Skip to content

AP History Has Not Embraced the Woke Movement

I haven't been in a high school classroom for 40 years, so I'm curious about what they're teaching these days. But how to find out? After noodling for a bit, I decided to find out what the AP History folks think our brightest students should be taught about our nation's past.

My text is a practice test in the Princeton Review of AP US History. Here are the section headings of their practice questions:

  1. Early Spanish view of native Americans
  2. Puritans
  3. Articles of Confederation
  4. The Sugar Act
  5. Thomas Paine on government
  6. Westward expansion
  7. Dred Scott
  8. Populist movement of late 19th century
  9. Lincoln's reelection in 1864
  10. Progressive movement of early 20th century
  11. Labor movement
  12. Brown v. Board
  13. Ronald Reagan and the rise of conservatism
  14. LBJ and the Great Society
  15. Constitutionalism and democracy
  16. First European landings in North America
  17. Freedom of religion
  18. Collective security

The interesting thing about AP History is that it's oriented toward passing the AP History test, which is a nationwide test. Texas and California don't get to have separate ones. This is therefore an interesting peek at what US history looks like when you have to satisfy literally everybody in the country.

I realize that this single practice test provides a limited view of things, but out of 18 topics only two are related to slavery and racism and zero are related to the native American displacement and genocide of the 19th century.¹ And while the specific (and fairly random) choice of topics on this practice test may not tell us much, if 10% of the test questions are related to racism in one form or another, perhaps it's safe to say that most AP history classes also devote about 10% of their time to racism (in one form or another)?

Or not? In any case, is 10% reasonable? Too low? Too high? I should add that the questions themselves are bland in the extreme, with not the slightest hint of moral judgment included. Comments?

UPDATE: Judging by a quick look at the course curriculum recommended for AP History classes, about 12% of the topics (by my count, ymmv) are obviously related to slavery and racism. Needless to say, both may get touched upon in other topic areas as well.

Once again, though, there's no topic area that's plainly about Native American displacement and genocide. I'm sure it gets some attention in the units on Manifest Destiny and Westward Expansion, among others, but overall it sure seems to get short shrift.

¹A few of the other topics include a question or two that briefly acknowledge racism, but only barely.

52 thoughts on “AP History Has Not Embraced the Woke Movement

  1. cld

    I suppose they must be incorporated in the broader general topics, but nothing expressly about the World Wars, the Depression, the Cold War, anti-communism, or the development of industrialism and technology?

  2. Rana_pipiens

    Clearly it isn't just 19th century genocide that's missing.

    "First European landings in North America"? Early Spanish view of native Americans" ?!?!?

    As though American history starts with the first European explorers. As though the only thing important about Native Americans is what Europeans thought of them.

    1. Special Newb

      I think Spanish view of early indians presented honestly is pretty woke in terms of facing down truths

      There's also somewhat limited information on pre-columbian north America. It's there, but that is probably more properly covered in a focused course in college not an AP exam.

        1. qx49

          Good question ! Smallpox and Measles were endemic to European populations when the Vikings set foot in Nova Scotia and Labrador in the late 10th Century. However, I don't find any studies of whether they spread those diseases to the First Peoples.

          In the 16th and 17th Century, Europeans established seasonal fishing settlements along the coast of New England and Nova Scotia, and they definitely spread some diseases that virtually wiped out some of the coastal tribes. It changed the political dynamics between the Algonquin tribes. The Pilgrims landed in a death zone, so they were not immediately encroaching on already inhabited territories (but further west there were tribes that had not suffered (as much?) from the European diseases.

          Of course, the First Peoples gave the Europeans syphilis, TB, and Herpes in return, but those didn't have the death toll of measles, and later smallpox.

    1. jeff-fisher

      I took ap us history 20 years ago, and yea, I believe we did get at least some coverage of the fact that it was a genocidal expansion.

      We definitely talked about the slave trade art one point

      The bit I think might have been lacking was how it had continued in the 20th century. The boarding "schools" (well deserved scare quotes there).

