Created Equal: What are the consequences of omitting America’s racial history?

Nikki Haley was criticized for omitting slavery when she was asked about the cause of the civil war but she has since walked her statement back.

Last summer, the Florida State Board of Education faced backlash for updating standards on how African American history should be taught in the state’s public schools, including controversial language about teaching students how some Black Americans gained useful skills because of slavery.

On this episode of Created Equal, host Stephen Henderson speaks with Princeton African American studies professor Eddie Glaude about what caused the American Civil War and how revising or omitting that history impacts all of us.

Subscribe to Created Equal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Guest:

Eddie Glaude is a professor of African American studies at Princeton University. He’s also an author whose works include “Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul,” “In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America,” and the New York Times bestseller, “Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for our Own.”

“What are our social obligations to each other — and what’s the role of government in ensuring that baseline level of existence,” Glaude asked on the show. “We have to have that argument because where we are now is that some people believe that certain things belong to them — that a certain social contract is only relevant to them and to theirs. And the other — all of us — should just simply shut up and be grateful that we’re here.”