As blacks flee state, California seeks mandatory K-12 'ethnic studies' coursework

The California legislature is considering mandatory "ethnic studies" coursework for all K-12 students, even as black Californians continue to flee the Golden State, often leaving for states like Texas, Nevada and Georgia.

A proposed model curriculum now on the California State Board of Education's website calls for the coursework to "build new possibilities for post-imperial life that promotes collective narratives of transformative resistance." It encourages teachers to give "examples of systems of power, which can include economic systems like capitalism and social systems like patriarchy." It also calls for teaching about "the four 'I's of oppression" — ideological, institutional, interpersonal and internalized.

Meanwhile, a study by CalMatters found that California "went from a high of 7.7% Black in 1980 to 5.5% Black in 2018, Census data shows, even as it added 15 million residents who were mostly Latino, Asian or multi-racial. Nearly 75,000 Black Californians left the state in 2018, according to a CalMatters analysis of federal estimates, compared to 48,000 Black people who moved in."

The Sacramento Bee reported this black exodus is part of a larger trend: "About 691,000 people left California to live in other states in 2018, new census estimates indicate."

Carol Swain, a member of the Black Voices for Trump advisory board and former professor of political science and professor of law at Vanderbilt University, told Just the News that she thinks blacks are leaving California for the same reason whites are fleeing the state. 

"High taxes, the rising cost of living, and the state's generous support of illegal immigrants are factors that work against working-class people being able to achieve financial stability," Swain said.

Swain, who also hosts the Be the People podcast, authored the book "Black Faces, Black Interests: The Representation of African Americans in Congress." Published by Harvard University Press, the book won the Woodrow Wilson prize for the best book published in the U.S. on government, politics or international affairs in 1994.

"Requiring mandatory ethnic studies courses serves a two-fold purpose," Swain said. "First, it creates a captive audience for the Marxist ideology disguised as critical race theory, and secondly, it provides job security for thousands of minorities who have degrees that would otherwise be worthless in the marketplace." 

Swain is a member of the "1776 Unites" coalition founded by activist Bob Woodson that pushes back on the New York Times' "1619 Project," which seeks to rewrite American history to place the United States' founding date not the year the Declaration of Independence was signed (1776) but the year that the first known slave boat arrived on America's shores (1619).

"In the new ethnic environment, blacks are at the bottom of a pecking order that places Hispanics at the top and Asians in the middle," Swain said. "Blacks are less favored than other racial and ethnic groups because of the negative stereotypes and continued dysfunction that dominates in many communities."