’s education professionals even realize that this is a contestible proposition, let alone a controversial one.

I think that would be clearer to them if they were asked to imagine Whites, Christians, or Baptists as the community chanting.

Another remarkable feature of the curriculum is that, despite extensive discussion of immigration push- and pull-factors, as a framing of Latino and Chicano culture, there is no mention of Cuba or Venezuela at any point.

There is also extensive discussion of the model-minority “myth,” which makes the standard objections to the trope (that Pacific Islanders and the Hmong are looped in with more successful groups like Chinese-, Japanese-, Vietnamese-, Indian- and Korean-Americans; that Asian-Americans were oppressed and discriminated against, etc.). There is, of course, no engagement with the question of why some groups appear to be a model-minority (except for a bizarre argument that their success results from “teacher support“): why the discrimination against Northeast Asian-Americans failed to deter their economic and education success (as it failed to harm other hated minorities like Jews or Mormons). To consider such questions would, of course, reveal that the ethnic-studies curriculum cannot actually provide much insight on the real dynamics that drive ethnic-stratification.

But I digress.

In my mind, the worst part of this curriculum is just that it is a waste of time. It really could be worse than it is.

But it is incredible that Liberals think Conservatives are the party trying to politicize the K-12 curriculum.