Miseducation Of A Negro

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Author Carter Woodson engages in the discussion regarding the inferiority of Negro culture within American education in chapter 3 of his book, “The Miseducation of the Negro”. I found this concept to be interesting because Woodson discusses that not only were the teachings of Negro culture being excluded in education, but also how education itself was reminding Negros of their inferiority in society. Woodson begins describing the omission of Negro influences in the many fields of Science, Fine Arts, Literature and Language in American education. In these fields, Woodson describes the Negro as being, “Excluded all together… and our teachers either ignored these influences or endeavored to belittle them by working out theories to the contrary” (pg. 33). To briefly expand on these concepts, Woodson describes the early advancements of Negros in the field of Science with their sufficient ideas to create poisons for arrowheads and extract metals from nature to refine in the industrial arts, yet these studies were omitted in early American education. In the field of Fine Arts, Woodson writes that Greek and Roman art was significantly African-influenced, but yet again, was another fact that was omitted. In the field of Literature, Woodson describes the philosophy of “African proverbs” and the folklore of African’s were ignored and excluded entirely in educational texts. Lastly, in the field of Language, Woodson writes, “…No attention was given, except in case of preparation of traders, missionaries and public functionaries to exploit the natives” (pg. 33). Much of the Negro dialect was also despised upon from White and European cultures and seen to be not worth examining nor learning such grammar. The belittlement of Negro cultural not only existed in education, but also existed within society as well. Woodson describes a case of how the Negro’s were seen as “easily

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