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Slavery Reparations Push Is Latest Consequence of Left’s Anti-American Education Crusade

Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2023
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by Ben Solis
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AMAC Exclusive – By Ben Solis

Slavery

California state legislators are reportedly moving forward with plans to turn their 1,100-page report on slavery reparations into payouts for black residents – marking the latest and perhaps most dramatic downstream effect of the left’s decades-long effort to distort and rewrite racial history in the United States.

The California Reparations Report,” which was released late last month, recommends a slew of actions ranging from direct payments to black residents to a formal apology and dozens of policy changes. Although some conservatives predicted the report would be little more than a virtue signaling effort from the California legislature’s Democrat supermajority, a group of lawmakers in Sacramento are now finalizing a set of recommendations for Governor Gavin Newsom to sign into law.

As various commentators have pointed out, California never allowed slavery, with the state’s constitution expressly forbidding the practice. Moreover, California’s booming economy and tech and entertainment industries have long been a vital economic lifeline for black Americans, producing successful entrepreneurs and world-famous actors and musicians.

Nonetheless, other liberal states are apparently poised to follow California down the reparations rabbit hole. In June, New York (which outlawed slavery in 1827 and contributed some 465,000 men to the fight to end slavery – more than 50 percent of all men under 30 in the state at the time) passed a bill establishing a “New York State Community Commission on Reparations Remedies” to “examine the impact of slavery and subsequent discrimination and systemic racism against African Americans.”

As columnist Jason Riley pointed out in a June Wall Street Journal piece , the arguments for reparations are at best misleading and at worse historically illiterate. “Slavery was an atrocity, but all the slaves and all the slaveholders are long gone,” Riley writes. “The vast majority of whites living in the antebellum period, even in the South, never owned slaves. Most white Americans alive today are descendants of people who came to the U.S. after the Civil War.”

It’s worth noting that most of the California report’s sources are dated no earlier than 2010 – right when the left’s historical revisionism began building toward a new crescendo. Although reparations talk has been around in some form or another since the Civil War, it began entering mainstream political discourse again only in the last decade or so.

One necessary condition for this phenomenon was the erosion of the traditional interpretation of America’s founding ideals – the notion that the country was founded to protect freedom and equality of opportunity for all.

Beginning in the late 20th century, the American left began distorting that history – a crusade that has reached full fruition with the blatant indoctrination in classrooms today. Instead of teaching that slavery was an ugly stain on the country’s legacy which was eradicated in order to live up to America’s founding promise, a new radical class of leftists taught that the country was founded on racism and slavery.

No work captured this cynical outlook better than Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, first released in 1980.

Zinn, a historian and self-described socialist, wrote A People’s History as a takedown of patriotic values and an attempt to smear the legacy of America’s founders. Although the work has been roundly criticized by other historians for glaring omissions and reliance on obviously biased sources, it is still one of the most widely-disseminated textbooks in U.S. classrooms today.

Instead of cultivating patriotic attitudes, A People’s History is in effect an angry screed against the idea of American greatness. It is no surprise that Occupy Wall Street protestors and Antifa members who attempted to burn down an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility both quoted the book during their acts of anarchy.

On the book’s 40th anniversary, Dr. Mary Grabar, a resident fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, wrote a book entitled Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation Against America which catalogues its historical revisionism and abuses.

For instance, as Grabar points out, to introduce his principal claim that American history was from the very beginning defined by slavery and racism, Zinn includes “a deeply felt account” by a Hampton Institute English professor. No historical chronicle, not even a single book authored by a historian, is a source of that claim.

Among other primary sources for Zinn are a diary kept by a plantation owner identified only by last name and state, and an unidentified plantation journal in the “archives” at the University of North Carolina. “Can we find a grosser violation of the American Historical Association’s standards for evidence?” Grabar asks.

Zinn, like his intellectual successors today, also almost wholly omits discussion of the fact that American slavery was far from the exception. In fact, research has found that a million or more white Europeans were enslaved in North Africa between 1530 and 1780. Slavery was a virtually universal fact of life throughout the world for all of human history until it was stopped in the mid-19th century – largely thanks to Britain, formerly a chief progenitor of the slave trade, leveraging significant financial and military resources to eradicate it.

None of these facts feature prominently in Zinn’s history, which is primarily focused on loathing the country that had just a few decades prior saved Europe from Nazi tyranny, freed Asia from the clutches of Imperial Japan, and was almost single-handedly holding the Soviet Union at bay.

