You have reported that Harford County schools will not offer Advanced Placement African American Studies after a majority of school board members voted to eliminate that course because they consider it divisive and political (“Harford schools wrong to reject AP African American studies,” June 30). I hope these board members have enough insight to see that they are exactly what they choose to avoid by not offering the course. They are being political and divisive while claiming they are protecting high school students from politics and divisiveness.
A classroom is a place for discussion and debate. I am sure by high school age, students, especially the ones who choose to do AP courses, have learned to deal with controversies. And with a good teacher at the head of the class, they can sort out the negatives and the positives of their courses through robust arguments.
The Harford board would stifle a cross-pollination of ideas in the classrooms, disrespecting the intelligence of students, both white and minority, and the wisdom of their teachers who would be able to navigate them between the Scylla of racial divisions and Charybdis of racial politics. They’ve made a dictatorial decision to scrap this important course based on their antiquated ways of thinking and baseless fears.
What are they afraid of? That the students of Harford County will disrespect law enforcement when they learn the role of law enforcement in the lives of Black Americans, present and past? Their revisionism by omission is a terrible suppression of the truth.
Oppression is part of historical truth for African Americans. Overcoming oppression is also part of that truth. If the very word “oppression” is anathema to the board members who pontificate that African American history should exclude the oppression that happened to concentrate on the progress being made, that’s like saying African American history should be a house without a foundation.
An estimated 14% of Harford County residents are Black. Their children are being denied an opportunity to study their own history when the Harford County Board of Education disallowed the course. The loss of this course is also a loss to those white students who want to learn the history of America in all its glorious and inglorious moments. And I have no doubt there are many such white students, bold and more open-minded than the board members who would deny them that chance.
— Usha Nellore, Bel Air
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