Trump Claims Teaching Kids About Racism Is ‘Child Abuse’

In a bizarre rant, Trump pledged to abolish programs that teach kids about racism, and replace them with “patriotic education”

If there’s anything we should take away from the dumpster fire that 2020 has been, it’s that Black voices and stories need to be as central to our kids’ education as they’ve been to actually building this nation. The New York Times‘ 1619 project has been working on that since last year with educational programs that “aim to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of [the United States’] national narrative.” But naturally, that program is now under attack by our president, Donald Trump, who pledged to abolish it in a recent rant.

Speaking at the National Archives Museum on Thursday, Trump announced that he plans to sign an executive order to create the “1776 Commission,” to promote “patriotic education.” He plans for this to replace education about systemic racism and the consequences of slavery, because teaching kids about those things, he says, is “child abuse.”

1776 commission sure sounds better than "Trump Youth," but it's functionally no different than what Hitler did to brainwash a generation into accepting the Holocaust. https://t.co/MXRmpUh270

— Chip Franklin (@chipfranklin) September 17, 2020

According to Trump, education that tells the true, factual history of how our country was built on the backs of its Black residents when they were enslaved is “toxic propaganda” and “ideological poison” that “if not removed, will dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together” and “will destroy our country.”

Trump also said that educational programs like the 1619 Project are “attempting to destroy [the] beautiful vision” that the founding fathers had for America.

Oh, and then the president transitioned right into a claim that the left is trying to “rip down” Mount Rushmore. You can’t even make these things up.

Trump has been reduced to bizarro demagogue salad

"they" plan to "rip down Mount Rushmore," he claims, then: "two months ago, the left wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American revolution"

Stephen Miller may think this stuff sounds good on paper but hoo boy https://t.co/69Oj6vevoH

— Mark Follman (@markfollman) September 17, 2020

Take a deep breath, because this isn’t even as bad as it got. Trump then claimed that by talking about race and racism, the left is trying to “impose a new segregation, and we must not allow that to happen.”

“Teaching this horrible doctrine to our children is a form of child abuse in the truest sense of those words,” he continued. “Patriotic moms and dads are going to demand that their children are no longer fed hateful lies about this country. American parents are not going to accept indoctrination in our schools, cancel culture at our work, or the repression of traditional faith, culture, and values in the public square. Not anymore.”

Literally rewriting history to fit a false, white nationalist narrative and ordering that to be what’s taught in schools? Nothing fascist to see here, folks. Nope, not at all.