If you want to spread political propaganda without criticism, begin with something benign, even noble, such as teaching black history. Then, slip in Marxist imagery or leftist talking points. And finally, when Republicans criticize what you’re doing, call them racist.
If you want an example, take a look at the latest episode of Disney’s The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder. A reboot of the Disney channel show The Proud Family, which first ran in 2001, this modern iteration, like the original, follows the lives of a black family in suburban California.
WATCH: DISNEY+’S PROUD FAMILY REBOOT FEATURES PROTEST OVER STATUE, POLICE CLASH
This time, instead of tackling anti-Muslim bigotry or segregation, the show addresses race relations as they exist in 2020s pop culture, from friends arguing about whether it’s racist that a black boy seems only to date white girls to students protesting the renovation of the statue of a slaveholder.
Clips from the show’s latest episode, “Juneteenth,” which aired at the start of Black History Month, recently went viral on Twitter for pushing critical race theory. When protagonist Penny Proud and her friends study slavery in class, the students come to the conclusion that “Lincoln really didn’t care about freeing enslaved people.”
“Actually,” a teacher responds, “he wanted to deport us.”
Penny, and compatriots discover Juneteenth’s history, when they unearth the terrifying truth that Smithsville’s founder was a slave owner.
Catch the all new Season 2 of “The Proud Family:Louder and Prouder”, premiering tomorrow on Disney+ worldwide. pic.twitter.com/Qi0y9rdkYY
— ConsumerofToons (@consumeroftoons) January 31, 2023
The truth, according to Allen C. Guelzo, is much more complicated. The Princeton University research scholar
writes
in the New York Post that the insinuation by the 1619 Project that a racist President Abraham Lincoln simply wanted to kick black people out of the country is patently false. Guelzo explains:
“Colonization served as the great tranquilizer of white anxiety. Beginning in 1816, with the founding of the American Colonization Society, opponents of slavery sugarcoated the idea of emancipation for suspicious whites by promising that freed slaves would be no threat, because they would be gone.”
Freed black people and anti-slavery white people may have seen this as the bad idea that it was, but it also prompted pro-slavery advocate Edmund Ruffin to complain that colonization would “promote new emancipations.”
Not content with Lincoln slander, though, the episode later finds the students staging a protest of a statue of their town’s founder, who was a slaveholder. A close-up shows the children’s fists raised in the black power sign; far from a benign symbol for racial equality, this image was popular among the Black Panther Party and has
communist roots
.
Police show up bearing shields and helmets, prompting students to chant, “Why are you in riot gear? We don’t see no riot here.” Just like it happened at the “
mostly peaceful
” Black Lives Matter protests.
A black father then calls out to his white husband to “do something with your white privilege!” (Earlier in the episode, he counseled his husband to educate himself by reading Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility.) Then, in a totally realistic twist, the middle schoolers are thrown in jail.
This is a scene from The Proud Family, a kids show on Disney+
Why are they showing this woke BLM propaganda to our kids? pic.twitter.com/Kxx26WhL5W
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 5, 2023
In another episode, enlightened by having learned 1619 Project doctrine in schools, students perform beat poetry about how Lincoln didn’t actually free the slaves. “Only we can free ourselves!” they proclaim. “Slaves built the country, and we the descendants of slaves in America have earned reparations for their suffering and continue to earn reparations every moment we spend submerged in systemic prejudice, racism, and white supremacy that America was founded with and still has not atoned for.”
This Disney clip is pure critical race theory, including the insane conspiracy theory that Lincoln did not free the slaves.pic.twitter.com/kLqPUU34Mn
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) February 5, 2023
When these clips began circulating on Twitter, those on the Right were quick to criticize this type of propaganda being fed to children. But that is just proof that they’re racist.
Resistance grifter Brian Krassenstein
tweeted
, “They are literally mad that kids are learning that slaves helped build our nation. What the hell are they afraid of?”
“Right-wing culture war soldiers want to cancel Disney’s The Proud Family for not telling any lies about slavery in America,” said one viral
tweet
.
The clips are claiming a lot about race relations in America, and it’s much more than “slaves helped build our nation.” But liberals know that. And they don’t care.
The same thing happened recently when Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) successfully blocked critical race theory from being pushed through AP courses. DeSantis just banned AP African American Studies from public high schools in the state, which means he banned tenets of critical race theory from being taught to impressionable students, not that he banned the study of African Americans. But don’t expect the legacy media to be honest about it.
Instead, they went ballistic. Here is just a sample of headlines via the Washington Examiner’s
editorial
:
“‘Ron DeSantis wants to erase black history,’
declared
the New York Times. ‘Ron DeSantis blocks African American studies,’
said
CNN. ‘Blocking black history is an attempt to counter Black Power,’
wrote
the Washington Post. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre
accused
DeSantis of attempting to ‘block’ the ‘study of black Americans.’”
As with Disney shows, AP history courses, and more, it doesn’t matter that teaching critical race theory, promoting BLM, and supporting reparations are more than merely teaching black history. To leftists, they are one and the same.
Not only is that part of their ideology, but it’s part of that ideology’s defense: If your philosophy is the only way to be anti-racist, then anybody who disagrees can be written off as a bigot.
Madeline Fry Schultz is the assistant contributors editor at the Washington Examiner and a visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum.
