Anyone watching leftist cable news channels knows that it's considered fair commentary to categorize Republicans, individually or collectively, as "white nationalists" or "white supremacists." Anyone standing in the way of the Black Lives Matter/critical race theory crusade is dealt the Racist card.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis scored a political win in pressuring the College Board to tone down their proposed Advanced Placement curriculum on "African American Studies." Every conservative knows from experience that when you place "studies" in front of a minority group -- black studies, queer studies, Native American studies, women's studies -- you can expect a highly ideological journey.
DeSantis dared to take on the Left, and for this, he is despised by the press, especially the under-40 contingent that's most fervently "woke." On Feb. 1, when CNN anchor Bianna Golodryga asked former Obama education secretary Arne Duncan for his hot take on the DeSantis objections, she drew predictable results.
Duncan began: "Unfortunately, you know, Governor DeSantis has been very, very clear he has what appears to be a white nationalist agenda." Duncan offered no evidence for his inflammatory smear, and Golodryga didn't ask for it.
Duncan wasn't finished: "And what I hate most is he just always attacks the most vulnerable, whether it's the AP African-American history, whether it's the LGBTQ community, whether it's immigrants, he always attacks the most vulnerable." He added that he hopes voters "don't think that is what our country needs -- is more bullying, more attacking on those that need our help and our support."
Democrats always act like only their constituencies are "vulnerable," and can never be plausibly challenged or criticized for anything because that's "bullying." Their supporters can never be too radical or cynical or hateful. But if you're black or gay or an immigrant and you criticize Democrats, that's obviously different. Then you're a traitor to your community.
The Big Lie -- to borrow from daily CNN lingo -- is that Republicans object to teaching slavery or segregation in American history classes, or as Duncan claimed, they want to "hide the tough parts." Instead, the objections center on contemporary propaganda about "intersectionality and activism," "incarceration and abolition (of prisons)," and boosterism for Black Lives Matter.
Later on the same day, CNN host Laura Coates proclaimed the need "to clarify and fact-check what has been said," and brought on Robert Patterson, who teaches African American Studies at Georgetown University. Naturally, he suggested DeSantis & Co. were marinating in white supremacy: "What this course is doing is challenging white supremacy, is challenging anti-Black racism, and quite frankly, that seems to be part of the issue that the state of Florida has taken with the course."
CNN didn't tell viewers how radical this professor is. In 2020, Patterson extolled Black Lives Matter in one academic journal for their "rejection of capitalism as a broader critique of neoliberalism's forceful role in maintaining black dispossession" and for offering "a framework through which to enact short-term change, while pushing to dismantle the larger system of antiblack racism that is refracted through global capitalism."
Patterson works at a "Catholic" college and he also lauded BLM for their "concurrent attack against intraracial sexism, heterosexism, and transphobia," as "BLM deprivileges heteronormativity to show that black freedom dreams must include gender and sexual liberation." So, let's guess if Patterson was fully in support of the AP course before DeSantis objected, you can understand how fervently it would seek to brainwash high-school kids.
Ron DeSantis was just reelected with 59% of the vote, but CNN and their left-wing guests want to suggest that he's the one that's "outside the mainstream."
Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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