As Grabar also points out, Zinn’s portrayal of President Abraham Lincoln and interpretation of the Civil War is also hopelessly flawed. Rather than the man who led the country to abolish slavery, Zinn accuses Lincoln of being a slavery financier by pulling one quote out of context from Lincoln’s time as a state representative when he was 28.

Zinn also claims that the United States only entered World War Two to save American capitalism – a claim pulled straight from Stalinist textbooks distributed throughout the Soviet Union.

Even more egregiously, Zinn accuses the U.S. of fomenting “Cold War hysteria” – outrageously claiming that the U.S.S.R. did not threaten the free world. While insisting America was a “neo-colonialist” power, Zinn completely ignores the Soviet Union’s forced conquest of its neighbors.

At least a part of Zinn’s motives can be explained, as Dr. Grabar documents, in Zinn’s sympathy for communism, an ideology that attacked “enemy number one” – the United States. According to FBI files, Zinn hosted a Soviet youth delegation and enabled the recruitment of American students to a Kremlin-sponsored youth festival.

As one former KGB high-ranking officer told this author, Zinn appeared more pro-Soviet in his heart than most of the top Soviet officials. Zinn’s chief claim that America was a racist country was a central tent of Moscow’s anti-American propaganda.

The officer further explained that it was once one of the crucial tasks of the communist parties throughout the West to distribute anti-American materials like Zinn’s work. “Soviets desired nothing more than that Americans would accept their history turned upside-down,” he added.

Today, the seeds of Zinn’s anti-Americanism have yielded potent fruit in developments like the reparations push that is further dividing Americans and stoking racial resentment. One disgruntled academic has helped spawn an entire industry of disdain for the United States and its history.

To fight back against this, Americans must not be afraid to tell the truth about their history and proclaim the greatness of their country. As is so often the case, ignorance is the most potent weapon in the left’s arsenal.

Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.

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granky
granky
1 year ago

Reparations are nothing more than a political carrot waived in front of the black population to get votes. It will never happen, it would completely destroy our economy.

sdg
sdg
1 year ago

My ancestors were slaves to the Romans, I want reparations too.
What a joke always looking for free stuff, doesn’t matter what color your skin is.
Get a job and work for a living.
DEFUND THE POLITICIANS!!!!!

anna hubert
anna hubert
1 year ago

Selling and trading human beings is nothing new It is well and alive and going on right now Somehow left is deaf and blind to it The hypocrisy is calling to high heaven Who could forget the famous tweet Bring back our girls

Stephen Russell
Stephen Russell
1 year ago

How about the American Indians too since the 1800s treaties etc signed then to date
We the Feds abused them since 1865+

Leslie Crum
Leslie Crum
1 year ago

What’s next? The mostly white indentured servants that came from Europe? Read Henry Louis Gates Jr. He is the black historian (his words) who does Finding Your Roots show on PBS. He exhaustively researched slave ship manifests! There were actually only about 450,000 slaves brought to what is now America. Almost 18 million others went to Caribbean, and the vast majority of about 20 million total went to South America. Who captured them? Black slavers from neighboring villages started all this! This whole notion that America was founded on slavery is ridiculous and NOT true at all. The systemic racism of the south (democrats) and their refusal to end slavery led to civil war and the a Republican president (Lincoln) freeing the slaves. Still, the south wouldn’t give up..and some haven’t given up today. Even HL Gates Jr. says this is not a good idea. And MLK Jr didn’t seem to either.

rvgrandma
rvgrandma
1 year ago

Just wait- in a few years all those women and children the government is allowing to go into the sex slave trade, including the illegals coming here, will want reparations for their slavery. The liberals are pushing for the reparations to blacks that did not suffer from slavery and it is the liberals sending the women and children coming across the border into slavery. By the way, I guess all the blood of thousands that died during the Civil War died for nothing.

Gloria
Gloria
1 year ago

There is more slavery in the world now, than there ever has been. We could all dream for reparations. Stop being ridiculous and pray for the world to get back to God.

