Senate Dem Running Against Black Republican Thinks It’s a Good Idea to Push the ‘1619 Project’
TYLER O’NEIL:
“…History is complicated, and Peters cannot help his connection with John Wilkes Booth. Yet his support for the “1619 Project” arguably makes his family history — good and bad — more important.
Peters has hosted online forums on racial justice and criminal justice reform and introduced the “1619 Act to Raise Awareness, Understanding of African American History in Schools.” The name refers to the Times‘ “1619 Project,” which falsely claimed that the American Revolution was fought in part to defend slavery.
The act specifically aims to expand access to programming from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in public schools. Peters filed the act after the NMAAHC released a horrifying Marxist lesson on whiteness that “deconstructed” various aspects of American and Western culture, including capitalism, science, the nuclear family, and Christianity, as nefarious relics of white supremacy. The lesson also claims that a work ethic, delayed gratification, being polite, and getting to meetings on time are aspects of the “whiteness” culture that must be deconstructed and rejected.
Peters’ support for the “1619 Project” and the NMAAHC programming came after protests over the horrific police killing of George Floyd devolved into violent riots, looting, and vandalism. Rioters seem to act on the false premise that America is defined by “systemic racism,” a mindset that arguably traces back to the “1619 Project.”
When vandals toppled a statue of George Washington in Portland, they spray-painted “1619” on the statue. When Claremont’s Charles Kesler wrote in The New York Post, “Call them the 1619 riots,” the project’s founder, Nikole Hannah-Jones, responded (in a since-deleted tweet) that “it would be an honor” to claim responsibility for the destructive riots and the defamation of American Founding Fathers like George Washington.
In a November 9, 1995 op-ed, the 1619 Project founder condemned Christopher Columbus as “no different” from Adolf Hitler and demonized the “white race” as the true “savages” and “bloodsuckers.” She went on to describe “white America’s dream” as “colored America’s nightmare.” Just this week, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) expressed a similar sentiment when she called for the “dismantling” of America’s “economy and political system,” in order to root out supposed racist oppression.
Yet the “1619 riots” have destroyed black lives, black livelihoods, and black monuments. At least 21 Americans have died in the riots, most of them black. Retired police chief David Dorn was killed by looters breaking into his pawnshop in St. Louis. Chris Beaty was shot while helping two women who were being mugged in Indianapolis. Antonio Mays Jr., a 16-year-old boy, was shot and killed outside the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) in Seattle. Secoriea Taylor — the 8-year-old girl Vernon Jones mentioned — was fatally shot as her mother attempted to park a car near a group of protesters close to the Wendy’s where Rayshard Brooks had been killed by police.
While Peters likely has the best of intentions in supporting the “1619 Project” and the NMAAHC lessons, these division and dangerous projects arguably do more harm than good to the black community and to America as a whole…”