The 1619 Project, critical race theory and other approaches to confronting the history and legacy of slavery in schools are in danger of being derailed by a culture war-fueled right-wing grievance industry.
Instead of equipping students with information about historical blemishes, the right — ironically in the name of truth-seeking and objectivity — has opted to use Iowa to punish those whose work undermines the reductive form of patriotism they are determined to preserve.
Instead of being seen for what these efforts are — journalistic and academic inquiries into the longterm effects of slavery in the United States, open to debate, rigorous analysis and careful scrutiny — The New York Times Magazine’s’ 1619 Project is now the target of the right wing’s hostile assault on public education and anything deemed to be insufficiently patriotic.
“If your child attends almost any university in America (or Canada or anywhere else in the English-speaking world), the odds are that your child’s decency, intellectual acuity, faculty of reason, character and moral compass will be damaged, perhaps permanently,” writes right-wing radio host Dennis Prager in his syndicated column denigrating the 1619 Project. “Once infected with leftism, these schools teach children to hate reason, tradition, America, Christianity, whites, excellence, freedom and masculinity.”
Not to be outdone, Arthur Milikh of the Heritage Foundation, in his critique of the 1619 Project, writes: “The overriding lesson is clear: young people must learn to despise their nation — its Constitution, ideals, economic system and its Founders.”
If one were to only read right-wing views, you would think the 1619 Project was about to invade Poland. Unfortunately, the right has moved beyond simply demonizing alternative interpretations of U.S. history to actively restricting what can be taught in public schools.
In my home state of Iowa, Gov. Kimberly Reynolds signed a bill prohibiting specific “divisive” concepts from diversity training and school curriculum, such as the United States and Iowa being systemically racist. While not specifically mentioned in the bill, the 1619 Project would likely fall under this ban. This is particularly sad for Iowa because Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones — the project’s creator and author of a book of essays on the legacy of slavery — is an Iowa native from Waterloo.
Iowa state Rep. Skyler Wheeler, R-Orange City, has also introduced a bill that would ban schools and colleges from incorporating the 1619 Project or similar curriculum into U.S. history classes. Under the bill, schools that use this material would face financial penalties.
This is being done at a time when students and youth have little knowledge about the history of slavery. The Southern Poverty Law Center found that few high schoolers know the Civil War was fought over slavery, that the Constitution protected slavery without mentioning it, or that a Constitutional amendment was required to end slavery. In Iowa, the word “slavery” is never even mentioned in Iowa Social Studies Standards.
But instead of equipping students with this information about these historical blemishes, the right — ironically in the name of truth-seeking and objectivity — has opted to use the state to punish those whose work undermines the reductive form of patriotism they are determined to preserve.
Thankfully, in Iowa, people like Art Cullen, editor of the Storm Lake Times, have been vocal in their opposition to these state-sanctioned attempts to dictate history.
“If you never tell them about how Iowa was established as a territory and a state, or why Hannah-Jones’s father fled the South for Waterloo, then you can believe there is no problem,” he writes. “Yet facts are stubborn and will find their way. At some point Iowans, whose forebears fought to defeat slavery and feel its weight on society today, will demand we get our history right.”
That is a message we should all take to heart.
This column was produced for The Progressive magazine and distributed by Tribune News Service.