Donald Trump announces an executive order called the “1776 Commission” that will pressure schools to teach only “patriotic” history. He claims Democrats let schools teach history with too much emphasis on race and slavery.
In his speech, Trump repeats right-wing propaganda that The 1619 Project and critical race theory are threats to our nation and are poisoning us from within.
This is the red meat that Trump’s base is obsessive about, but it shouldn’t take away from what the message is here. The message is terrifying because it’s like something you would hear Kim Jong Un give a speech about… This notion that, “We’re the best. We’ve had no flaws. We’ve done nothing wrong. How dare you try to educate kids about our history with racism and slavery.”
Ana Kasparian
The 1619 Project is a New York Times Magazine effort to normalize the real history of slavery, not the fairytale version in which slaves enjoyed life even though it was unfair. 1619 also sheds light on Black people’s contributions to American history.
Critical Race Theory is a legal study on systemic racism — how political, economic, and societal institutions unintentionally harm Black people and their communities. It’s existed for over 30 years. The Trump Administration’s narrative is the exact opposite, painting the theory as an ideology in which all white people are born racist and evil.
The left has warped, distorted and defiled the American story with deceptions, falsehoods and lies. There’s no better example than the New York Times’ totally discredited 1619 Project….
Students in our universities are inundated with critical race theory. This is a Marxist doctrine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation, that even young children are complicit in oppression, and that our entire society must be radically transformed… Critical race theory is being forced into our children’s schools, it’s being imposed into workplace trainings, and it’s being deployed to rip apart friends, neighbors and families…
Critical race theory, the 1619 Project and the crusade against American history is toxic propaganda — ideological poison that if not removed will dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together,
Donald J. Trump
Trump and friends also claim that organizations around the country are hosting anti-white, un-American “Critical Race Theory trainings.” The administration is using the Department of Education and the Office of Management and Budget for a McCarthy-like attack on these trainings.
In reality, “Critical Race Theory trainings” don’t appear to exist. The language is propaganda against diversity trainings and racial / cultural sensitivity trainings. These trainings are fairly common and are intended to help organizations recognize ways to better serve employees and customers “who are different in race, color, gender, religion, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation” and other categories protected by the Civil Rights Act.
The mischaracterization of Critical Race Theory—a body of scholarship led by people of color centered in the legal academy—as anti-white propaganda is more than a caricature: It is a ploy intended to gin up the idea that anti-racist work is itself racist—against whites.
The Nation
Sources
https://nypost.com/2020/09/17/trump-issues-1776-commission-to-promote-patriotic-education/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZJZVT33fPk
https://web.archive.org/web/20200702094947/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1619_Project
https://web.archive.org/web/20200822193100/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory
https://www.traliant.com/sensitivity-training/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-05/trump-move-to-curb-racial-sensitivity-training-in-u-s-agencies
https://nypost.com/2020/09/06/trump-schools-teaching-ny-times-1619-project-will-not-be-funded/
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-critical-race-theory/
Photo: Public Domain