Roni Dean-Burren was less than impressed when her son’s “World Geography” textbook attempted to whitewash her son’s textbook.
The Houston mother’s 15-year-old son sent her a photo of a text bubble that read:
“The Atlantic Slave Trade between the 1500s and 1800s brought millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations.” Ms Dean-Burren would eventually call out the publisher on Facebook.
"The Atlantic slave trade brought millions of workers...notice the nuanced language there. Workers implies wages... Yes?"
Ms Dean-Burren has worked at her son’s high school for 11-years as an English teacher. She’s also a doctoral candidate in the University of Houston’s Language Arts program, the Washington Post reports.
The publisher would soon issue a statement claiming they would rewrite the textbook's passage after Ms Dean-Burren's complaint.
Ms Dean-Burren told the Post: “On a surface level, ‘yay.’ I understand that McGraw-Hill is a textbook giant, so thumbs up for listening.”
“I know they can do better. They can send out a supplement. They can recall those books. Regardless of whether you’re left-leaning or right-leaning, you know that’s not really the story of slavery. Minimizing slavery in any way is a way of saying those black lives, those black bodies, that black pain didn’t matter enough to give it a full description.”