      Can't imagine they are getting less on those topics these days when I live. Funny know about rural Idaho though.

      Of course the whole AP system seems to be shrinking anyway. Replaced by IB and early start college

  3. JimFive

    Standardized tests are very slow to change so I'm not surprised. More interesting would be how some of the topics are addressed. If you read 1491 you find out that the early contacts on the Atlantic Coast were nothing like I was taught. The first traders found a crowded and defended coast line. By the time of Jamestown Plymouth those settlements had disappeared, probably due to disease. I bet that's not being taught to our high school students, though.

    1. Special Newb

      The columbian exchange was probably the most consequential thing to happen since agriculture. We all are taught the basics but when you read indepth you see it was very clearly an end of the world scenario for half the planet.

    2. sonofthereturnofaptidude

      The textbooks are slower to change than the tests. The APUSH test and course have been heavily revised, but the schools can't all rush out and buy new textbooks, because of financial constraints. Worse, textbooks get the Texas Treatment.

      The big takeaway for me is that in MA, we can teach and are encouraged to teach about racism, LGBTQ history, women's history, etc, while in the South, the opposite obtains. It is more than just mass media that divides us; we can't even agree on our own history. But that's probably a sign of progress. Some states, like MA, are way out ahead, but that means the others may come around if the religious right ever loosens its grip on state governments.

    3. Jasper_in_Boston

      1491: terrific read. Upends everything we're taught. The Western Hemisphere wasn't a wild, state-of-nature garden, but a home for numerous, sophisticated societies who managed their environments to maximize carrying capacity.

  4. Rattus Norvegicus

    The one thing about satisfying everybody is that it really means satisfying Texas. They are one of the largest and most reactionary textbook markets, so you have to teach that evolution is only a theory in science class and that Texas was never a slave republic in history.

  5. D_Ohrk_E1

    "Ronald Reagan and the rise of conservatism" seems weird. I would have thought that this period would be called "Ronald Reagan and the rise of the Religious Right", amirite?

    Anyway, go to: https://apstudents.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-united-states-history

    Scroll down to Course Content and hit the "expand all" button. First "unit":

    Unit 1: Period 1: 1491–1607
    Native American societies before European contact
    European exploration in the New World
    The Columbian Exchange
    Labor, slavery, and caste in the Spanish colonial system
    Cultural interactions between Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans

    1. sonofthereturnofaptidude

      I posted the same link. I hope this sparks a bit more thinking about the actual course guidelines!

  6. kennethalmquist

    This inspired me to take a look at the presumably far-left California history curriculum, or at least a 2017 Hoover Institution piece about it titled California’s History Curriculum–Objectionable, Not Objective. Only one reference to slavery in the criticism. It complains about the use of Olaudah Equiano's autobiography because “research has shown that Equiano was born in America, not Africa, and that much of his narrative is false.” The link supposedly supporting this claim says that there is debate about where Equano was born, but that “apart from the uncertainty about his early years, everything Equiano describes in his extraordinary autobiography can be verified.”

    The California history curriculum hasn't been revised since 2017, but perhaps the concerns of conservatives have changed.

    1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      As long as Equiano is more honest than Rigoberta Menchu*, I'm good.

      *The woman to whom self admitted addict James Fry said, "Hold my beer..."

  7. hollywood

    I am maybe 15 years older than you and attended high school in Texas. We did not address most of these topics, certainly not racism. Yes, there was slavery. The North won the Civil War, but now we are carrying on. We are white Christians and we work had to get ahead.

  8. sonofthereturnofaptidude

    I don't know any self-respecting APUSH teacher who would rely on the Princeton Review to create a syllabus for the course, and the syllabi have to be approved by the College Board. I would use this if I were called upon to teach it again: https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/pdf/ap-us-history-course-and-exam-description.pdf
    See p. 32. Note that some of the more woke topics are folded into others -- the genocide of Native Americans is part of "Westward Expansion."
    I'm not going to argue that APUSH is woke by any means, but when I taught it, slavery, white supremacy and genocide were all included. That said, there was nothing about LGBTQ history or the eugenics movement in the standard US history text I used for years with my honors students, probably thanks to the Texas Board of Education.

