A homework assignment at a Massachusetts high school has drawn outrage for being racist after it asked students to list the “positive effects of imperialism.”
Calla Walsh tweeted a photo of the history assignment early Tuesday to her 17,000 followers after her 15-year-old freshman sister, Cece, was tasked to read a text on the colonization of Africa and then list both the “negative” and beneficial effects of imperialism.
“Forcing students into the mental exercise of justifying/rationalizing genocide because of its supposed ‘positive effects’ itself perpetuates genocide and indoctrinate them into supporting an imperial war machine,” Calla Walsh wrote.
Cece attends Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, a public institution in one of the “most progressive cities” in the US, her sister said.
“It’s not just Republican banning [critical race theory] that are revising history – racist, imperialist revisionism it is a key objective of the *entire* US education system,” Calla Walsh claimed.
She said Cece raised concerns over the assignment to her teacher, prompting her teacher to say that he agreed.
The piece of homework came from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, where the students were told to read a passage about imperialism and then discuss its effects. Twitter/@CallaWalshBut he doled out the assignment since it was part of the state’s curriculum and planned to soon distribute other texts with “different perspectives,” Calla Walsh said.
Calla’s initial tweet went viral, racking up more than 20,000 retweets and more than 180,000 likes as of Wednesday. Cece, meanwhile, showed her displeasure directly on the worksheet, leaving the “positive effects” section blank.
“I think that asking us to identify positives of imperialism, something that killed thousands and contributed to slavery, is extremely undermining and disrespectful to people whose ancestors were murdered because of colonization,” the freshman wrote.
The assignment was a “note-taking exercise” designed to spark conversations during a unit on the Age of Imperialism, a Cambridge Public Schools spokeswoman said on March 23, 2022. Google MapsCece Walsh told the Boston Globe she got upset because the assignment appeared to downplay the killing of Africans and the pillaging of their lands and resources by using phrases about how the Europeans “obtained land” or merely “took control” of colonies.
“It was very biased and it didn’t really give us the truth,” Cece told the newspaper. “The positive effects are often only positive for the oppressors … Teachers need to be aware of what texts they’re choosing to present to students.”
The assignment was a “note-taking exercise” designed to spark conversations during a unit on the Age of Imperialism, a Cambridge Public Schools spokeswoman told The Post Wednesday.
The district spokeswoman said the district tries to teach historical events from as “many different perspectives as possible.” Google Maps“It is important that our students learn about varying perspectives so that they can form their own opinions,” spokeswoman Sujata Wycoff wrote. “The individual who shared the partial image of the assignment is not a Cambridge Rindge and Latin School student. They did not have firsthand knowledge of the context of the lesson nor the class discussion.”
The district tries to teach historical events from as “many different perspectives as possible,” Wycoff said, adding that the assignment is aligned with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s history and social science standards.
