Neutrality and Vampires
In 2024, the State School Superintendent, Richard Woods, the chief educational officer for the state, banned the teaching of Advanced Placement African American Studies in Georgia. It isn’t necessary to note that Georgia is home to Martin Luther King Junior, Senator Raphael Warnock, Representative John Lewis, Mayor Shirley Franklin, and Ambassador Andy Young. Or, perhaps it is. The public uproar forced a swift reversal, but his instinct was to ban the teaching of AP African American studies in modern-day America.
He claimed at the time, that the course was in violation of Georgia’s 2022 Divisive Concepts Law which banned any educational inquiry into the idea that “the United States of America and the State of Georgia are fundamentally or systemically racist.” Here too, to restate the obvious…. Slavery, the buying and selling of Black people as chattel property, began in the Americas in 1619. As an institution, it predated the founding of the nation and was not interrupted by the Revolutionary War or American independence. America was born and spent its formative years suckling on slavery. While the Emancipation Proclamation legally ended the practice in 1863, it continued until the end of the Civil War in 1865, as the Confederates continued the fight to maintain this fundamental feature of American identity.
We’re now in an era where “for all” has won the day – the euphemistic cover term to be inoffensive to everyone and mean not much to anyone. It’s an insidious era featuring the resurgence of racism masquerading as neutrality. The retreat from the explicit focus on racial equity and justice is a shocking reversal from the reckoning days of the early 2020s. Yet, here we are.
The US Supreme Court just allowed Alabama to redraw its voting district maps to essentially disenfranchise tens of thousands of Black voters. At the same time, as of April, 2026, the United States Department of Justice authorized capital punishment by firing squad – a turn to the medieval. More than half of the death row inmates in Alabama are Black. More than 40% of death row inmates in America are Black. The relationship between the ballot and the bullet could not be more clear.
And enter AI, the all-consuming technological phenomenon that has nearly wholly captured our collective imagination. The clamoring for AI literacy and AI fluency and AI certifications in schools is a national frenzy. What ought students learn and how can AI tools make teaching and learning more efficient? What skills do students need to participate in an AI influenced workscape that is hemorrhaging jobs and threatening people with irrelevance?
The claims of the edtech companies all revolve around some version of that problem frame – How can AI capabilities enhance the cognitive and practical processes of teaching and learning for a better prepared workforce? In this most recent legislative session, Georgia passed into law SB 179, making computer science a high school graduation requirement by the 2031-2032 school year. Efficiency and preparation rule the day. But efficiency and preparation for what?
In a state not alone in its willingness to ban the teaching of AP African American history, AI tools will make students efficient in learning what? Efficiently prepare them for what? Yes, of course, work and prosperity are important - even more so in a nation whose social safety net is threadbare and thinning to dangerous levels. When it is not a contradiction to have computing and AI literacy as state-level mandates, and also have the instinct to ban AP African American history, we’re on the precipice of crisis. We run the risk of being so entranced by the shininess of technology that we fail to see the vampires at the gate.
As we march headlong into this AI era, we need to remain focused that the goal of education is not workforce, it’s democracy.
kamau