A few years ago, PragerU tried to push back on Twitter (now X) against arguments by young Americans about racism. In general, getting involved in social media battles is a bad idea. To use an AD&D analogy, these fights are like punching green slime: the more you attack, the more you hurt yourself. And you end up covered in slime. It is usually best to avoid rather than engage.
In the case of PragerU, they fired off what they presumed would be a sick burn of the youth: “Young people are enamored with ‘anti-racist’ rhetoric because they think they are fighting racist systems in America. The TRUTH is they are fighting America itself and the very values the country was founded on.” Ironically, PragerU could have used some schooling in clear writing.
Their intended meaning, given the ideology evident in their videos, is that the youth think they are fighting racism, but they are wrong about this. Instead, they are fighting America and its founding values. Which are supposedly not racist. However, the tweet as written states that the youth think they are fighting racist systems in America, but they do not realize that the racist systems are America itself and its founding values. That is, PragerU seems have tweeted openly what they were supposed to keep quiet: they believe that America was founded on racism and that the racist systems are America. Sometimes they are willing to acknowledge that there were a few racist things in America’s past, but quickly rush to explain that they were not so bad and, of course, have no meaningful consequences for the present day.
These are the same people who defend “Civil War” statues on the grounds that history must be preserved. This is a bad faith argument for obvious reasons. While a statue can be an historical artifact, a statue is not history. As comedians have noted, we do not have statues of Bin Laden in New York City, even though he is historically significant to the city. We do not do this because such statues are political statements. There is also the obvious problem that the history presented by PragerU and its ilk generally try to whitewash the past and ignore the truth. Attacking Critical Race Theory has become a key part of this strategic attack on history and facts. This is a fight that the right is currently winning, a backlash from a time when Black Lives Mattered.
Ironically, PragerU (and those who share their ideology) agree with key factual claims accepted by most Critical Race Theorists about racism. These include the fact that the United States political, economic, and social systems have been dominated by white Americans to their advantage. The difference is that Critical Race Theorists generally see the racism (systematic and otherwise) as morally wrong and something that needs to be addressed. PragerU and their fellows see these systems as generally good, although they were reluctant to openly assert this claim. Instead, they have engaged in revisionist history and take great effort to block criticism of the existing system.
PragerU is (as is usually the case) is mistaken in its key claims. While the United States founding values include racist values (they are explicitly laid out in the Constitution, political philosophy, and laws) there are other professed values that are not racist and some are even anti-racist. As Dr. King noted, the Declaration of Independence makes promises to all Americans, whether those promises were sincere or not. While America is racist, it is also anti-racist as America is not monolithic, and we have a complicated moral history. There are those, like PragerU, who fight for racist elements of the system and those, like the young Americans they tried to attack, who are fighting racism. In the face of the backlash, anti-racism is fighting a defensive battle with open racism in the ascendence. But as the racism becomes more open and extreme, America will probably push back towards the center. Probably.
PragerU, like many other right-wing propaganda engines, is engaged in a project worthy of a comic book villain, but all too real. While they do admit America had some racism in the past, they contend that it was not that bad. They take special pains to present slavery in a positive light and present many Confederates as heroic figures. They refuse to accept that past racism has had any significant systematic effect on the present. While sometimes willing to admit that there might a racist bad apple or two, they refuse to accept that racism exists in a significant and systematic form. They do all this while defending and enhancing racism, even “cleverly” accusing those critical of racism of being “the real racists.” As always, I am unsure if ordinary citizens who profess to believe these things are unwitting victims or accomplices who know the lies are lies but pretend to believe. One must thus either think them ignorant or dishonest; neither of which is a pleasant. I prefer to think that many believe out of ignorance, if only because ignorance is easier to overcome than dishonesty.
Oh, and by the way, I don’t know, or even think, there ever were “native Americans”. Evidence shows, pretty convincingly, that “native Americans” came from somewhere/when else. Sentient hominids tended to do that. Easter Island is an example. Read Jared Diamond’s” Collapse” for further insight into that hominid experiment and failure. Why and how they got there is mysterious. The collapse of that civilization is probably more explainable, although, sometimes we are way wrong—inasmuch as we were not there. Then.
So, I read the post again—more slowly and deliberately. Seems to me racism in America began differently, before the *slave trade* took hold in earnest. It was Red men, and women,who took the initial hit, when white men decided indigenous people were in the way of progress and slowly, at first, exterminated them. Now, there were efforts ( if what I read is accurate), to re-educate native American youth. This involved erasing their heritage, persuading them to embrace the white man’s world and values: you can’t beat us, ergo, you had better join us. Some called this re-education. Others said: brain washing. Different terms. Different impacts. In any, or either case, the powerful prevailed. Atrocities against native Americans are documented and recorded. But, the red man’s battle against persecution was effectively over, before blacks rose up in their fight for freedom and equality. I have, somewhere, a native American cousin. His name is Victor. My uncle and aunt adopted him during their travels through the American southwest. He, if living, is ten to fifteen years younger than me.
It is said my family blood line includes Dutch and native American. I don’t know, see. I was not there.
Before I read any of this post, my reaction was immediate. I too thought social media an inappropriate forum for discussion of racism. Social media is a place I do not go. I find it uninteresting. Then, I read the post, and found, first sentence in, you and I were of like mind. I had not heard of Prager U. But, when I hear of tweets, my first impulse is “stay far away”. I think about the social damage that has occurred over that venue, through carelessness, accidental or intentional.
Can people BE intentionally careless? I think so. It is otherwise called stupidity. My two pennie’s worth, Professor. .Happy end of summer!