His Story: History Rewritten

A scholastic children’s book recently pulled from the shelves because of its racial misconceptions. The book is about one of George Washington’s famous slaves, Hercules, who was also his cook. Hercules had a shortage of sugar; thus the plot for the story. With it being a children’s book, you can almost say that it is nearly harmless in the sense of history storytelling, wrong. This book nearly depicted that being a house slave or a slave period for the president was a privilege, for at the end of the book, there’s a picture of George Washington with his arm around Hercules thanking him for his wonderful cake he made for master. Are you kidding me?! As if authors in America are insensitive to the social, economic, and human injustice we suffered for years on even AFTER slavery, it also seems as if they don’t even mention slavery in schools with children anymore. With them not mentioning it, they’re able to cultivate the history into the minds of the children any way they just so want. So for me personally I am glad the book was pulled off the shelf because you will not mask Americas worst genocide to ever come as if it were all sweet like George Washington’s birthday cake.