Daily Archives: August 9, 2017

By Jonathan Zimmerman

Hey, check out those yahoos in Florida! Theyre censoring textbooks!

My fellow progressives have worked themselves into a good liberal lather over a new law in Florida that allows citizens to object to books assigned in the public schools. Promoted by conservative activists, who accused textbooks of fostering left-wing propaganda, the measure lets anyone in the state raise concerns about teaching materials and entitles those who object to a public hearing of their complaints.

Liberals immediately raised the specter of censorship, worrying that schools would purge information about sex, evolution and climate change.

But we should applaud rather than resist the popular scrutiny of textbooks, which has been a force for social justice and equality in other key moments in our past.

If you think otherwise, Ive got three words for you: Little Black Sambo.

Remember Sambo? He was the jolly, ostensibly Indian figure who dotted the pages of elementary school readers and spellers for much of American history.

Sambo became racist shorthand for a docile and childlike African-American who cheerily accepted his subjugation to the white master.

Hes gone from our textbooks, thankfully. And the reason is you guessed it citizen pressure on the schools. Starting in the 1940s, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other African-American organizations issued a steady drumbeat of protest against Little Black Sambo and other types of racism in textbooks.

History books valorized the Ku Klux Klan. Music books featured the original lyrics of Stephen Foster songs, including the N-word and darky. Geography books described Africa as a dark continent of barbarity and superstition.

And in New York City, home to millions of Jews and African-Americans, schools taught an anti-Semitic and racist play called The Kings English.

It told the story of a boat shipwrecked on an island where a black cannibal Kawa Koo threatens to eat all 20 of the survivors.

Eventually, Kawa agrees to let a single passenger survive. The boats white captain, Ripley ORannigan, decides to select the person who speaks the best English. That draws gripes from the boats lone Jewish passenger, Perlheimer, who talks with both hands as he denounces Ripley.

Inklish? Vat for I speak Inklish? Perlheimer asks. I read Yiddische papers. I talk Yiddish mit mein friends. Ripley cuts him off. You may have him, Kawa! he tells the cannibal. America doesnt want him. Hes indigestible.

Black and Jewish protests led the New York schools to drop The Kings English in the early 1950s. Little Black Sambo held on a bit longer, but he mostly disappeared from our textbooks by the late 1960s.

Does that mean racism has been purged from school materials? Of course not. Just two years ago, a Texas citizen discovered that her sons history textbook described slaves as workers who came from Africa to America to work on agricultural plantations.

She objected, of course, and the publisher agreed to revise the offending passage. And that provided an object lesson in American democracy, which is always enhanced by citizen participation.

That doesnt mean every objection is valid, of course. Supporters of the new Florida law took aim at biology books describing evolution and human-made climate change, although both concepts are embraced by almost every informed scientist.

Others condemned history textbooks that allegedly praised government services at the expense of individual initiative and self-reliance.

But the answer to this challenge isnt to cut off citizen challenges, which would also prevent complaints of the sort that the Texas mom made. Nor should we squawk about censorship, which is the ultimate red herring in these debates. Im glad Little Black Sambo and The Kings English were censored, if by that term we mean their removal from the official curriculum. Arent you?

Instead, we liberals should use this occasion to call for more public engagement not less in school affairs. The Florida measure specifies that school boards must conduct an open public hearing about every citizen complaint before an unbiased and qualified hearing officer.

Theres our opening. When conservatives move to eliminate material about climate change or evolution, we need to flood these hearings to defend it. Weve got knowledge on our side, just as we did in the case of Little Black Sambo.

Depictions of slavery as a benign institution werent simply racist or offensive, although they were surely that. They were false.

Condemning the new Florida measure, one Democratic state legislator warned it could let anybody come in and complain about the history of slavery, or the fact that maybe we shouldnt have evolution in our textbooks. He was right, but it would be wrong to prevent that.

If you dont like what the schools are teaching, raise your voice. In America, thats the only way we get closer to the truth.

Jonathan Zimmerman, who teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania, is the author (with Emily Robertson) of The Case for Contention: Teaching Controversial Issues in American Schools (University of Chicago Press, 2017). Email at jlzimm@aol.com.

2017, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

See more here:
Jonathan Zimmerman column: Liberals worried about censorship forget about Sambo and the KKK - Richmond.com

WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange has offered a job to James Damore, a Google employee who was fired after he wrote a scathing internal memo criticizing the company's diversity policies .

"Censorship is for losers, WikiLeaks is offering a job to fired Google engineer James Damore," Assange wrote on Twitter Tuesday. In the same post, Assange also linked to a WikiLeaks article he wrote called "Google Is Not What It Seems."

Damore, a now-former engineer at Google, accused the Silicon Valley web giant of suppressing conservative voices in a 10-page memo called Googles Ideological Echo Chamber ," which was circulated over the weekend.

[W]hen it comes to diversity and inclusion, Googles left bias has created a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence," the memo, which was initially published anonymously, said. He later confirmed in an email to Bloomberg that he had been dismissed for "perpetuating gender stereotypes."

Google CEO Sundar Pichai told employees on Monday that parts of Damore's memo "violate our Code of Conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace."

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Wikileaks' Julian Assange Just Offered Google's Fired Anti-Diversity Employee a Job - Fortune

Julian Assange has reached out to James Damore, the software engineer fired by Google for publishing an "anti-diversity manifesto." The WikiLeaks founder used his Twitter account (currently sporting a fake "verified" badge) to offer him a job.

Linking to an article entitled "Google Is Not What It Seems" about his book When Google Met Wikileaks, Assange said: "Censorship is for losers. @WikiLeaks is offering a job to fired Google engineer James Damore."

As well as the offer of a job for Damore, Assange criticized Google for what he sees as censorship, suggesting that employees should not be fired for "politely expressing ideas." The response on Twitter was not particularly positive, with many people calling out Assange for his definition of censorship and calling for him to vacate the Ecuadorian embassy where he remains holed up.

Assange posted a series of five tweets:

With no details given of what the job offer entails, the Twitter rant seems more like an excuse for Assange to revisit a favorite topic of his and sound off at the expense of Google. As for Damore -- from whom little has been heard -- the chances are he will not be short of job offers.

More here:
'Censorship is for losers': WikiLeaks offers fired Google engineer a job - BetaNews

Common Dreams

Fearing Trump Censorship, Govt. Scientists Leak Alarming Climate Report Common Dreams Fearing Trump Censorship, Govt. Scientists Leak Alarming Climate Report. Published on. Tuesday, August 08, 2017. by. Common Dreams. Fearing Trump Censorship, Govt. Scientists Leak Alarming Climate Report. Scientists at 13 federal agencies released ... ANOTHER leak hits Trump as official climate change report is released by scientists who fear its warning that ...Daily Mail Scientists Fear Trump Will Dismiss Blunt Climate ReportNew York Times Read the Draft of the Climate Change Report - The New York TimesNew York Times The Guardian all 425 news articles »

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Fearing Trump Censorship, Govt. Scientists Leak Alarming Climate Report - Common Dreams