Black Honor Student Protests 'Eurocentric' Curriculum

NNPA, News Report, Helen Trice Edney, Posted: May 18, 2007

WASHINGTON – Millions of students who attend America’s public schools are being indoctrinated with “Eurocentric” curricula that diminish their history and cause them to feel less than their white counterparts.

That is the contention of Carl Noldon, a senior honor roll student at the Bronx High School for the Visual Arts, in a speech written for a Black History Month program, which, amid controversy, was never presented.

“What I have to say is designed for the enlightenment of those who suffer from a school system that hypocritically manipulates black history in a way that causes a disconnection from black students and their history,” Noldon writes in the speech. “If you try to make a black child co-exist with a racist school system or a Eurocentric school system, then you are basically putting that child back into slavery, perhaps mental slavery…There is something wrong with the educational system and the country. I believe the parents should take an active role in challenging the school system and even the curriculum of this school so that any residue of Eurocentrism is gone.”

Noldon continues, “All the history teachers I ever had were white and from every last one of them I never received the link to the genius of Africa. Those teachers always taught European history with a much stronger emphasis. The result was I was brainwashed. I was brainwashed because I thought genius equated to white people because the teachers talked about how much a genius a person like Einstein was or the Greeks.

“Later on I had to realize that those people that the white history teachers talked so greatly about were used as devices to implant a slave mentality in me and an inferiority complex. But, what the textbooks never taught me was how Europe took a lot from Africa and how Africa precedes Europe with thousands of years of philosophical, religious, mathematical, scientific, artistic, and medicinal knowledge. The African represented a genius so powerful that advanced civilizations flourished even before the concept of Europe was thought of.”

Noldon, set to graduate June 27, wrote the speech for a Black History Month assembly held Feb. 27. Instead, he ended up calling the NNPA News Service, pleading, “I want my voice heard.”

Noldon said in an interview that he never got to give the speech – for one main reason: “The principal was basically talking about how he wanted me to change what I was saying in the speech… There were certain things in my speech, the content, you know, he wanted me to change to make it appeal to everybody. The principal gave me two options. The first one was to omit what I was saying in my speech, the other option was to not read my speech at all.”

Contacted by NNPA, the principal, George York, who is white, praised Noldon, calling him “one of our brightest and best.” But York declined to discuss specific details of why Noldon did not give the speech.

“We offered Carl every opportunity to share his article with our entire student community. We wanted him to go into classes, faculty meetings, assemblies, etcetera. We even spoke to Carl on several occasions, myself and my assistant principal [Ms. Debra Logan], about finding a scholarly venue to publish his fine work… Carl demonstrates the excellent education that he received at the Bronx High School for the visual arts, that he was able to do this research on his own on a topic that he is so passionate about,” says York. “He is really onto something that’s so important. It was really Carl’s decision not to present.”

Though the speech hasn’t been presented, the message is riveting, says Ron Walters after reading excerpts of it, shared with him by NNPA. Walters is director of the African-American Leadership Institute at the University of Maryland and author of “White Nationalism, Black Interests” and “Freedom Is Not Enough."

“The first thing I want to say is ‘wow,’” Walters says after reading excerpts of the speech.

Walters says Noldon “points out the major contradiction of any student expecting an objective education - that the institutionalization of racism within the American system of education causes African-descendant students to adjust to a one-way pattern of socialization … in a manner that devalues their own humanity, history and culture.”

“He quite rightly calls for a new paradigm of American education that respects all cultures," Walters adds. "The problem here is that his perspective, a black perspective, has been sacrificed by black leaders, parents and others in order to position black students into a framework of viability with the American economic system as the primary function of education.”

Noldon’s mother, Anna Noldon, says she was not surprised at her son’s views.

“All he does is comes home and studies,” she says. She says he was getting failing grades through elementary school until his uncle, Vincent Noldon, began teaching him about black heritage and middle school teachers took an interest in him.

On the day of the Black History Month program, she recalls, “He called me at work and he was very, very upset. He said they were not allowing him to do his speech.''

Ultimately, she said she met with York and told him that she wanted everything to be resolved. "I told the principal that I felt that him not letting Carl do his speech was really wrong,” she says. The principal offered a special assembly for his speech to be heard, she says.

But, by then, it was too late. He said he felt violated at being disallowed to state his views to the student body which is 45 percent black, 50 percent Hispanic, and two percent white at the Black History Month assembly. He contacted the NNPA News Service within a week after the program, asking that NNPA help his views be communicated.

Noldon ticks off a list of authors, speakers and mentors who have influenced his thinking, including Dick Gregory, Michael Erik Dyson, Cornell West and Cheikh Anta Diop, author of “The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality.” He credits his uncle Vincent, a videographer, for introducing him to tapes of orators like Dick Gregory.

The speech, which is 2,700 words, also quotes “The Myth of Black Progress,” a book by Alphonso Pinkney, and “Solutions For Black America” by Jawanza Kunjufu.

Based on his personal studies, Noldon uses his speech to question the credibility of some public school textbooks.

“In the world history textbook in this school, it doesn’t directly say that the Egyptians were black people. The Egyptians were just as black and diverse as the black people in this country. In that world history textbook, it is quick to point out how the Greeks called their own thinkers ‘lovers of wisdom’ because they used observation and reason. But isn’t that a characteristic of the Africans?” he quizzes.

“I realize that a lot of parents are just concerned about their child or children learning as much as they can. But I think the parents have to examine the psychological impact that the textbooks in the school system [have on] black students as well as students of other nationalities and cultures.”

National Urban League President Marc Morial, in NUL’s 2007 State of Black America report, describes the underachievement of black males as being among America’s greatest crises.

Noldon declines to cast all the blame on public schools for the conditions of black students. But the 17-year-old, who says he will major in film and metaphysics at Manhattan’s City College in the fall, attributes part of the problem to ignorance about their roots and schools that offer little cultural enlightenment.

“I don’t think schools should use Black History Month as the only time to talk about the historical genius of black people,” his speech states.

Noldon’s speech concludes:

“History has been twisted to brainwash the genius of the black child. These students are learning that African thought is primitive while European thought laid the foundation for civilization… The parents have to take a stand and challenge the school system, the teachers, and those that misinterpret black history because the misinterpretation of one’s history will lead to a misinterpretation of the knowledge of who you are.”