Suppressing History

The Oakland Tribune

By Dave Ellison

July 25, 2006

IN his July 15 column, headlined "Gay-rights curriculums bring propaganda to classrooms," Sacramento pundit Dan Walters critiqued pending California legislation Senate Bill 1437 and Assembly Bill 606 for mandating "pro-gay instruction" in California schools.

SB 1437 would add the categories sexual orientation and gender identity to an existing California law banning discrimination in California curriculum, and ensure that the historical contributions of at least a few gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender citizens be included in classroom discussions.

AB 606, a follow-up to AB 537, which became law in 2000, would establish minimum steps that school districts must take to ensure the safety of all students, especially sexual-minority kids.

This time, negligent schools could face sanctions, and Walters bemoaned the fact that a curriculum continuing the suppression of homosexual history could be cited as contributing to a hostile school environment.

Walters claimed his ire was aimed, not at finally teaching gay and lesbian history itself, but at the prohibition of "instruction" that reflects adversely upon people because of their race or ethnicity.

"California law already mandates such see-no-evil history instruction for a wide array of ethnic groups," complained Walters, "substituting feel-good propaganda for what should be scholarly study. Adding more groups to this exercise in academic affirmative action just makes it that much worse."

Apparently, Walters slept through the recent bitter controversy about sixth-grade history textbooks and their portrayal of Hinduism. Despite revisionists' best attempts to remove mention of polytheism, the caste system and oppression of women, the truth prevailed in all its multifaceted, messy, sometimes ugly glory.

No, California curriculum — painstakingly delineated in state frameworks and curriculum standards (www.cde.ca.gov/ci/hs/cf/) — remains anything but sugarcoated.

For the past five years, for example, I've taught seventh-grade world history, including the study of African empires. Yes, my students and I learned of Mali's greatest emperor, Mansa Musa, who, by means of an outlandish gold-laden pilgrimage to Mecca, revealed the fabulous wealth of Timbuktu. However, we also studied Affonso, Kongo's hapless emperor. After initially struggling to end the Portuguese slave trade, Affonso despaired and then grew rich selling his brethren.

Where is the feel-good propaganda? Walters provided not a single example. By making his specious accusation, though, he did deftly divert attention from the real issue: Some history never gets told. We teach African and African-American history today only because of courageous, tenacious efforts by many activists against hundreds of years of suppression. African history challenged the racist status quo. Its telling benefited everyone, not just African Americans.

Today, Assembly members Sheila Kuehl (AB 537 and AB 1437) and Lloyd Levine (AB 606) continue that struggle. They hope, not that only positive images of our nation's sexual minorities make it into textbooks, but that, finally, a...

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Carl Gutiérrez-Jones,
Department of English
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Email: carlgj@english.ucsb.edu