  9. Fabio

    Oh hey, I'm an APUSH teacher.

    I'd say that (in my own understanding as a teacher for two decades), the curriculum tries to satisfy the (moderate) exceptionalists as well as the (moderate) left-wing types. Like all AP tests, it caters overwhelmingly to the crass college application needs of upper middle class kids (feeding the myth of "meritocracy"), and so thus to the viewpoints of their parents and school administrators, which tend to skew extremely white and moderately conservative. There have been a couple of revisions to the curriculum to reflect changes in history scholarship over the past decade, but there has consistently been very vocal pushback toward even modest efforts made to inclusion of minority and oppressed voices.

    In other words, the current right-wing uproar about CRT is just another variant of the sort of complaining (conservative, exceptionalist) parents and school districts have always and forever made about more inclusive changes to the curriculum. I have no doubt that this is a foundational truth of the human condition stretching back to the Ancient Greeks and even beyond.

    I think the major shift in APUSH more recently, in the past 10-15 years, has been a fairly explicit shift away from political history ("great men in history", key events and dates) toward social history, again reflective of where the academy has been for decades. There was a lot of whining about this when it was implemented, and the exam still is structured so that the old method of teaching, the "let's teach lots of key events and dates and have students memorize random trivia without much in-depth understanding" approach, still can be effective. In fact, in order for students to earn a max score of "5" on the exam, they have to spend a considerable amount of time learning random bits and bobs of hyper specific US history trivia. (as someone who uses a social history approach, I "sell" this to students by suggesting that they see these factoids as more 'evidence' and 'detail' to enrich their explanations and analyses of historical patterns and processes)

    At one point the AP offered some very anodyne suggestions of minority and contrasting voices (as recommended primary sources for instruction) in their curriculum, but even the 'suggestions' proved to be upsetting to a sizable chunk of parents and schools, so these were quietly removed in following years from the basic course outline. They are still technically available on the course website in some of the supporting syllabi, however.

    Your analysis of the review books is pretty accurate. The APUSH course tends to focus rather heavily on the period before Reconstruction, steps carefully through that topic, slides gracefully past Jim Crow, mentions the Harlem Renaissance, and tests a very neutral version of the 1950s~70s civil rights era. If any individual instructor wishes to go more into depth on any of these topics, they absolutely can -- but they then have to sacrifice depth in some other part of the curriculum.

    Usually I cut down tremendously on the Gilded Age and 1920s, in order to focus more on Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Harlem Renaissance. And I typically teach the white suburban experience as a supplemental and contrast to the Civil Rights Era. I know for a fact that many APUSH teachers in more conservative school districts (and states) make the opposite choice. Both approaches can 'work' in the sense that they are responsive to parents/admin in district, expand student understanding of the time period that are helpful when they are drafting answers to open-ended (short answer essay and longer essay) questions, etc. The AP exam does in fact have about 1/8 of its questions at least tangentially related to social issues of race, slavery, inequity, etc, even if scattered across different eras of US history. Showing continuities here, put quite cynically, help student scores as well as act to help them understand broader historical trends.

    There is almost no advantage to doing the same thing for LGBTQ or Native American (NDN) issues. The AP exam barely discusses the former, and discussions of the latter are really only about US expansion and imperialism -- greater knowledge of either of these topics would only be 'helpful' in the sense that they could provide an additional example on the broader topic of civil rights or US imperialism. So a teacher who sacrificed greater depth on the AP curriculum to cover either LGBTQ or NDN issues in more depth would not be 'teaching to the test', even if they technically had the freedom to do so.

    Again, I think this is a reflection of both how the AP exam is intended to cater to a specific group of parents and schools primarily, as well as a (partial) reflection of which issues in US history are seen as mainstream, and which are seen as more a hyper-specialty, in academia.

