Wisconsin GOP Chair Pressures Schools About Obama Textbook Mention

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Christine Bowman

First, there was Sarah Palin questioning the Wasilla Library's holdings. Now a GOP state chair wants textbooks rewritten to omit Barack Obama. And the publisher, Houghton Mifflin, sees nothing wrong with that.

The Chicago Tribune briefly reported on the controversy in Thursday's editions:

[Excerpt]

Barack Obama's inclusion in an 8th-grade textbook has GOP officials seeing red in Wisconsin.

The state Republican Party chairman has accused the Racine school district of bolstering Obama's campaign by selecting a book that includes excerpts from the Democrat's 1995 autobiography "Dreams from My Father" and his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

"These are [impressionable] kids," said Wisconsin GOP Chairman Reince Priebus. "Using taxpayers' dollars to promote one candidate over the other is an abuse of power."

Obama book excerpt in school textbook assailed (Chicago Tribune)

Who is abusing his power here really? Who is playing politics with America's kids?

^{RPW Chairman Reince Priebus and Senator John McCain}

A little background may be in order here. There is a long-standing tradition of right-wing conservatives influencing what material will be or won't be included in America's textbooks. It goes back to the 1970s and earlier, when Texas and California conservatives positioned themselves on state textbook selection committees to wield their influence on textbook publishers. Because those two states buy so many books, approving only a few choices for use statewide, they could literally tell publishers what they could and couldn't say in schoolbooks used across the entire nation. Publishers bowed to the pressure because they felt they couldn't afford to lose the monolithic California and Texas business.

The difference here is that a party chair -- not a person elected or appointed to review and make textbook purchases, but a Republican with a strictly partisan agenda -- now wants to tell a publisher and a school district what to teach or not to teach -- in the middle of a heated national election, no less. And the publisher, long since conditioned to accept "correction," just says, "Sure, whatever you say!"

Whether you like it or not, Mr. Priebus, Barack Obama is a significant figure in American history. Like it or not, Mr. Priebus, the keynote address Obama delivered in 2004 was historic and merits study. Like it or not, Mr. Priebus, your job as Republican party chair for Wisconsin does not call for intimidation of school districts and book publishers.

As for Houghton Mifflin? Their knee-jerk cave-in is ridiculous.

Again, from the Tribune's report:

The Obama excerpt appears in an optional chapter in a unit about diversity. In it, he writes about feeling out of place in his Hawaiian classroom because he didn't look like his classmates.

Publisher Houghton Mifflin Co. has said the excerpt was chosen in 2005, before Obama announced his White House bid. ...

Dangerous stuff in Reince Priebus' opinion. Wisconsin eighth graders mustn't be allowed to read about a teenager "feeling out of place," at least not if the teen was racially mixed and later rose to national prominence. What kind of signal does that send?

Isn't it more dangerous that a Republican Party chair, self-appointed as arbiter of educational correctness, has persuaded a weak-kneed publisher to censor what American students will read for years to come?

How do these guys intend to portray President Barack Obama in textbooks if the Democrat wins? Will they just decide again to leave him out?

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS