Whitewashing slavery in US may fuel anti-Black attitudes, says American historian

DOHA -- As more and more American schools attempt to whitewash the history of slavery, the Black community may face further discrimination in the future, said an opinion piece on the Al Jazeera TV website on Sunday.

In the article, Donald Earl Collins, visiting professor of African American history with Loyola University Maryland, highlighted the changes in Florida State Board of Education's guidelines for teaching African American history in public schools, which downplay and whitewash the enslavement of Africans in the Americas.

However, "slavery in the United States was a 246-year-long apocalypse of kidnapping 300,000 African people, transporting them across the Atlantic, beating, torturing and raping them, and working them to their early deaths," said the American historian.

Glossing over the brutal history of US slavery will only exacerbate short-term anti-Black sentiments, he said, adding that this approach may instill enduring internalized racism within African American communities in the long run.

"The racism as exhibited in 'anti-woke' curricula and in book bans in Florida and across the US will reinforce anti-Blackness for yet another generation of children," said the article.