Teach Our History

How can we expect young black kids to have a strong sense of identity, when our school systems have only taught black history as if it only begins with slavery? As if there wasn't thousands of years of innovations , inventions , struggles, and triumphs from Africa? Black children were taught that their history began with them being captives from a foreign land , and then they were granted freedom by the whites . So as a child , how wouldn't there be feelings of inferiority when our history books , nor the media show positive representations of blacks ? Growing up , it truly seemed like the only thing people thought of Africa, was that it was a land of savages , that were chased daily by lions (and I can't even mention how many times I've been asked how we cook food in Africa, whether we all have pet elephants, if there are cars, etc.) ; National Geographic is not a reliable source or representation of African history. How come we never heard about how the first international trade was developed between Asia and africa ? Or about how the first art pieces date back 75,000 years, or how Africans sailed to S. America and Asia hundreds of years before Europeans, or advancements in metallurgy (steam engines, saws, metal chisels) being invented in Africa, or how the first surgery and first evidence of mathematics were found in Egypt, or how in the 14th century the Mali empire in West Africa was the most powerful and their leader Mansa Musa was said to be the richest person in history...the list goes on . Our schools should have reform as well , from changing the fact that public schools are only funded by property tax, to actually teaching history from an angle that doesn't only glorify whites (this goes for accurate native american history, central ,and southern american history as well) .