Sci-Am‘s Nov. 1922 article (In Schools, Talk about Racism, etc.) is harshly critical of laws that limit discussions of racism in schools.
There may indeed be good reasons why such discussions could have good outcomes. Sadly, what the article refers to as discussion is not discussion at all, but at best a laying out of a set of supposed facts, and at worst indoctrination. Example: In the opening paragraph the article tells us that Hester (a Iowa teacher) might have discussed how European and American settlers brutally killed many Native Americans in the 18th and 19th centuries.“ Had Ms. Hester approached her class as the authors of this article approach their topic, little discussion would have taken place, since one hardly discusses how European settlers brutally killed Native Americans but rather discusses whether or not such brutal killings ever took place and why. To approach the topic as the authors approach it is indoctrination, not discussion.
Leaps of logic, however, are not limited to this example. They are to be found in this statement too, that “scientists agree that race is not biological. It is not inherent or innate. Instead race is the product of social and cultural ideas that are imposed on groups of people.” Do scientists really agree that there are no distinct races in our world?
(By the way, the only ones who really are not aware of racial distinctions are little kids, or at least kids who have not yet been taught there are such distinctions. You don‘t believe this? Try visiting the daycare center nearest you.)
The authors themselves, incidentally, are far from believing that race is not biological, as proven by the caution they give us, that “it’s critical to keep in mind how (laws limiting discussion of race) they will impact children of color specifically.” Why, unless you are conscious of racial distinctions, the mention of “color”?
Leaps in logic, however, are hardly of any serious concern to authors who—for ideological reasons, not for grammatical ignorance—give us absurdities like this: “If someone cuts you off on the highway, you are likely to assume they are a bad driver rather than assume, for instance, that they are a good driver who happens to be rushing to the hospital in an emergency.”
Scientific American is great when it focuses on scientific issues, like the one in the article just before this one (on the evolution of bipedalism). It becomes mush when it lets ideology smear its better senses.
Ermes Culos
Ashcroft BC
(Ps. Don‘t let teachers teach subjects like racism. Teachers are people. People have prejudices, and they tend to pass on their biases to the kids they teach.)
