McGraw Hill to rewrite textbook after mom’s complaint on section calling slaves, “workers”

Textbook publisher McGraw Hill will rewrite a section in one of its books. A Houston-area mother accussd the publisher of white washing slavery  calling slaves, “workers”.

Dean-Burren took to Facebook last week to vent her frustration over the wording of a passage in her son’s “World Geography” textbook that calls African slaves “workers” and “immigrants.”

“The Atlantic slave trade brought millions of workers … notice the nuanced language there. Workers implies wages … yes?” she wrote.

Dean-Burren’s post went viral and subsequently the video sparked feedback. It had drawn 1.4 million views on Facebook as of Sunday.

McGraw Hill heard the outcry, reviewed the section and concluded that the wording doesn’t live up to the publisher’s standards.

“We believe we can do better,” McGraw-Hill posted on its Facebook page Friday. “To communicate these facts more clearly, we will update this caption to describe the arrival of African slaves in the U.S. as a forced migration and emphasize that their work was done as slave labor.”

The company said the edits will be appear immediately in the online version. It will all abe included in the book’s next printing.

“This is change people!!! This is why your voices matter!!!” Dean-Burren posted on Facebook.

But questions still remains:

• Why did it take an outrage mother to make the change?
• How long did this interpretation sit in their textbooks before anyone noticed it?
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