The Schools: Afrocentrism in the Suburbs

WASHINGTON-AREA residents fondly refer to outlying Prince George’s County, Maryland, as “PG” County. The term has recently assumed an unexpected irony. With the near-adoption of a set of multicultural curricula, students might soon need Parental Guidance in order to unravel the strange education dispensed in the nation’s 15th largest school district.

The county is famous for its large black middle-class. Writing in the New York Times Magazine, David J. Dent called it “the closest thing to utopia that black middle-class families could find in America.” But like most of suburban America, the county has found itself vulnerable to bourgeois trendiness. The board of education, which oversees a two-thirds black student population, has hit upon a race-specific fad: Afrocentrism.

WASHINGTON-AREA residents fondly refer to outlying Prince George’s County, Maryland, as “PG” County. The term has recently assumed an unexpected irony. With the near-adoption of a set of multicultural curricula, students might soon need Parental Guidance in order to unravel the strange education dispensed in the nation’s 15th largest school district.

The county is famous for its large black middle-class. Writing in the New York Times Magazine, David J. Dent called it “the closest thing to utopia that black middle-class families could find in America.” But like most of suburban America, the county has found itself vulnerable to bourgeois trendiness. The board of education, which oversees a two-thirds black student population, has hit upon a race-specific fad: Afrocentrism.

About the Author

John J. Miller

John J. Miller, a former national correspondent for National Review, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.