  10. Fabio

    On a supplemental note -- the AP curriculum (and test) mostly doesn't cover anything after 1980. Just easier to avoid the Reagan Revolution and all the controversial takes on it, I assume. And non AP history classes, at least in the high schools in the Jersey suburbs that I'm familiar with, are much less likely to teach any of this "racial stuff". The 20th century is the story of the US triumphing in WW1 and WW2 (especially), then facing off against the misguided Commies and then beating them due to our general awesomeness. (this is a modest improvement over them being the Evil Empire, I'll admit). Civil Rights is included as an example of how the US is generally awesome, unlike those commies. Generally no context or thought given to Jim Crow or how it developed or why it was so pervasive and powerful that a Civil Rights movement had to rise up to fight it -- racism is something "those people" did, and is mostly in the past, except for some sadly misguided folks nowadays. Subtext: why do minorities keep talking about this stuff?

    One of my colleagues still teaches the Civil Rights era as "MLK was the good civil rights activist, Malcolm was the bad civil rights activist." Just for example.

    1. Maynard Handley

      What would you prefer they include?
      Puerto Rican Nationalists trying to blow up Harry Truman?
      The endless stream of bombs and hijackings in the early 70's and who was responsible for them?
      The legal construction of the 4th constitution with substantially less democratic input than for the 2nd and 3rd constitutions?

      The dishonesty, the ugly stuff that's omitted, is on both sides...

  11. ProgressOne

    Today I started reading Charles Murray's new book, "Facing Reality - Two Truths About Race in America". Only read the Introduction so far. Interesting thing is that he says he is mainly trying to reach the center-left.

    Of course he will be discussing the taboo topic of average IQ differences among the races and how that impacts inequality in outcomes. The mainstream media may ignore the book, I don't know. It will surely be a hot potato.

      1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

        Even the hidebound National Football League has moved on from race-norming in cognitive function tests.

        Mr. Murray's Revolution is over. Andy Sullivan lost. Chuckles needs to follow his GayCatholicToryGapModel* patron & get a Substack. Good day, sir!

        *Hattip Eric Alterman, who used that descriptor for Sully at his c. 2003 MSNBC-dot-com Alterblog.

          1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

            Alterblog was also my introduction to Charles P. Pierce. CPP has only gotten worse since, but mostly from the day of his worked shoot promo against Bill Simmons's Grantland back at c. 2011 Deadspin, followed very closely by becoming a regular columnist at Grantland. As with ex-Grantland, now-Ringer maestro, & ex-Deadspin, now-Defector all-star Drew Magary, Pierce's progressivism is all performative.

        1. ProgressOne

          You can think that IQ differences among groups have no impact on the inequalty of results among racial groups, but you are kidding yourself. IQ differences cause differences for educational success, income, wealth, and so on.

          Life is in part an IQ test. How you do in school is largely a matter of IQ. For example, on average a person with an IQ of 130 will do better in school than a person with an IQ of 100. This is all well documented. So if average IQs vary among racial groups, so will school performance. And later in life, incomes follow how a group did in school.

          I realize that people love to ignore the science on this. This is part of the reason that CRT theorists have built in some anti-science aspects into CRT. It helps to dismiss the whole subject. CRT says that personal testimonies about racism are the more important place to look to understand inequalty in results among races.

      2. ProgressOne

        I don't think he is a misguided crank. His crime was making people aware of the measured IQ differences among racial groups in his Bell Curve book. His second crime was to point out that this means there will be differences in results for educational success, income, wealth, and so on among racial groups. I assume his new book is about the same topic.

        This aspect is completely left out of debates on inequalty of results (equity) among racial groups. People are afraid of the subject, so all inequality is blamed on racism and white supremacy. It's like a matter of religous faith right now.

        Hopefully IQ among racial groups will gradually converge, and this becomes a footnote to history. But for now the IQ gaps exist, and this has a signifcant impact on the inequality of results we see in this country. It is just that this is forbidden to notice or speak about.

