The Mis~Education of the Negro

Chapter IV: Education Under Outside Control

Woodson looks deeper into a "Black" education controlled by white administrators. One can only imagine how that started and can see with one's own eyes how it turned out.


"....but if the Negro is to be forced to live in the ghetto he can more easily develop out of it under his own leadership than under that which is super-imposed"

If it is white supremacists who forced Black people to live in ghettos, then of course they are not going to help them out. It can only be done by self-motivated, determined Black people. Besides, I think we all know the relieved feeling we get when our teacher is one of us (and knows it).


"The Negro will never be able to show all of his originality as long as his efforts are directed from without by those who socially proscribe him. Such 'friends' will unconsciously keep him in the ghetto"

Black people can never reach their highest potential if they are led by those who socially, economically, and politically berate and suppress them.


"Real education means to inspire people to live more abundantly, to learn to begin with life as they find it and make it better, but the instruction so far given Negroes in colleges and universities has worked to the contrary"

This is definitely what a "true" education is all about. And remember this book was first published in 1933....what has really changed?

He further proves this point:
"The education of any people should begin with the people themselves, but Negroes thus trained have been dreaming about the ancients of Europe and about those who have tried to imitate them.

Carter Woodson had a different idea for what types of things students should be studying in school. He tells of a Black student who is working on his dissertation, under a white professor.

"For his dissertation this Negro is collecting the sayings of his people in everyday life--their morning greetings, their comments on things which happen around them, their reactions to things which strike them as unusual, and their efforts to interpret life as the panorama passes before them....they will serve the Negro much better than those who are trying to find out whether Henry VIII lusted more after Anne Boleyn than after Catherin of Aragon..."
(More beneficial to learn about everyday Black people than the likes of...them)

If our education is to elevate us it must start WITH us....that includes the things we might deem unimportant such as our sayings and mannerisms we use daily. It really does start with the little things, because they always add up to the bigger things. And these little things are far much more important than........Henry VIII and his sick little love triangle he had going on.

Mis~Education of the Negro

Chapter III: How We Drifted Away From the Truth

"How, then, did the education of the Negro take such a trend"

--What's REALLY good?

Woodson examines various subjects that degrade or ignore Black people which really included ALL subjects. It is very overwhelming.

Geography- "A poet of distinction was selected to illustrate the physical features of the white race,



a bedecked chief of a tribe those of the red,



a proud warrior the brown,



a prince the yellow,



and a savage...the black.


The Negro, of course, stood at the foot of the social ladder.....The description of the various parts of the world was worked out according to the same plan"

--Can we say biased?


Science- "The beginnings of science in various parts of the Orient were mentioned but the Africans' early advancement in this field was omitted"

--No credit what-so-ever. What about Imhotep and the likes?

Language- "In the study of language in school pupils were made to scoff at the Negro dialect....rather than [have it be] directed to study the background of this language language as a broken-down African tongue...which is certainly more important for them than the study of French Phonetics or Historical Spanish Grammar"

--To this day people turn up their nose at those who regularly speak in what they've termed "ebonics"...but learning Spanish is all the rage.


Literature- "From literature the African was excluded altogether. He was not supposed to have expressed any thought worth knowing"

--Yet we are some of the most thoughtful, poignant writers in the world.

Fine Arts- "...They omitted the African influence which scientists now regard as significant and dominant in early Hellas"

--There is great African influence in all the arts, hardly ever recognized, but undeniable.

Law- "Negro law students were told that they belonged to the most criminal element in the country"

--Black man in the news every day for some crime he supposedly committed, while steadily ignoring all the white criminals.


Medical schools- " Negroes were likewise convinced of their inferiority in being reminded of their role as germ carriers. ...without showing that these maladies are more deadly among the Negroes for the reason that they are Caucasian diseases"

--


History- "You might study the history as it was offered in our system from the elementary school throughout the university, and you would never hear Africa mentioned except in the negative"

"The education of the Negro, then, the most important thing in the uplift of the Negroes, is almost entirely in the hands of those who have enslaved them and now segregate them"

--Though legal "segregation" is over, our education was never truly integrated. We still have the most underfunded schools, the worst books, the least amount of resources, and a curriculum in terrible need of a complete makeover. Nothing has changed except a "law". And we see how that's worked out.


"History does not furnish a case of the elevation of a people by ignoring the thought and aspiration of the people thus served"

-- How are you gonna educate a person without respectfully considering who they are, where they're from, and where they're trying to go?

The Mis~Education of the Negro by Carter G. Woodson

Chapter Two: How We Missed the Mark

"How we arrived at the present state of affairs can be understood only by studying the forces effective in the development of Negro education since it was systematically undertaken immediately after Emancipation"

-- We can only understand why things are the way they are by studying the past. The undertaking of educating Black people, after slavery was declared illegal, is critical to understanding our education today.

"The poverty which afflicted them for a generation after Emancipation held them down to the lowest order of society, nominally free but economically enslaved"

--Even after the slaves were free, they were still the lowest of the social order, because they were deeply impoverished.

"He was spending his time studying about the things which had been or might be, but he was learning little to help him to do better the tasks at hand"

--The things that Black people were learning were of little practical use to them.

"The Negro trained in the advanced phases of literature, philosophy, and politics has been unable to develop far in using his knowledge because of having to function in the lower spheres of the social order"

--Please tell me how memorizing Shakespeare, reciting Plato, or admiring Jefferson will help to solve the Black dilemma.

