The College Fix

Charles C. Johnson, writing for the Daily Caller, has uncovered a little-known book penned by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice. In it, Rice argues that white students should be forced to study Black history. By way of example, she articulates an Afro-centric view of American history in fields such as literature, science, and the arts. Rice has been mentioned as the president’s first choice to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of state.

“American history cannot be understood fully or evaluated critically without ample study of Black history,” Rice added.

Rice wrote her undergraduate senior thesis under Clayborne Carson, a Stanford history professor who teaches “Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity,” about the experiences of black southerners who worked in Oakland’s shipyards during World War II.

(Image via The Daily Caller)

Like Carson, Rice saw a political component in Black Studies, writing that the “absence or cursory coverage of Black history, literature, and culture reinforces pernicious and pervasive social perceptions of Black Americans.”

And failing to teach Black Studies in school, she argued, had negative consequences for the self-esteem of black children.

Despite lacking an Afrocentric curriculum at the tony National Cathedral School for Girls in Washington, D.C., Rice’s options were many and impressive.

Her father was a governor of the Federal Reserve and a World Bank official, and her mother was a senior vice president of Control Data Processing. Rice won a coveted Rhodes Scholarship in December 1985. “I think it is very important for other black students to be aware of the scholarship program and see it as a good opportunity for them,” she told The Washington Post at the time.