        1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

          Murray's mistake was implying the difference in IQ was distinctly & uniquely because they were Black. Big "fast twitch muscles" energy.

          1. ProgressOne

            Here is the key quote on their stance from The Bell Curve (on page 311):

            "If the reader is now convinced that either the genetic or environmental explanation has won out to the exclusion of the other, we have not done a sufficiently good job of presenting one side or the other. It seems highly likely to us that both genes and the environment have something to do with racial differences. What might the mix be? We are resolutely agnostic on that issue; as far as we can determine, the evidence does not yet justify an estimate."

    1. Gilgit

      If anyone is actually curious why Charles Murray’s opinions are so unscientific, Matthew Yglesias wrote a great and very long article about it.

      https://www.vox.com/2018/4/10/17182692/bell-curve-charles-murray-policy-wrong

      Quoting from the article:
      The Bell Curve is, after all, not a work of scientific research but rather a political book written … as part of a larger ideological project. [Murray’s] four books all reach the conclusion that, roughly speaking, we should do as little as is politically possible [to help poor people].

      … The actual conclusion of The Bell Curve is that America should stop trying to improve poor kids’ material living standards because doing so encourages poor, low-IQ women to have more children — you read that correctly. It also concludes that the United States should substantially curtail immigration from Latin America and Africa.

      **

      I was always curious why people talked about this guy and Yglesias finally explained why. Again, very long article, but it does explain what is going on.

      And yes, on “average”, a higher IQ means you will be more successful than a lower one. The laughable part is when people claim this is genetic instead of environmental. To show how dumb this is, I’ll point out that the “average” American 100 years ago had an IQ between 20 and 30 points lower than today. That’s right. Somehow the same genepool went up 20-30 points in 100 years. A number of other countries had the same change. How did they do it? They changed how they taught people and how people were expected to work and learn.

      Also, when they first developed IQ tests they used them to convince people that we shouldn’t have anymore imigration from southern and eastern Europe because they were diluting the intelligence of the other Whites (culminating in the 1924 immigration law). Obviously we should take Murray’s advice and when White people sign up for any government program we should first find out if their ancestry is Italian, Polish, or from one of the other disadvantaged European nations before approving their application.

      So when anyone tries to tell you that racial group X has a lower IQ, they are the exact same kind of people that said different groups of White people should be treated differently because some were inferior. It is the exact same argument. The exact same evidence. And it is also exactly as accurate.

      1. ProgressOne

        It's silly to say the The Bell Curve is "unscientific". It is packed with data and interpretations of it based on more empirical data.

        Yglesias is overreaching when he says it's simply a "political book". The main theme of the book was that those in the US with high intelligence, the "cognitive elite", are becoming separated from those of average and below-average intelligence, and that this separation is a source of social division within the US. I'd say that this reasoning has held up. This surely partly explains why the growth in inequality has primarily been driven by the rapid growth of mean income in the top quintile. The top quintile has the most people with high education.

        The Bell Curve did have policy recommendations too. You can reject these and still get things from this book that are fully based in the social sciences. It's not written like a research paper, but what book meant for mass publication is.

        "The laughable part is when people claim this is genetic instead of environmental."

        As KD has noted in posts, the scientific data is not in yet regarding genes. Certainly environment is a big parts of the IQ gaps, but we don't really know about genes. Geneticists are just now beginning to find the collection of genes that influence intelligence.

        You are right that the "Flynn Effect" shows that IQ test takers have been getting better at IQ tests for decades. This is true of all races. The effect is not understood yet. It's likely due to certain stimulations in the modern world. However, while IQs are rising for all races, the gap between them remains. Thus we should expect a difference in outcomes for educational success, incomes, and so on. This is the data that people hate to hear about because it's unsettling.

        1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

          Yes, the sort happened, & the elite have splintered from the rabble. Sadly, for you, that means your favored political party is all rabble now.

          1. ProgressOne

            I voted against Trump in 2016 and 2020. I voted straight ticket Democrat in 2016 and 2020. I am as staunchly anti-Trump as anyone as every comment I have made on KD's blog will show.

