By now, you must be aware of what I call the Republican war on blackness in education. GOPropagandists with GOPoor critical thinking skills have been GOPushing white fragility bills across the nation that would bar institutions of learning from implementing Critical Race Theory and/or The 1619 Project from being implemented into school curricula. They’re claiming that CRT teaches that certain races are inferior to others—which it doesn’t. They’ve whitesplained how it teaches that white people today are responsible for the slavery of America’s past—which it also doesn’t. Mostly, they’ve complained that it makes America look bad—which it does, but only because it makes America look like America.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is one of the GOPerpetrators who has been leading the charge against CRT and particularly against Nikole Hannah-Jones’ Pulitzer Prize-winning historical collection The 1619 Project. McConnell and his chin-swallowing throat have been shouting from the proverbial pulpit that the project is inaccurate because a bunch of old, flabby white historians said so. McConnell ignores the fact that there were also accredited historians who took part in the project and that historians disagreeing with other historians is as common as the conservative racism that leaks profusely out of the side of the Kentucky senator’s face. (Or, sorry, that might just be the side of his face leaking out of the side of his face.)
Anyway, it turns out that McConnell’s own alma mater knows that when it comes to the 1619 Project, Yertle the Decrepit Turtle doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.
According to The Hill, McYawnnell spoke at the University of Louisville earlier this week, and his speech apparently boiled down to one thing: His fragile white feelings and what they tell him the most important dates in American history are.
“I think this is about American history and the most important dates in American history. And my view—and I think most Americans think—dates like 1776, the Declaration of Independence; 1787, the Constitution; 1861-1865, the Civil War, are sort of the basic tenets of American history,” McConnell and his gnarled chin-and-throat combination said. “There are a lot of exotic notions about what are the most important points in American history. I simply disagree with the notion that The New York Times laid out there that the year 1619 was one of those years.”
White conservatives always assume they’re on the side of popular opinion, but we know that when they say, “most Americans” think anything, they’re really just talking about pasty, white right-wingers like themselves. Also, there is almost never anything not gross about the word “exotic” when it comes out of white people’s mouths.
Anyway, his own people aren’t having it.
“[McConnell’s comments] are quite troubling for American descendants of slaves, our allies and those who support us,” V. Faye Jones, the University of Louisville’s interim senior associate vice president for diversity and equity, said in an email Thursday, the Courier-Journal reports. “To imply that slavery is not an important part of United States history not only fails to provide a true representation of the facts, but also denies the heritage, culture, resilience and survival of Black people in America.
“It also fails to give context to the history of systemic racial discrimination, the United States’ ‘original sin’ as Sen. McConnell called it, which still plagues us today,” Jones continued.
McConnell graduated from the University of Louisville with honors in 1964 and served as President of Student Body, according to the school’s website. According to the Journal, he founded the college’s McConnell Center in 1991, which provides scholarships for students.
In spite of all of that, UL officials don’t fuck with his white, ahistorical nonsense and are not being shy about speaking out against it.
From The Hill:
Jones said stated that the university’s president and provost join her in rejecting McConnell’s sentiments.
“Our vision statement affirms that we ‘commit ourselves to building an exemplary educational community that offers a nurturing and challenging intellectual climate, a respect for the spectrum of human diversity, and a genuine understanding of the many differences — including race, ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, religion, diversity of thought and political ideology — that enrich a vibrant metropolitan research university,’ “ she said. “To be true to that vision, President [Neeli] Bendapudi, Provost [Lori Stewart] Gonzalez and I reject the idea that the year 1619 is not a critical moment in the history of this country.”