1776 Report: Here We Go Again With This…

[AdSense-A]

By Maya J. Carter

President Joe Biden proved that he was ready to for responsible governance from Day One. [What, no golf?] Waiting for his signature was a stack of Executive Orders (EO) neatly placed upon the Resolute Desk, for which President Biden pulled out an official pen – not a Sharpie – to begin the unraveling of multiple atrocious policies put in place by the administration of the orange monstrosity. Included among these EOs were rollbacks of the “controversial ban on travel from majority-Muslim countries”, the “construction of the former president’s wall along the US-Mexico border”, and restoration of the “Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program protecting young immigrants who came to the US as children” as per Business Insider. In comparison, the first EO the orange monstrosity signed was directed towards dismantling the Affordable Care Act, or as colloquially known as the ObamaCare Ac. Of course we saw no replacement plan for affordable healthcare coverage by his administration, and his attempt proved futile.

But also amongst the numerous EOs was one repealing the orange monstrosity’s “1776 Report”. Yes, that awful, non-systematically investigated or verified report produced by an 18-member panel which included not a single historian which provides a revisionist view of American history regarding slavery as an American institution and labels the report with the misnomer and under the guise of “patriotic education”. The 1776 Report, no doubt partly the work of the ill-reputed Steven Miller, was a last ditch effort to attack the New York Time’s “1619 Project” which provides a thorough curriculum to schools and universities regarding the history of racism and slavery in American history. While the 1619 Project is continually updated for historical veracity, it depicts the horrific impact that chattel slavery has had upon our present day politics and social systems, and fills in the sinkhole-sized negligence of the discussion of slavery as an American institution in public education. Trump called the 1619 Project “toxic propaganda” while speaking from the National Archives in September 2020, and blamed Black Lives Matter protests on the inclusion of the project in American history teachings, stating “the left-wing rioting and mayhem are the direct result of decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools.”

The 1776 report provides a whitewashed downplay of slavery in America, and claims that the Civil Rights movement “ran afoul of the ‘lofty ideals’ espoused by the Founding Fathers” as per the Associated Press. Furthermore, the 1776 Project which has been largely rejected by historians who states that ”the panel, which included no professional historians of the United States, complained of ‘false and fashionable ideologies’ that depict the country’s story as one of ‘oppression and victimhood.’ Instead, it called for renewed efforts to foster ‘a brave and honest love for our country.’”

Historians immediately condemned the 1776 Report. David Blight, a Civil War historian at Yale University stated, “that report is a piece of right-wing propaganda.” In presenting President Biden’s EO, administration officials said the panel “sought to erase America’s history of racial injustice.”

The Associated Press explains even further:

The sharpest criticism of the report was directed at its presentation of slavery and race. The report attempts to undermine allegations of hypocrisy against Founding Fathers who owned slaves even as they espoused equality. It also attempts to soften America’s role in slavery and explain it as a product of the times.

“Many Americans labor under the illusion that slavery was somehow a uniquely American evil,” the panel wrote in the 20-page report. “The unfortunate fact is that the institution of slavery has been more the rule than the exception throughout human history.”

Blight, at Yale, compared it to “a sixth- or seventh-grade kind of approach to history — to make the children feel good.” He added: “But it’s worse than that, because it comes out of an agenda of political propaganda.”

James Grossman of the American Historical Association sums up his opinion of the report: “Historians need to be paying attention to curriculum conversations in localities and at the state level,” Grossman said. “The nonsense that’s in this report will be used to legitimate similar nonsense.”

The 1776 Report even has the audacity to equate affirmative action as “preferential treatment” and claims the initial aims of the Civil Rights movement were distorted by progressives to enhance policies that support “group privilege” and inequality. One of the authors, no doubt a far-right ideologue, compared the progressive movement to those ideas espoused by Benito Mussolini.

The 1776 Report was released on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, reminiscent of the planning of another one of the orange monstrosity’s hate filled rallies in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Juneteenth – Tulsa, OK coincidentally having been the very site of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. It should come to no surprise that the administration that gleefully dabbled in racism for four long years to the point of inciting violence and insurrection by a “woke mob” of white supremacists and xenophobes against the very site of our democracy, the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, would produce this report to send a signal to its supporters that they still stand by their racism. It should also come to no surprise that the orange monstrosity’s supporters would applaud the report because it confirms their continued bias against teaching the truthful impact slavery has had upon America, and the report will reverberate loudly within their echo chambers. Also, a report with no documented research or peer-review would align perfectly with their perpetuation of conspiracy theories and outright lies.

Thankfully, the 1776 Report was removed from the White House website by President Biden’s EO. But there is no preventing the ideology of the report from being taught at some institutions of higher learning…Liberty University oddly comes to mind. And if you would like a history lesson in the amplification of propaganda and how it is sanctioned by a disgraced and overtly prejudiced governmental agency – this time that ludicrous agency being the former President of the United States’ 1776 Commission – please peruse the report with a jaundiced eye, just as the administration of the orange monstrosity viewed the plight of African Americans and structural racism in this country.

[si-contact-form form=’2′]