Afrocentrism & Gavin Menzies - To be openly taught.

This has been reported by several archaological bloggers including Jason Colavito, Andy White & Carl Feaghans.


To quote Carl:

Quote:

....one class that stands out from the rest as having a serious flaw: “The African and Chinese Presence in America Before Columbus.” This lesson plan draws heavily on what has long been shown to be pseudoscientific works, specifically, the works of Ivan Van Sertima, beginning with his 1976 book titled, They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America (Random House). Two of his other works, equally pseudoscientific in nature, are listed as well: Early America Revisited (1998, Transaction Publishers); and African Presence in Early America (1999, Transaction Publishers). Also on the reading list is Gavin Menzies’ book, 1421: The Year China Discovered America (2004, Harper Perennial), which is another text that makes bold and specific claims without supporting evidence. One thing worth underscoring before I dive into why this particular lesson plan is bad: most of the lesson plans on their site seem very appropriate. African American studies are a vital addition to our public schools and have many upsides. They promote healthy self-image for students of color and they educate white students on the realities of racial divides. And so much more. But, as an archaeologist, I feel I have a responsibility to stand in the way of pseudoarchaeologists who would seek to marginalize other cultures—to rob them of their achievements—in favor of a preferred but false narrative. And i don’t pretend this is an original thought of my own as I read it long ago and was happy to see it quoted again in the well-sourced and written article in Current Anthropology (Haslip-Viera, Ortiz de Montellano, & Barbour 1997) which I lean heavily on in this article to show why Van Sertima and his Afrocentrist views are not only bad, they’re destructive for young students to be taught as historical fact.

Carl Feaghans Post


http://ahotcupofjoe.net/2018/07/pseu...ounty-schools/


Andy White's Post
https://www.andywhiteanthropology.co...-were-africans



That's right, Afrocentrism of the 'Beethoven was a Negro' kind is moving out of the university 'African Studies' departments and into the high school classrooms.


The author of the lesson plan (Which has been removed from the Miami-Dade.) website also wanted students to consider Gavin Menzies claims about the Chinese and write 'persuasive' letters to text book publishers demanding that they include such material in their text books.

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