TABLET MAG
The Un-Conscientious Objectors: How progressive education made my peers morally confused
Jackson Greenberg
December 3, 2023

In my 11th grade American Literature class at a private school in the Philadelphia suburbs, our first assignment was to bring an object to class that represented America. Setting aside the inanity of having 16-year-olds perform show-and-tell—and presenting it as “education”—that day stuck with me for another reason. One of my classmates, a fellow member of the student orchestra, held up a baseball card, explaining: “This is the first African American player to play professional baseball: Doug Glanville.” Glanville is indeed Black and was an excellent centerfielder for the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1990s. But he was, as anyone who is familiar with the history of the baseball can tell you, not the first African American to play baseball professionally. READ MORE