McGraw-Hill will begin rewriting a part of one of their textbooks after a mother complained how what was written downplays what slavery really is.
Roni Dean-Burren said last week on Facebook that her son's "World Geography" textbook published by McGraw-Hill identified the African Slaves as "workers" and "immigrants."
A photo posted by @mscoachb_honest on Sep 30, 2015 at 10:05am PDT
"The Atlantic slave trade brought millions of workers ... notice the nuanced language there. Workers implies wages ... yes?" Dean-Burren wrote, CNN reported.
Her post went viral and had 1.4 million views on Sunday.
She also posted a video where she read a section of the book entitled "Patterns of Immigration."
"'Immigrants,' yeah, that word matters," Dean-Burren said on the video, according to ABC13. "'The Atlantic slave trade between the 1500s and the 1800s brought millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations. So (slavery) is now considered 'immigration'."
Many of you asked about my son's textbook. Here it is. Erasure is real y'all!!! Teach your children the truth!!!#blacklivesmatter
Posted by Roni Dean-Burren on Thursday, October 1, 2015
McGraw-Hill responded on the issue through Facebook and said that "we believe we can do better," according to Time.
"[W]e will update this caption to describe the arrival of African slaves in the U.S. as a forced migration and emphasize that their work was done as slave labor," McGraw-Hill said on Facebook. "These changes will be reflected in the digital version of the program immediately and will be included in the program's next print run."
This week, we became aware of a concern regarding a caption reference to slavery on a map in one of our world geography...
Posted by McGraw-Hill Education on Friday, October 2, 2015