            I was Republican before 2016.

        2. cld

          Poverty is essentially the whole thing with IQ gaps,

          Pollution severely impacts the developing brain,
          http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/20/toxins-children-brain-little-things-matter_n_6189726.html

          Poverty Saps the Brain's Mental Reserves
          http://www.livescience.com/39297-poverty-saps-brains-cognitive-ability.html

          Then there's the effect of chronic inflammation of higher bacteria loads in childhood due to worse healthcare and an unhygienic environment.

          You have to have a system that will compensate for all this before you can try and say lower income people are failing on an even playing field.

          1. ProgressOne

            Perhaps the things you say are part of the causes of the black-white IQ gap. But that doesn't alter the fact that the IQ gap exists, and that this causes significant differences in educational success, income, wealth accumulation, health outcomes, and so on. As long as the IQ gap exists, it is a major explainer of much of the inequality in the US.

            When social scientests do research to look for racism, they never adjust for IQ differences among racial groups. They'll sometimes adjust for education and jobs, but never IQ. I assume it's due to group think to not go there, career preservation, or simply fear of being targeted by the mob. Thus there is little reaseach on how much racism vs. IQ differences cause current inequality.

          2. cld

            Surely considering the issue wouldn't stop there, do you not necessarily ask how it happens and what to do about it?

            Finding that it's a correctable issue that causes massive disability and suffering does that not make it a necessary duty of government to intervene?

            That it might take several generations simply means we should start now, like the flood control system in my hometown, which has been under construction for fifty years, and where even the earliest parts of it saved the town more than a few times.

        3. Gilgit

          >> You are right that the "Flynn Effect" shows that IQ test takers have been getting better at IQ tests for decades. This is true of all races. The effect is not understood yet. It's likely due to certain stimulations in the modern world. <>As KD has noted in posts, the scientific data is not in yet regarding genes.<<
          First off, you are wrong and lots of scientific data on genes is “in”. Useful data. Which means not the kind of data you and Murray want. Actual scientists want to know how the brain works and which genes will produce higher IQs. It is likely there will be 100s of genes (or more likely gene combinations) that produce higher IQs. Maybe in the future humans will put all the genes in everyone and we’ll all be smarter.

          It is likely that everyone already has a few of these gene patterns in their DNA. Every ethnic group probably has a higher prevalence of a few of these advantageous intelligence mutations. Likewise, each group will have almost no copies of other mutations. What Kevin has warned about is that people like Murray will find mutations that are common in White people and not in Black people and use that to lie more (and This Guy will buy it without question). He’ll say, “See, the genes are in 15% of White people and 12% of Black people so we were right to cut education for Black people.” Of course there will be other advantageous mutations that will be much more common in Black people than White people, but Murray won’t mention those because he is not trying to be scientific. His only goal is to feed fake science to people like This Guy.

          Actually, I could have sworn that Murray actually tried this already. I could have sworn a few years ago I read that Murray was saying some gene was much more common in White people than Black people and that proves White people are genetically more intelligent than Black people. The gene was never shown to increase intelligence, but that didn’t stop Murray from making the claim. I must admit, I don’t normally pay much attention to Murray so I don’t have a link. But there will be a lot more such claims in the future.

          1. Gilgit

            “You are right that the "Flynn Effect" shows that IQ test takers have been getting better at IQ tests for decades. This is true of all races. The effect is not understood yet. It's likely due to certain stimulations in the modern world.”

            I had to laugh at you. The effect is very well understood, you just don’t like the answer. “certain stimulations” Yes, if you tell children that they will never move up in the world and they will only ever be farmers or miners and they should get to work as soon as possible then they don’t bother to learn abstract ideas and their IQs stay low. This is understood perfectly. By changing this situation the “average” IQ increased dramatically in many different countries even though the genepool didn’t change. This is also an example of “good data”. It proves conclusively that environment can change the “average” IQ dramatically.

