Professor authors book about Black Lives Matter for young students

Macalester College Professor Duchess Harris is co-writing a book about the Black Lives Matter movement aimed at middle school students, and many conservatives aren't taking the news well.

Luther Vandross was outed as gay after his death.

Macalester College Professor Duchess Harris is co-writing a book about the Black Lives Matter movement aimed at middle school students, and many conservatives aren’t taking the news well.

Fox’s Larry Elder, for example, said that the book was “indoctrinating young kids, teaching them that black people are victims and, by the way, you, as white people, ought to feel really, really guilty about it. Never mind the election, and re-election, of a black president.”

But Harris says she feels that the book is necessary because she has seen that young people are just not getting any kind of discussions about race in their curricula.

“The outcome of being afraid is illiteracy,” says Harris. “I laugh with my math colleagues; they don’t have students who show up without having taken algebra.”

After that, Harris became involved in the project when local educational publisher ABDO asked her to read through a commissioned book in which journalist Sue Bradford Edwards had analyzed Ferguson. Harris liked the analysis so much that she asked to be in on the project.

But Harris would also point out that the book is not meant to be used as a textbook. Rather, it is part of a series by ABDO that will examine the background of various current and historical events, of which the Black Lives Matter movement is only a part.

“My hope is [the book] is used in classrooms 6 to 12, and that it sparks discussion and dialogue,” she says. “I would love it so much if this were officially adopted as curriculum in the Twin Cities. That’s my dream.”

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