AP African American Studies
The kerfuffle over the new AP African American Studies course, engendered by critical comments by Florida governor Ron DeSantis, has thankfully come to a swift conclusion. Last week, the College Board announced it had made changes to the course before its final release. The Board was careful to point out the changes predated DeSantis’s comments. The changes removed portions of the course that DeSantis had objected to, particularly those elements that focused on modern racial politics like intersectionality, critical race theory, and the Black Lives Matter movement. DeSantis had alleged that such one-sided treatments of political topics violated Florida’s ban on divisive concepts. The revisions entirely deleted this section of the course and replaced it with elements of Black art and music. The deleted topics were instead moved to a section devoted to a research project. A thorough article by Frederick Hess summarizes the conflict. In the interest of fairness, I also link to an editorial by Nikole Tucker-Smith in the Hechniger Report that blasts the College Board for sanitizing Black history.
I tend to side with Hess on this issue although I do see Tucker-Smith’s point that ignoring 21st century Black politics like the Black Lives Matter movement leaves a large gap in the history. The problem for the College Board is that it would be damned if it did, damned if it didn’t in this case. DeSantis and his conservative allies were correct in pointing out that the discussion of modern Black political thought like intersectionality, Black feminism, and anti-racism was entirely one-sided. The original proposed curriculum didn’t address these topics in a balanced manner–it treated them as if they were unassailable truths. For example, if one is going to read Ibram X. Kendi’s How to be an Anti-racist, one shouldn’t stop there and call it a day. Assigning John McWhorter’s rejoinder Woke Racism would allow critical discussion to occur. Had it done so, it would have made for a more powerful course. But that is not what the College Board decided to do. It punted on the issue and instead swept the modern topics to a section on independent projects. The Board likely did not want the blowback from progressive circles this move would have caused.
That being said, a quick review of the revised course syllabus and course description should comfort any prospective teacher that this is a serious and well-thought out course. The course covers many aspects of African American history and culture. It explores African history, the slave trade, slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights movement. Ultimately, I believe the new course will prove to be a welcome staple in the AP course catalog.