            You say you’d been a Republican your entire life and I’ve met others that talked just like you. I’m not sure racist is really the correct word, but they really try and fit their round racial views into the square reality. When they say Republican they mean conservative and especially the type of conservative that has trouble with the “all men are created equal” concept.

            I assumed, before I wrote the first time, that you would never be open to changing your opinion on this. To you, everyone just doesn’t want to admit that Black people are inferior and that is the only reason, absolutely ONLY reason, why they disagree with you. It certainly isn’t that every winning group throughout history thought they were superior and then they were replaced by one of their inferior neighbors. Nope. That’s not why. In the past, people who thought that were wrong 100% of the time, but you know better.

            So I don’t really feel the need to argue with you, but to anyone else that reads this, I’ll point out a few things. The reason Murray uses IQ data is because it measures how much you’ve learned, but somehow dumb people everywhere believe it measures your genetic ability. They don’t even make any argument on how the IQ tests test the genetic ability. They just tell you it does. The thing to remember is that Murray uses bad data to make claims that good data disproves. He takes the bad data and makes charts and does statistics. And then people like This Guy claim he is being scientific. Of course he is not. Scientific means you start with good data.

            100 years ago Murray would have said the Jews should not be allowed into the country because they are inherently dishonest, the Chinese because they are too dumb, and the Italians because they are both (and that they are black). Today, people like him say the Jews are inherently smart, the Chinese good at math, and the Italians are just another white people so you’d never even need to study them separately. And therefore you can let them all in the country. The only thing that matters is which group uses more government programs and then you work backwards to find something that makes them sound undesirable. You don’t even have to explain why a group has magically changed status. Of course, if after a few generations Asians stop over performing and then start using more programs, Murray will show that their new lower IQ scores are the real ones and the current ones weren’t a reliable indicator for some BS reason.

            I wish This Guy was a bit more honest with his arguments. For instance he said:
            “As KD has noted in posts, the scientific data is not in yet regarding genes.”
            First off, you are wrong and lots of scientific data on genes is “in”. Useful data. Which means not the kind of data you and Murray want. Actual scientists want to know how the brain works and which genes will produce higher IQs. It is likely there will be 100s of genes (or more likely gene combinations) that produce higher IQs. Maybe in the future humans will put all the genes in everyone and we’ll all be smarter.

            It is likely that everyone already has a few of these gene patterns in their DNA. Every ethnic group probably has a higher prevalence of a few of these advantageous intelligence mutations. Likewise, each group will have almost no copies of other mutations. What Kevin has warned about is that people like Murray will find mutations that are common in White people and not in Black people and use that to lie more (and This Guy will buy it without question). He’ll say, “See, the genes are in 15% of White people and 12% of Black people so we were right to cut education for Black people.” Of course there will be other advantageous mutations that will be much more common in Black people than White people, but Murray won’t mention those because he is not trying to be scientific. His only goal is to feed fake science to people like This Guy.

            Actually, I could have sworn that Murray actually tried this already. I could have sworn a few years ago I read that Murray was saying some gene was much more common in White people than Black people and that proves White people are genetically more intelligent than Black people. The gene was never shown to increase intelligence, but that didn’t stop Murray from making the claim. I must admit, I don’t normally pay much attention to Murray so I don’t have a link. But there will be a lot more such claims in the future.

          2. ProgressOne

            "First off, you are wrong and lots of scientific data on genes is “in”. Useful data. Which means not the kind of data you and Murray want. Actual scientists want to know how the brain works and which genes will produce higher IQs."

            Not sure what this means. I already acknowledged that there are many genes involved. Not much else that can be said on this. Just have to wait to see where the genetic research leads.

            "Maybe in the future humans will put all the genes in everyone and we’ll all be smarter."

            I think you are right. Of course there are risks with doing genetic engineering on embryos to make all babies smarter. But I bet it is standard practice one day. To be born with a low IQ is a handicap. That is independent of race.

            "What Kevin has warned about is that people like Murray will find mutations that are common in White people and not in Black people and use that to lie more "

            I didn't see where he ever said that. Perhaps I missed it.

