4th Grade Reading Assignment: Obama’s Biography Painting Whites as Racist
While reading about the lives of American presidents is a classic scholastic assignment, the choice for our current Commander-in-Chief has some Illinois parents upset.
The Daily Caller Education Editor Eric Owens has the details:
Some parents in Dupo, Ill. are not happy that a biography of President Barack Obama is required reading for fourth-graders. They say the book contains a host of controversial elements, not least of which is that it casts white Americans who disagree with Obama’s politics as racist.
Fourth-grade students at Bluffview Elementary School were instructed that they would be tested and graded on the book’s contents, reports EAGnews.org.
The book, called simply “Barack Obama,” is published by Lerner Publications. The author, Jane Sutcliffe, appears to specialize in these kinds of biographies. She has written similar titles about Jesse Owens, Ronald Reagan, Sacagawea and Milton Hershey.
The kerfuffle about the book originally bubbled up through a Facebook page called Moms Against Duncan (MAD). The group actively opposes implementation of the Common Core curriculum.
EAGNews notes that the Obama book is part of Scholastic’s “Reading Counts” program and an acceptable title under the Common Core State Standards Initiative, which attempts to standardize various K-12 curricula around the country.
You can view a sample of the bio on Google Books.
The book continually identifies Obama on a first-name basis. It bizarrely blames the evils of television for learning ways “to be black” that are hilariously caricatured, stereotypical and negative.
When Barry looked in the mirror, he saw a young black man. But he didn’t know how to be black. And no one was there to teach him.
He decided to act like the black characters he saw on TV. He started acting tough. He cursed. Was that what it meant to be black?
As he got older, he started smoking and drinking. He tried drugs. Was that what it meant to be black?
It’s not clear if Sutcliffe purposefully conflates being a black American with “acting tough,” cussing, “smoking and drinking” and doing drugs.
Obama biography, required reading, tells fourth-graders that white Americans are racists (The Daily Caller)
Comments
“When Joe looked in the mirror, he saw a young white man. But he didn’t know how to be white. And no one was there to teach him.
He decided to act like the white characters he saw on TV. He started acting arrogant and entitled. He cursed. Was that what it meant to be white?
As he got older, he started dipping tobacco and drinking. He tried drugs. Was that what it meant to be black?
Joe saw the Hollywood movies, and popular TV shows. In them it was always the white guy who was the REAL bad guy. The white guy was privileged, cocky, thought he was protected by the system, he exploited people of color with impunity, and had a secret society only known to whites that backed him up.
Joe saw the popular media portray him as ignorant, racist, misinformed, backwards, violent, misogynistic, infantile, and eager to sacrifice his principles in order to get what he wanted. Is that what it meant to be white?”
Put THAT in Common Core and tell the truth.
Errr – forgot to replace one “black” with “white” – but you get the idea.