New US History Textbook Raises Anti-Trump Red Flags About 'Not-Very-Hidden Racism' of His Voters

CBN ^ | 4/18/19

[Altura Ct.]

A new Advanced Placement American history textbook is raising red flags because of its anti-Trump language and its suggestion that Trump supporters are racist.

By the People: A History of the United States is the newest edition of a Pearson Education history book that could be made available to high school students if school districts opt to use it.

The book has not yet been distributed to students but has been introduced to teachers to see if they would want to use it as part of their curriculum in the next couple of years.

Tarra Snyder, a student at Rosemount High School in Minnesota saw a sample copy of the book sent to her high school history teacher and snapped an image of its material.

She told CBN News why she decided to share the image on social media.

"I know people all over the country are supporters of the conservative part and to say that they are all one-sided and they are all white, suburban and rural and they wouldn't vote for Hillary because she was a woman, and they were nostalgic for an earlier time, I think they were completely out of line," she said.

In the book's final section, titled "The Angry Election of 2016," the author, New York University Prof. James W. Fraser, compares Trump and Hillary Clinton supporters.

"Clinton's supporters feared that the election had been determined by people who were afraid of a rapidly developing ethnic diversity of the country," it reads. "They also worried about the mental instability of the president-elect and the anger that he and his supporters brought to the nation."

"Most thought that Trump was too extreme a candidate to win the nomination, but his extremism, his anti-establishment rhetoric, and, some said, his not-very-hidden racism connected with a significant number of primary voters," it continues.

The book goes on to describe the demographic of those voters.

"Trump's supporters saw the vote as a victory for people who, like themselves, had been forgotten in a fast-changing America – a mostly older, often rural or suburban, an overwhelmingly white group," the sample copy reads.

Fraser said he wrote the book to "help make US History courses more lively," according to his NYU bio page.

The ordained minister said the purpose of the book was to focus on the lives of everyday Americans from differing "communities, times, and places," not to divide.

"As a writer and teacher I see it as my job to put the information about history, including elections in front of students as honestly and clearly as I can. I tried to do the same for Trump vs. Clinton as I did for Adams vs. Jefferson or any other election," he wrote in a statement sent to CBN News.

"I never want to indoctrinate but to encourage students to listen to various arguments and multiple perspectives," he added.

"Keeping facts from students rightly makes them distrust all textbooks," Fraser continued. "Laying out the facts as clearly as I know how and doing so in comparison to other information or facts is the best way to encourage the kind of thoughtful engagement with history that every historian should work for."

Scott Overland, a spokesperson for the British-based Pearson Education, told CBN News that the textbook was designed to meet specific Advanced Placement standards.

"AP History 'By the People' was developed by an expert author and underwent rigorous peer review to ensure academic integrity," he wrote in a statement. "This work is designed to convey college-level information to high school students and meet specific Advanced Placement standards."

He said the purpose of the text is to promote critical thinking for students.

"U.S. history and government are important topics for students that can evoke passionate responses as they explore difficult and often controversial issues," he wrote in a statement.

Snyder told CBN News the textbook missed the mark.

"In order for you to be thinking critically you have to have both sides of the story," she said. "If only one side of the story is brought forth then the facts are skewed and people are not able to think with the full plethora of information, which would lead people to not make an educated decision on where they stand on the political spectrum."

Snyder did caution against taking things at face value.

"It is healthy for any person to be questioning the material that they are consuming and reading," she added. "I think it is a really important thing to get multiple perspectives."

It's up to individual school districts to determine if they want to adopt the textbook into their high school curriculum.

[YouGoTexasGirl]

Exactly!!! White man vs. White woman makes us racist!!!!

Fake Curriculum!!!!

[magyars4]

So what! I have learned to accept, and even welcome being called a racist!

[Reno89519]

Ban their books. I am really tired of the propaganda, bigotry, and bias in our kids school books.

[Drango]

What about the not so hidden pedophilia and fascism from the left?

[Clutch Martin]

It’s not much of a stretch to conclude that the objective of this “history” program is in itself racist by its implication, and rejects the fact that different races vote for the same people whether it be Obama or Trump or Bush, Ford, Ducakis, or any other candidate. You cannot pigeonhole a persons Free Will in voting to specific demographics. To think otherwise is in effect racist. And the author along with his fan club are just as racist as the Theory projects about other groups.

In this case one specific ethnic group.

[txrefugee]

This is typical miseducation of our “best and brightest” by Leftists in our government education/indoctrination mills. When will taxpayers stop funding the destruction of America?

[hardspunned]

Looks pretty mild compared to what students will be fed when they get to college or when they turn on a TV.

[upchuck]

Ping.

[SuperLuminal]

All this revisionist history technique that is inundating the Nation’s history was cleverly devised in the Soviet Union...

It still continues there, although at a pace that is insignificant compared to its use during the past 50-years by the communists in this country...

[NTHockey]

Present both sides of the story: the diverse, the intelligent, the elite on one side. On the other side we have the racist, the inbred and the deplorable.

Fair and balanced?

BTW, that “nostalgia for an earlier time”. We could walk down the street (no shooting, no drugs, no poop)? We could play in the street or front yard? We didn’t lock our front doors (unless it was for mom to catch you sneaking in after curfew). Racism was there, sure, but there was also respect.

[wetgundog]

One book that absolutely needs a good burning.

[Steely Tom]

Present both sides of the story: the diverse, the intelligent, the elite on one side. On the other side we have the racist, the inbred and the deplorable.

They're configuring things for another genocide.

[TheNext]

Democrat KKK History textbook

LOSERS

[PIF]

Go to Amazon and get the two volume set of "The Growth of the American Republic" by Morison, Commager, Leuchtenburg. Oxford University Press, 1980

Leuchtenburg replaced Henry Steele after his passing. Was my US history book back when. The Seventh Edition goes to about 1970, which is a good basic foundation for the next decades.

Current Oxford University Press history catalogue

[MacNaughton]

My neighbor is the head of the AP program at our local HS. He is a dedicated socialist. I hate to think what doctrine he is cramming into Gen Z’s brains.

[MacNaughton]

1 … He said the purpose of the text is to promote critical thinking for students. …

SSDD …

1980
Zinn portrays a side of American history that can largely be seen as the exploitation and manipulation of the majority by rigged systems that hugely favor a small aggregate of elite rulers from across the orthodox political parties. In a 1998 interview, Zinn said he had set "quiet revolution" as his goal for writing A People's History. "Not a revolution in the classical sense of a seizure of power, but rather from people beginning to take power from within the institutions. In the workplace, the workers would take power to control the conditions of their lives." Howard Zinn was a historian, playwright, and social activist. He was a shipyard worker and Air Force bombardier before he went to college under the GI Bill and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He taught at Spelman College and Boston University, and was a visiting professor at the University of Paris and the University of Bologna.

[Bratch]

Lemme guess... we must be racist because we voted for a white guy Republican instead of... um, a white girl Democrat.

Fixed.

[metmom]

They’re rewriting history before it even becomes history.

They aren’t even waiting until a generation has passed that knows the truth.

[metmom]

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[cnsmom]

My daughter ‘s middle school history book had more pages and chapters covering the Black Panther Movement than the Civil War.