For the second day in a row, Thursday’s CBS Mornings expressed dismay at Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’s latest victory over wokeness by tag-teaming with far-left author and reparations proponent Ta-Nehisi Coates to bemoan the revised plans for an AP African American Studies course as an attempt to make students more ignorant and unaware of the country’s ugly past on slavery.
Co-host and Democratic donor Gayle King began as you would expect, fretting “[t]he College Board is facing criticism over claims that it changed its new AP class on African American studies because of political pressure” from DeSantis “because it included topics like the Black Lives Matter movement, reparations, and black feminist thought.”
King further bemoaned the fact that, as a result:
The Black Lives Matter movement and reparations are now listed as optional project topics. And according to The New York Times, several trailblazing black authors were removed including Bell Hooks, who wrote about race and feminism.
As we noted Wednesday when interviewing the CEO of College Board and the project lead for the class, CBS refused to mention those specific objections (though she neglected to include the objection of queer theory).
King later gave Coates the floor, asking: “[W]hat concerns you most about the revisions that you’re hearing?”
Coates replied that he’s “concern[ed]” about the “revisions” when educators should be able to teach as they desire without any interference or be told they can only state what “makes people feel comfortable and feel good.” Hilariously, Coates qualified all that by noting he’s “certainly not” someone “with qualifications to design a curriculum for AP”.
Nonetheless, CBS asked him to be the judge and jury.
Co-host Tony Dokoupil said the debate can fit into the “a larger discussion here about how we should talk about race”, so he put the ball on the tee for Coates to state his feelings on that.
Similarly to how the liberal media refuse to speak about or show on-screen the graphic sexual content parents have raised concerns about in books, Coates vaguely talked about how race should be taught as “embrac[ing] discomfort” and emphasized African-Americans don’t want to discuss their history and moments such as Bloody Sunday and Emmett Till’s murder for fun.
“[W]hen you have, like, laws like this stop woke law that prohibits any sort of curriculum or training that makes people feel bad or feel uncomfortable, this is deeply antithetical to the project of education, period,” he added.
Once the co-hosts defended the original AP course because it will end up being “an elective”, Coates reiterated that he’s not “qualified to say” how race should be taught in schools....but went onto do just that (click “expand”):
COATES: The idea that it should merely be comfortable, it make you feel good about yourself, that it should make you feel good about your country, it should make you just feel good about your world as opposed to being enlightened which is a very, very different thing.
KING: Mmhmm.
COATES: I think that’s totally antithetical. I teach writing at Howard university. I teach writers that did not think my students were human beings. I teach writers who are racist, sexist, et cetera because they have something to say and something to teach that can actually be used, that my students should know. Even if they disagree with them, how will you know what you disagree with —
KING: Yeah.
COATES: — if you haven’t read it?
BEGNAUD: Yeah.
KING: Ta-Nehisi, I think about the Tulsa — the riots in Tulsa. I didn’t even know that story until I was an adult.
COATES: Yeah.
KING: I was never taught that story.
COATES: Yeah.
King then invoked how she wasn’t aware of the Tulsa massacre of 1922 growing up as if to imply history of racism (and, by extension, slavery) wasn’t taught in schools, adding without evidence that history “only seems to be targeted politically or in large part when it comes to African American studies.”
Coates made sure not to leave out another key piece of the woke brigade by correcting her that it’s not just black history but “LGBT studies.”
Dokoupil made an attempt to put DeSantis’s argument on the table, but couldn’t help but smear millions of Americans by saying their criticism boils down to “identity politics” “to the extent that the Republican criticism of a course like this is rooted in something.”
Fill-in co-host David Begnaud interjected near the end by stating the necessity of being “uncomfortable” when history’s discussed because “when we were in a space of uncomfortability in a classroom, it leads people to be vulnerable and say things that open other people’s minds”.
Coates agreed while again speaking in vague terms and constructing a strawman about opponents of the worldview possessed by the table and the Nikole Hannah-Jones’ of the world that racial division and progressive activism are necessary planks in determining someone’s grip on history (click “expand”):
COATES: I think that’s exactly right. I think you don’t go into the gym and tell your trainer, hey, I want to feel like I’m eating strawberry shortcake. [TABLE LAUGHS] I mean, that is the nature of getting better and improving yourself. It is deeply, deeply uncomfortable. And sometimes it hurts.