"Advanced knowledge of science, mathematics and languages, moreover, has not been much more useful except for mental discipline because of the dearth of opportunity to apply such knowledge among people who were largely common laborers or peons on the plantations"

--Again, the Pythagorean Theorem is not going to help me figure out how to properly budget a low-income family. It might help build yet another set of prison-like housing projects..but it won't help the people get out.



"The extent to which such higher education has been successful in leading the Negro to think, which above all is the chief purpose of education, has merely made him more of a malcontent when he can sense the drift of things and appreciate the impossibility of success in visioning conditions as they really are"

--This is one of my favorite quotes so far. The chief purpose of education is to train one to think. So far, the educational system has failed. We have not learned how to think; we have merely learned how to serve a master apart from ourselves.

"They have not risen to the heights of black men farther removed from the influences of slavery and segregation"

-- We have not yet risen to the standards set by the old greats such as Nzinga the Warrior princess or Mansa Musa.




"Even men like Roland Hayes and Henry O. Tanner have risen to the higher levels by getting out of this country to relieve themselves of our stifling traditions and to recover from their education"

--These men realized this, and left...it must have served them well.

The Mis~Education of the Negro by Carter G. Woodson

Chapter 1: The Seat of Trouble

"The 'educated Negroes' have the attitude of contempt toward their own people because in their own as well as in their mixed schools Negroes are taught to admire the Hebrew, the Greek, the Latin and the Teuton and to despise the African"

---This would explain why a lot of Black people are self-hating. They had to learn it from somewhere. Perhaps it is taught at home and reinforced in school.


"Practically all of the successful Negroes in this country are of the uneducated type or of that of Negroes who have had no formal education at all"

--My parents are living proof. Neither of them graduated from college, yet we are economically comfortable and more well off than a lot of college graduates or "educated" Black people.


"As another has well said, to handicap a student by teaching him that his black face is a curse and that his struggle to change his condition is hopeless is the worst sort of lynching. It kills one's aspirations and dooms him to vagabondage and crime"

--I agree. If you are taught that you are worthless, then you will become a self-fulfilling prophecy and do things that "worthless" people would do.


"Why not exploit, enslave, or exterminate a class that everybody is taught to regard as inferior?"

--Nobody would care, nobody would fight it, nobody would miss them. Look what happened to the Jews...they were systematically verbally and mentally abused, until they accepted their lower status and were sent to concentration camps with little to no significant (to my knowledge) resistance or assistance, until later.


"In the schools of business administration Negroes are trained exclusively in the psychology and economics of Wall Street and are, therefore, made to despise the opportunities to run ice wagons, push banana carts, and sell peanuts among their own people. Foreigners, who have not studied economics but have studied Negroes, take up this business and grow rich"

VS

--The Koreans DOMINATE the Black hair care business. Why? Because they come here and notice that we are deeply concerned and even obsessed with our hair. They don't have to get a degree in economics to see this. So they start their own business, and make their living off of us. Same thing with Chinese food. Black people are afraid to start their own businesses, and when we do, other Black people don't even really want to support, except a few.

"The differentness of races, moreover, is no evidence of superiority or inferiority. This merely indicates that each race has certain gifts which the others do not possess. It is by the development of these gifts that every race must justify its right to exist"

--I'm not sure how much I agree that every race must justify its right to exist. Probably because I am still undecided about what I define as a race, and because everyone has the right to exist, regardless of race or ethnicity. That being said, I do agree that different does not mean superior or inferior.

And It Begins....

I like to be what some would call an active reader. So as I endeavor to read these wonderful books, I'll be recording my thoughts and noteworthy quotes. I guess you could call it an analysis or a commentary. Either way, add comments as you'd like. Even if you disagree with my opinion, let me know why...healthy debate is great!


And it begins...

with The Mis~Education of the Negro by Carter G. Woodson.



Author's Profile:

Carter G. Woodson was a very active, ambitious, admirable man with many wonderful achievements under his belt. I would much rather my brothers emulate a man such as him than someone like "Lil Wayne" or "Fifty Cent". They would get much farther in life, and our people would get even further.

Some things about him that stuck out to me, paraphrased:

-He was a teacher and later became a principle. In 1921 he became the Dean at West Virginia State College.
-He had a thirst for knowledge
-He traveled to different places and used those experiences for the betterment of his people
-He was an author
-He founded Black History Week
-He never married a woman but said he was married to his work
-He was an initiator...he founded the Association for the study of Negro life which later became the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History
-He knew that European learning was not enough and not nearly conducive to the success of Black people


Introduction

There were some interesting facts, quotes, questions, and statistics in this section..

"The genius of Woodson is that he knew this behavior is logical. If you are educated by people, White or Black who are victims of White supremacy, you will hate yourself. You will possess a European definition of beauty, a White image of Jesus, despise Black professionals and business and go to any length to be accepted by the oppressor."

"How do we explain having in excess of two million African-Americans with college degrees, earn almost $600 billion annually, and the African American community is in shambles?"

"How can foreigners make more money in the Black community than African Americans?"

"Why do we only spend three percent of our money with African American businesses?"

"What explains less than 30 percent of African American families connected to cyberspace in contrast to almost 70 percent of White families including poor Whites in trailer homes?"

"How can African American families own big screen televisions, but no computers?"

"Can you imagine people who built the first civilization and the architects of math, science, philosophy, medicine, religion, and the arts associate academic success with their oppressor?"

"White supremacy can be destroyed with Africentricity"

"Self-hatred can be destroyed with self-love"

"African people must immerse themselves in their history and culture"

"Did we honestly believe that an oppressive school system would transmit the skills to become a doctor, while simultaneously teaching Imhotep was the first?"

"Read this book, free your mind, build institutions, and save your people"