Colonizer Curriculum: Texas Educators Want To Characterize Slavery As ‘Involuntary Relocation’

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By now, it should be as clear as day that Texas is chief among the many red states where white fragility goes to die, be reborn and become the catalyst for virtually all policy changes.

Apparently, for one group of Texas educators, it’s not enough that the state passed an anti-critical race theory law that dropped requirements for teachers to give lessons on, among other things, the KKK, the teachings of Martin Luther King or any curricula that might make (white) students uncomfortable. This group also feels the need to sanitize slavery for second graders by describing it as “involuntary relocation.”

From the Texas Tribune:

The working group of nine educators, including a professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, is one of many such groups advising the state education board to make curriculum changes. This summer, the board will consider updates to social studies instruction a year after lawmakers passed a law to keep topics that make students “feel discomfort” out of Texas classrooms. The board will have a final vote on the curriculum in November.

Part of the proposed social studies curriculum standards outlines that students should “compare journeys to America, including voluntary Irish immigration and involuntary relocation of African people during colonial times.”

Since this is what we’re doing, I have some thoughts. Maybe right-wing states like Texas would consider curricula on white supremacy if we change the language to “Imbalanced Caucasian control conditions.” Maybe they’d accept CRT if the initials stood for “Colonizer Responsibility Tugs-n’-hugs.” Instead of “segregation,” let’s call it “white-autonomy and Black-over-there-ity.” Why call them “lynchings,” when we can call them “rope-involved free Black disposals?”

Anyway, the Tribune noted that “in 2015, Texas attracted attention when it was discovered a social studies textbook approved for use in the state called African slaves who were brought to the United States, ‘workers.’” So, this isn’t the state’s first Texas rodeo of racism and white fragility placating.

To be fair, Keven Ellis, chair of the Texas State Board of Education, said in a statement Thursday that “The board–with unanimous consent– directed the work group to revisit that specific language” regarding the “involuntary relocation” white nonsense.