(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) A recent addition to AP high school courses includes a class called Advanced Placement African American Studies , which teaches the history of civil rights, African–American music and voodoo.
The College Board, which manages the program, has not promoted the course itself but has been secretive about its content, The Federalist reported.
Several reports indicate that the course preaches Marxist values, and is determinedly anti-American.
An outline of the course material shows that the topic of voodoo magic comes up constantly and is framed as a legitimate religion that is suppressed by white people.
Students gave their reactions to a pro-voodoo video, claiming that white people worked to dispel the practice because they “felt like it was empowering to black people.”
Another said “it made [them] think that not everything has to be bad.”
The practice of voodoo involves divination, becoming possessed by spirits, causing physical harm to others in order to practice spells and even ritualistic cannibalism.
The course encourages vulnerable children to practice radical activism in addition to black magic.
The APAAS course is host to readings from Robin D. G. Kelley, a self-professed scholar and activist who claims that in order to truly study the history of black people in America, the study of revolutions and practice of activism are necessary.
“The readings almost uniformly consist of neo-Marxist agitation — pleas for a socialist transformation of America,” said reporter Stanley Kurtz.
Readings from anti-American psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, and Critical Race Theory advocates Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Kimberlé Crenshaw and Patricia Hill Collins are also on the course’s curriculum.
Despite the obvious political lilt the course takes, teachers insist they are not indoctrinating their students.
“The purpose is not to indoctrinate them or guide them in some kind of political philosophy,” claimed Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, a professor of African American Studies at Harvard University. “…The story is so much more complex than simply White people versus Black people.”
Despite their protestations, a closer look at the course material reveals that students are required to look into “the significance of the Marvel Black Panther movie,” and “the reparations movement and Black Lives Matter activism.”
The course outline also specifies that “intersectionality is a key tenet of the class,” referring to a glorified term for identity politics that puts minorities and marginalized communities into a social hierarchy based on how oppressed they are deemed to be.
“Students will learn how to advocate for Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC)—in and outside of postsecondary environments,” notes a report from Best Colleges.
