Critical Race Theory and left-wing political propaganda are infused into the AP Language and Composition course at Grand Haven High School. The main purpose of the course is to learn about rhetoric and understand how arguments are made.
Each week throughout the school year students do rhetorical analyses where they find an article written in the past week, and analyze the techniques the author uses to build the argument. The article has to come from one of four sources: the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian, or the Huffington Post. All four sources have strong liberal left-leaning viewpoints. Why are kids analyzing essays from only left leaning organizations?
In addition to weekly analysis, the course consists of several units each lasting approximately 10 weeks. Teachers choose essays for students to read as they learn to understand rhetoric. The College Board does not provide a curriculum for AP Language and Composition. One of these units is entitled the cultural perspective unit.
In the two and a half months of the cultural perspective unit, every essay follows the same basic format. The main character is a racial minority and lives near white people, or the main character identifies with LGBTQ and lives near straight people, or the main character is oppressed in some way and lives near oppressors. Always, the main character is oppressed and is a victim of oppressors.
Here are some of the essays read by the 16-year old students.
How it Feels to be Colored Me by Zora Neale Hurston
Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just met a Girl named Maria by Judith Cofers
On Being a Cripple by Nancy Mairs
What are Homosexuals For? by Andrew Sullinvan
Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Spaces by Brent Staples
During the two and a half months of the cultural perspective unit, white students are taught that because they are white, they are filthy racist people. They are taught that they should hate themselves and be ashamed because they have white skin. They are taught that skin color, which is something they have absolutely no control over, is what defines them as people.
There are approximately 120 students enrolled in AP Language and Composition each year at GHAPS. Instead of teaching kids the Golden Rule, to treat others with respect and to judge people based on the content of their character, kids are being taught that they are, have been, and always will be evil racist people. That’s critical race theory, and it’s being taught at Grand Haven high school under the guise of composition and rhetoric. This kind of teaching has got to stop.