NEW: Republican attacks on K-12 race education feel personal for John King, not just as a former social studies teacher & education secretary for the first Black president, but also as the descendent of an enslaved man. by @ngaudiano @thisisinsider businessinsider.com/critical-race-…
King, a Democratic candidate for governor of Maryland, lives in Silver Spring, just outside DC, and about 25 miles from the property where his great grandfather was enslaved. He has visited the cabin where his family lived.
"That's real," he said in an interview with @thisisinsider "That happened. And that history around slavery, around segregation, redlining, certainly influences many of the challenges we have in the country today."
To King, state legislatures passing laws to ban K-12 teaching of "critical race theory" — the college-level study of racial bias in laws that Democrats & education leaders say isn't taught in K-12 schools — are "anti-teacher," "anti-truth" & an attempt to delete his own history.
Laws in Tennessee and Texas are already having a "chilling effect" on teachers, who are worried about discussing slavery, the Japanese internment, or the civil rights movement, King said.
King: "I think we...have to make the case for the country being strong enough to both grapple w/ ways we've fallen short of our aspirations & also celebrate the ways we've made progress towards greater equality over time. We can hold both ideas."
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