KING: But now you’ve got at least 25 other states that are considering the legislation that would limit, you know, how race and racism is taught in schools. What’s the danger of that for students?
COATES: The danger is producing a generation of people who are deeply uninformed about the country that they live in.
As our Tim Graham wrote on Friday, the media smears will continue now that conservatives know full well that “plac[ing] ‘studies’ in front of a minority group” results in “a highly ideological” tilt.
CBS’s round two of lamenting the fight against woke education was brought to you by advertisers such as Google and Honda. Follow the links to see their contact information at the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.
To see the relevant transcript from February 2, click “expand.”
CBS Mornings
February 2, 2023
8:00 a.m. [TEASE][ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: TA-NEHISI COATES]
TONY DOKOUPIL: Bestselling author Ta-Nehisi Coates talks with us about the changes made to an AP course on African American studies. What he thinks it means for the future of education.
(....)
8:08 a.m. Eastern [TEASE]
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Author Ta-Nehisi Coates]
GAYLE KING: Best-selling author and Howard university professor, that’s Ta-Nehisi Coates, is in our Progressive green room — there he is — in our Progressive green room to give us his take on the College Board’s AP course in African American studies. Remember we were talking about it yesterday. It’s been at the center of a whole lot of controversy. Let’s see what Mr. Coates is thinking.
(....)
8:15 a.m. Eastern
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: African American Studies Controversy; College Board Releases Framework for High School AP Course]
KING: The College Board is facing criticism over claims that it changed its new AP class on African American studies because of political pressure. Last month, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis threatened to ban the class because it included topics like the Black Lives Matter movement, reparations, and black feminist thought. State officials cited an early draft of the curriculum. The College Board released the official curriculum yesterday. The Black Lives Matter movement and reparations are now listed as optional project topics. And according to The New York Times, several trailblazing black authors were removed including Bell Hooks, who wrote about race and feminism. Yesterday on CBS Mornings, we asked the College Board, they were here, CEO David Coleman, how they created the revised curriculum.
DAVID COLEMAN [on CBS Mornings, 02/01/23]: We at the College Board don’t really look to the statements of politicians, but we look to the record of history. So when we revised the course, there were only two things we went to. We went to what Brandi described, which is feedback from teachers and students as well as 300 professors who have been involved in building the course and we went back to principles that have guided AP for a long time and served us well.
KING: Ah, Ta-Nehisi Coates joins us at the table. You know him, of course, the best-selling author of Between the World and Me, The Water Dancer, and — and — and We Were Eight Years in Power. I remember that, too. He is also a professor at Howard University. Always good to have you in the studio, Ta-Nehisi Coates. So what concerns you most about the revisions that you’re hearing?
TA-NEHISI COATES: Well, really what concerns me is the climate around revisions. I’m certainly not a — a person with qualifications to design a curriculum for AP — even AP for African American study. I think the board should be free to do their work and do their pilot programs and go through the process and not be influenced, not just by my thoughts but by the thoughts of governors, legislatures who are passing laws, who apparently want a curriculum that makes people feel comfortable and feel good about themselves.
KING: Now the College Board told us yesterday this was not about politics. The updates they say were based on two factors: comments from over 300 professors and returning to the principles of AP. What do you make of that?
COATES: If that’s what they say, that’s what they say.
DOKOUPIL: By the way, we should also point out that their response to The New York Times article is pretty aggressive.
COATES: Right.
DOKOUPIL: They call it a gross misrepresentation.
COATES: Right.
DOKOUPIL: They — they say it is rife with inaccuracies —
COATES: Right.
DOKOUPIL: — and they claim to have timestamped evidence showing —
COATES: Right.
DOKOUPIL: — that they made these changes before Florida said anything publicly criticizing the course, so —
COATES: Right.
DOKOUPIL: — that’s their position on this. But I think we’re having a larger discussion here about how we should talk about race in this country. The — both in history, both in the present and then in the future because the future has political ramifications. What are your takeaways for that larger conversation that we’re having now?
COATES: I think you got to embrace discomfort. I think there’s a mistaken belief that somehow the study of African American history and American history at large is comfortable for African Americans. It’s not. It’s hard to watch video of Rodney King.
KING: Yeah.
