Detractors of critical race theory have pushed for the inclusion of alternate courses, such as those provided by institutions like PragerU. With these courses offering a heavily skewed perspective of US history, the validity of Black history (and Black suffering) is up for debate.
Last week, PragerU posted a video declaring that “PragerU is Now in Texas!” with video endorsement from Texas State Board of Education member Julie Pickren. However, officials from the Texas Department of Education report that PragerU has not submitted materials to earn approval as an education vendor in the state.
Despite this claim being rendered either false or premature, the nonprofit advocacy group’s inclusion in Texas’ educational spaces would not be far-fetched. The state’s education standards are subject to far-right politicization. Like fellow red state Florida, conservative leadership in Texas refuses provide adequate education on the environment and intends to use that same power to make corresponding changes to the field of history.
In a video titled, “Are We Living on Stolen Land?” the narrator, Professor at Leiden College in the Netherlands Jeff Fynn-Paul, attempts to debunk “claims” that the United States is a country built on the backs of Black slaves on land stolen by the Indigenous people.
Fynn-Paul leads his lecture with the thesis that teaching young people that the history of our country is “uniquely awful” will lead to societal collapse. He follows this with statements defending widespread enslavement, death from disease, and displacement of Black and Brown folk. He then notes that some Europeans had moral qualms about the colonization of the United States in a lukewarm rebuttal to perceptions that our . Fynn-Paul’s arguments are disjointed and inconsistent in their directed points.
PragerU’s content has been called right-wing propaganda and its founder has even admitted that the non-profit engages in indoctrination. But the platform made waves during the George Floyd protests when it released a video defending Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
A video narrated by Candace Owens covering the topic of slavery drips with passive-aggression right out the gate. It starts with criticism of the Caribs – one of the first tribes enslaved by Christopher Columbus – and their participation in slavery themselves. While it’s generally accepted that in the early history of America warring tribes would often keep slave wives, comparison to the Transatlantic Slave Trade is a false equivocation. Owens also points out that the African and Middle-Eastern continents participated in slave trading to purchase Slavic slaves in the 9th and 10th centuries, excluding the fact that the Slavs were sold by white Russian Vikings.
In a more in-depth perspective on Columbus featuring PragerU Kids characters Leo and Layla, Columbus negatively paints the Carib tribe as violent and uncivilized compared to the peaceful and intelligent Taino.
The primary source of the Caribs’ practice of slavery is Samuel Eliot Morrison’s biography of Christopher Columbus, Admiral of the Open Sea, which only draws from the writings of the Spanish and Columbus himself. This heavily limits perspectives on both the Carib and the Taino. Additionally, PragerU makes no mention of Columbus’ enslavement of the latter, which led to the deaths of over 7 million and the cultural erasure of the tribe. Columbus provides justification for slavery, asking, “Being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no?”
PragerU Kids’ featured characters Leo and Layla are two siblings who travel through time to speak to historical figures throughout history. Christopher Columbus is just one of many historical figures the children interact with. The two also meet figures from the civil rights movement such as Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr.
Leo and Layla’s interactions with Frederick Douglass are highly skewed and historically inaccurate, derived from minor elements in the abolitionist’s life stretched to accommodate the views of PragerU. In this video, Leo and Layla lament over protests and riots covered on the news. They later interact with a fictionalized Frederick Douglass to find that he also finds civil disobedience unsavory.
Douglass goes on to claim he stopped associating with mentor William Lloyd Garrison, due to the latter’s extremist beliefs. In reality, it was Douglass’ politics that became more accepting of violence and direct action in the fight for abolitionism. Coincidentally, he was partially inspired by his contemporary and colleague John Brown, who later hung for inciting a slave rebellion in 1859.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s portrayal is consistent with most whitewashed iterations: paternalistic, staunchly non-violent, and faithful to the functionality of the American system. Non-violence in the civil rights movement is reframed by PragerU as a display of higher moral standards, contradictory to a militant dedication to the movement. This revisionist characterization is a popular iteration of the civil rights leader, though highly problematic and inaccurate.
In truth, Dr. King eventually abandoned his message of non-violence and embraced direct action in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Dr. King was later killed by James Earl Ray, who was solely convicted for the crime until 30 years later when a Memphis Jury found the US Government guilty of conspiring to assassinate Martin Luther King Jr.
While Black students feel increasingly alienated throughout their education, disillusion becomes more common by the time they’re attending high school. Many Black students cite a lack of resonance with education as a primary reason. History curriculums have been fraught with misrepresentations of certain individuals and events since formal education was developed in the United States. Likewise, CRT has been instrumental in combating false narratives. As states resist these clearer perspectives on the Black experience in the United States across history, greater miseducation is instituted in service to the status quo.
Twenty-eight states have taken measures against CRT to deny its integration into curriculums. As these states deprive Black students of truthful representations of the past, in turn, dissonance between racial experiences presents greater obstacles. Regardless of whether PragerU will be included in Texas’ approved educational materials, a continued effort to erase Black complexity, depth, pain, and power will remain in order to combat critical discussions (and advancements) on race in the US.
