On Thursday, President Trump gave a provocative speech about the teaching of American history, slamming the prize-winning 1619 Project and promoting a new strategy of “patriot education.” Trump’s comments criticizing academic freedom and painting a white-washed version of American history beg the question:
What’s really behind the Trump administration’s attacks on Black history?
During his speech at the White House Conference on American History at the National Archives Museum (which appeared to include no Black historians), Trump used U.S. Constitution day as the backdrop to make what is perhaps one of the most troubling anti-American speeches of his presidency. Sharing unfounded claims and deeply divisive rhetoric, Trump attacked both activism and intellectualism in America and made dramatic assertions about the essence of America’s history.
Elected officials, community leaders, youth and drum and marching bands take part in the second … [+]
Trump started his speech with an scathing description of this summer’s protests in response to the killings of unarmed Black individuals.
“A radical movement is attempting to demolish this treasured and precious inheritance. We can’t let that happen. Left-wing mobs have torn down statues of our founders, desecrated our memorials, and carried out a campaign of violence and anarchy.” Trump said. “The left has launched a vicious and violent assault on law enforcement — the universal symbol of the rule of law in America. These radicals have been aided and abetted by liberal politicians, establishment media, and even large corporations.”
Mischaracterizing critical race theory, an academic framework that examines society and culture as they relate to categorizations of race, law, and power, Trump struck a McCarthy-esque tone in terms of it’s teaching.
“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.” Trump said in a conspiratorial charge. “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.”
Trump also attacked the Pulitzer prize-winning 1619 Project, referring to it as a “crusade against American history is toxic propaganda, ideological poison that, if not removed, will dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together. It will destroy our country.”
The 1619 Project is a long-form journalism and multimedia initiative of The New York Times Magazine, started in August of 2019 that, in its own words, “aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.” It has recently been at the center of attacks by President Trump and his allies.
But it is not Trump alone who has diminished Black history. In a recent speech, Attorney General Bill Barr compared recent coronavirus lockdowns to slavery and, in doing so, diminished the racist institution that enslaved millions of Black individuals and left a legacy of systemic racism that endures today.
But it is the President’s promise to issue an executive order establishing a “1776 Commission” that not only threatens to diminish the teaching of Black history, but also promote teaching of national far-right propaganda. The commission, in Trump’s words, will promote “patriotic education” and “encourage our educators to teach our children about the miracle of American history” while at the same attempting to limit the teaching of curriculum that showcases diverse narratives.
But if the proposed commission is anything like Trump’s attacks on the 1619 Project, critical race theory, and the freedom to protest, then what the it really represents is a white-washing of American history.
So what is really behind Trump’s attacks on Black history? Politics of course, but perhaps more than that. President Trump has a perception of a “great yesterday” of American history, one that his critics refuse to accept. But the problem is that the America Trump imagines never existed, at least not for Black Americans, for People of Color, for the poor and for disenfranchised. American history isn’t simply a story of the white people that dominated the halls of higher education and the authors of history textbooks. It is the story of Americans struggling for the idea and the ideals of liberty and freedom, not just for some, but for all of its inhabitants.
America doesn’t need a commission promoting “patriot education” to teach its story. It needs to know there is no American history without Black history, just as there is no America without the freedom to explore, understand, and even protest it.
That is the essence of educating people about patriotism…
Not promoting propaganda.