            "His only goal is to feed fake science to people like This Guy."

            If by "This Guy" you mean me, you know nothing about me.

            I don't know where you are getting this argument that people will make up things that certain genes make blacks less intelligent when it's not true. Seems to me the results will just track whatever the genetics researchers find.

  12. Maynard Handley

    To me this looks just awful. Not on grounds of CRT/sexism. or even on general leftoist grounds, but on grounds that it is history as indoctrination, not history as interesting understanding of the world.

    One third covers the world since 1950; and much of the pre-1950 stuff is anachronistic in that it presents the past as just like today except they these bad things. Very little is covered of what's actually interesting, things like just how differently people thought in the past.

    You can do this in a way that satisfies everyone:
    descriptions of how native Americans viewed the world (what were they willing to die for? who was a mortal enemy of whom? how flexible were gender roles?);
    descriptions of how African-Americans viewed the world (what did they think of their neighbors who'd captured them and sold them into slavery? what understanding in Africa did they have of what happened to captives? did they prefer to be taken captive to be worked locally vs shipped across the Atlantic vs shipped across the desert to Muslim slavery? what was their mental model of Africa, the Arab World, Europe, and the Americas?);
    descriptions of how Europeans viewed the world (religion as something to die for, malthusian pressures at home, indentured servitude compared to the alternatives)

    Likewise demography and the agricultural/industrial/scientific changes really need to be covered.

    While I have little sympathy for much of the right wing, I feel their fury that this is history presented as "how european males did everything evil in the world". And the fix doesn't have to be "how european males never did anything wrong", it can be "here is ACCURATE history -- and you'll see how the main thing it shows us is that EVERYONE sucks.
    Native Americans were quite happy to enslave and genocide their neighbors to build empires.
    Native Africans were happy to enslave their neighbors -- and sell them to both Europeans and Arabs, who both killed them in droves during transport.
    Japanese in WW2 were happy to enslave, decimate, and experiment on their Asian neighbors. "

    It's the way this is so obviously history with an agenda that makes it contemptible. Exceptionalism, for example, does matter to the extent that it's unique. It is, in fact, unique that Western Europe was the one society that gave up slavery, and then fought to end it across the world. It is in fact unique that Western Europe was the one society that put together the strands of
    - natural philosophy (somewhat common),
    - mathematics (somewhat common),
    -systematic experimentation (common as experimentation, rare in the systematic form, VERY rare when coupled to mathematics), and
    - publication (as opposed to esoteric secrets)
    to create science.

    The agenda is obvious when these (non-controversial, from a factual, or importance point of view) items are omitted. An agenda is as much about what's omitted as what's included.

  13. Leo1008

    “AP History Has Not Embraced the Woke Movement”

    I might be dreaming: but I doubt AP history will adopt or embrace woke-ism. What, after all, would that actually look like? For any syllabus to go full woke, it would have to do a lot more than just spend additional time talking about slavery.

    The US would need to be presented as some sort of apartheid state where no racial progress has ever taken place. Pointing out that we had a black president (and now a black Vice President) as a sign of progress would be considered as potentially racist if one seeks to indicate that any progress has actually occurred. Race would be the key factor of history, and nuance would obviously need to be thrown out the window to embrace a black and white (so to speak) ideology. American ideals would no longer be presented as aspirational goals, and civil liberties would be presented as forms of oppression. So “correct” answers might involve the need to enforce equal outcomes for all races (one of Kendi’s stated goals) despite what that might mean for our constitution, free society, or legal system.

    How can AP history embrace this stuff without permanently discrediting itself? I assume they know that’s impossible. So they might ultimately incorporate more content and perspective from African Americans (and Asians, and women, etc), but going “woke” would be something else. “Wokeism” is about as obvious a case of an extremist Left ideology as I’ve seen in my lifetime. If AP history starts spouting Kendi’s creed on the need to discriminate against white people, we will be in very seriously bad shape.

Comments are closed.