COATES: It’s hard to look at the picture of Emmett Till. Hard to watch a Bloody Sunday. This is not, you know, activities that we enjoy doing and so —
KING: And how about Tyre Nichols right now in the news.
COATES: — right now. And so, when you have, like, laws like this stop woke law that prohibits any sort of curriculum or training that makes people feel bad or feel uncomfortable, this is deeply antithetical to the project of education, period. And I think that need to get across.
DAVID BEGNAUD: It’s important to remind people, this AP course is an elective. It’s your choice.
KING: It’s optional.
COATES: An elective.
BEGNAUD: It’s your choice, nobody’s forcing you to take it and it is a college-level class.
COATES: Yes.
BEGNAUD: College is different than high school.
COATES: Right.
BEGNAUD: But we allow gifted students who want to —
COATES: Right.
BEGNAUD: — to learn from it.
COATES: Right.
BEGNAUD: To Tony’s point, how should race be taught in classrooms around America in your opinion?
COATES: Yeah, well, I don’t think I’m qualified to say that, first of all, on that level. You know, I just don’t — I got to stay in my lane in terms of that. But again, I have to go back to what I said. The idea that it should merely be comfortable, it make you feel good about yourself, that it should make you feel good about your country, it should make you just feel good about your world as opposed to being enlightened which is a very, very different thing.
KING: Mmhmm.
COATES: I think that’s totally antithetical. I teach writing at Howard university. I teach writers that did not think my students were human beings. I teach writers who are racist, sexist, et cetera because they have something to say and something to teach that can actually be used, that my students should know. Even if they disagree with them, how will you know what you disagree with —
KING: Yeah.
COATES: — if you haven’t read it?
BEGNAUD: Yeah.
KING: Ta-Nehisi, I think about the Tulsa — the riots in Tulsa. I didn’t even know that story until I was an adult.
COATES: Yeah.
KING: I was never taught that story.
COATES: Yeah.
KING: And it seems like we should be known — we should know — we should know those kinds of — we should know that about our history. Black and white. It only seems to be targeted politically or in large part when it comes to African American studies. Am I reading that wrong?
COATES: Well, I think that’s a large part of it. You know, I have to be honest, it has expanded to LGBT studies.
DOKOUPIL: Yeah.
COATES: And I think, in general, any sort of narrative that makes a certain group of Americans, and I would say a minority of Americans, uncomfortable —
KING: Mmhmm.
COATES: I think that’s where you’re going to have a problem.
DOKOUPIL: The Republican — to the extent that the Republican criticism of a course like this is rooted in something, it’s rooted in not liking identity politics and, therefore, also not liking any discipline that drills down on identity. That’s African American studies, that’s queer studies, that’s gender studies. I guess they would want them all subsumed under the header of American history or just American studies.
COATES: Yeah. I mean, but American is in and of itself is an identity, you know? And the reason we have all these other things, you know, African American studies, queer studies, women studies, et cetera, is actually to analyze and figure out what that thing is. What is — what does it mean to be an American?
DOKOUPIL: That’s a great point. Yeah. Who are we? What’s our story?
COATES: That’s the root of it. Yeah.
DOKOUPIL: Who’s at the center of it?
BEGNAUD: And the reality is history makes us uncomfortable. And when we were in a space of uncomfortability in a classroom, it leads people to be vulnerable and say things that open other people’s minds, no?
COATES: I think that’s exactly right. I think you don’t go into the gym and tell your trainer, hey, I want to feel like I’m eating strawberry shortcake. [TABLE LAUGHS] I mean, that is the nature of getting better and improving yourself. It is deeply, deeply uncomfortable. And sometimes it hurts.
KING: But now you’ve got at least 25 other states that are considering the legislation that would limit, you know, how race and racism is taught in schools. What’s the danger of that for students?
COATES: The danger is producing a generation of people who are deeply uninformed about the country that they live in.
DOKOUPIL: Is there a role for celebration and patriotism within that?
COATES: I do. I do, I do. I — but I think it has to be earned.
DOKOUPIL: Yeah.
COATES: You know what I mean? You don’t get to, you know, celebrate on the one hand, you know, all the good things and then ignore all the bad things on the other hand. Like, I don’t think that’s actually a true and real grounded sense of patriotism at all.
DOKOUPIL: All right. Ta-Nehisi Coates, thank you so much. Always a pleasure to have you here.
COATES: Thanks, guys.
