Compulsory schooling was coercive, backed by threat of imprisonment

Evidence

In his 1933 book, Woodson called attention to the subject. In his title, he called it The Mis-Education of the Negro. “It was well understood that … by the teaching of history the white man could be further assured of his superiority,” Woodson wrote. “If you can control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his action… . If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself”; and “if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one.” — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 867 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Nineteenth-century reformers framed compulsory schooling of immigrant children as purification through coercion — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 379; The free-school failure revived the question whether most people can use freedom well — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 198; Modern state order came to rely on continuous schooling rather than intermittent coercion — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 24 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Controlling a person’s thinking through education can substitute for coercion. #complicates (0.74) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 867