Hasnain says:

“It is unsurprising that the disinformation campaigns against the 1619 Project and critical race theory come directly after 2020, a year in which many Americans explicitly grappled with police brutality, anti-Blackness, and white privilege. They directly construct and reinforce the idea that traditional white American identity and whites’ status at the top of the economic, political, and cultural hierarchy in the U.S. is under threat, which many political scientists argue led to Trump’s Electoral College victory in 2016. And, like many other disinformation narratives, they build on preexisting conservative white beliefs about race and inequality—that to talk about race is to be divisive, that critiquing the United States is unpatriotic, and that racial inequality is due to individual failings rather than systemic inequalities.

And yet it is precisely actions, or more accurately inactions, like those taken by the UNC board of trustees that demonstrate that systemic racism exists and the 1619 Project is vital. “

Posted on 2021-06-02T19:22:16+0000