eral find it very difficult to appreciate the impact of colonization and slavery on oppressed groups as well as Whites; they tend to prefer to regard everyone as descendents of immigrants" (Sleeter 19). Racism and discrimination are viewed as isolated incidents in most textbooks, if the subjects are discussed at all.
Because racism and discrimination are not regarded as systematic, most teachers believe the subjects can be adequately addressed on a one-to-one basis: making students aware of the need for tolerance and the celebration of diversity. Few educators believe that the school system itself perpetuates systematic racism and discrimination, and thus proactive steps are rarely taken to eliminate inequalities such as culturally biased curricula and exams.
Engaging African-American youth in education requires the provision of a curriculum which tells the truth about the black experience. However, even textbooks written in the 1990s fail to tell the whole truth, particularly where African-Americans are concerned. An example is the elementary book If You Grew Up with Abraham Lincoln (McGovern, A., 1992, Scholastic Inc., New York, NY). This book purports to tell the story of Abraham Lincoln and important changes that occurred during his lifetime. The glaring omission is that in almost 80 pages of text, African-Americans are not mentioned once, nor is any mention made of slavery. No pictures of African-Americans are shown in the book.
The impression a child reading If You Grew Up with Abraham Lincoln would get is that African-Americans had no effect on society during Lincoln's lifetime. The unabashed Eurocentric version of the truth that this book supplies is a disservice to students of all races: "Most curricula tell the truth, but they may not tell the whole truth" (Lawrence 120). Although If You Grew Up with Abraham Lincoln is not a textbook, it is a book on the current reading list distributed to elementar...