Granny26
Granny26
1 year ago

It was blacks that sold the black slaves to white men. Go back to where it started and let them pay the reparations. Also there were white slaves….what do they get??

betsy
betsy
1 year ago

It’s amazing how an entire nation can be taken down by 2 buzz words that have no basis in reality….”systemic racism”

Bob Jones
Bob Jones
1 year ago

Most people either forgot or just don’t know that in several states like Alabama and Mississippi some blacks were also slave owners… And blacks were not the only slaves…there were various cases of whites being slaves as well. Not indentured servants but people sold into servitude for violations of the law.
As pointed out many people here today have nothing to do with being a slave owner or have family ties to the past. What about the Irish who came over during the great potatoe famine and were sold into indentured servitude for passage to the America’s. Some never got out.
What about all of the people who have come here since the civil war. Are they getting paid as well… Where does it start and stop…
First free college education now get paid for what the English Dutch Spanish started. What’s next reparations for Indians and Hispanic people as well…. Once you open the door you can’t close it.

Jabo
Jabo
1 year ago

They should be glad their ancesters were brought to this country as slaves otherwise they would still be running around the jungles throwing spears at one another. Now they can use guns instead of spears. They should be grateful for the country they now live in.As JFK said ” ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”. Start earning your keep.

Morbious
Morbious
1 year ago

Its even worse than the article says. Zinns family was jewish. Coming to this country in the early 20th century literally saved their lives. I read the book by Grabar. Zinn was a monster bent on destroying this country. He had no redeeming virtues. While we all slept this demon perverted millions of high school kids. Hes even mentioned favorably in a movie, ‘Good Will Hunting’. We must no longer be compliant sheep bending to what textbook selectors want.

Elena Tellez
Elena Tellez
1 year ago

Newsome and some California ideas continue to be totally screwy. Meanwhile, thousands of ‘sane’ Californians are moving, despite their great climate. Also, play close attention to our border… and the ‘mentally absent’ ‘Prez’ Biden and our border czar (HA!) Cackles Harris, allow human trafficking of illegal immigrants, including many unaccompanied minors, in our country. Slavery is still alive and well in Biden’s America. What a mess. They should be impeached and removed on just this issue alone!

GTPatriot
GTPatriot
1 year ago

I want reparations for we dirty old white men who are the most abused portion of our society.

GTPatriot
GTPatriot
1 year ago

The reparations crowd, like the war on poverty crowd , the war on drugs crowd, and the war on women crowd, will be back again and again and again. Since they are extortionists if you pay them, they will always be back for more . They seek ignorant elected “officials” ( and there are many) to represent them. These are easy to find. Uneducated govt representatives are the norm. Most of them know little and are easy prey for these communists.

Rik
Rik
1 year ago

Every state that fought for the South in the Civil War are the ONLY states that should have to pay ANY Reparations! But today, those states are predominantly Republican when during Civil War days they were ALL DEMOCRAT! How times have changed!

Gwen
Gwen
1 year ago

I wonder if anyone else watched the Finding Your Roots episode when Henry Louis Gates, jr. said (and I QUOTE) “What your ancestors did is not on you.” WOW, was he ever RIGHT ON !!

Cam
Cam
1 year ago

The Dems are always looking for means of purchasing voters allegiance, especially when it comes to blacks. Why expect people who never owned slaves and pay people who were not slaves? This is promising the sky when the earth is crumbling beneath.

SusanP
SusanP
1 year ago

At least a part of this growing problem stems from the unconstitutional federal Department of Education. No where in the list of enumerated responsibilities of the federal government is the word “education”. Education, like so many other things, was left to the States and to We the People in the U. S. Constitution. It is a FACT that education in the USA has steadily fallen in competency since Jimmy Carter signed that abomination into law. No more are students required to take a class in government/civics before graduating high school. So, they go into adult life with zero knowledge of how USA government is supposed to work. Is it any wonder they have fallen victim to Marxist ideology and know nothing of the history of this great nation?
The re-written history found in Zinn’s fantasy masquerading as history, CRT and even the Broadway play “Hamilton” have spread nonsense as history.
It is long past the time that We the People demand that the federal Dept. of Education be defunded and SHUT DOWN. This was part of Trump’s plan when he appointed Betsy DeVos to head the Dept. of Ed. She was working on this process when the 2020 election was STOLEN!

Michael Lewis
Michael Lewis
1 year ago

This article should and I do suggest contacting your conservative representatives and demanding this revised text be replaced with the real history of America presented to previous generations, like me.

Kevin
Kevin
1 year ago

I thought the US did this like thirty years ago. Now we have to do it again?

Casey C Matt
Casey C Matt
1 year ago

Ah demans me sum reparashuns cuz now dat I got me an edukation I be smaht enuff to know ah gots free munny comin’ Gimme mo free stuff!!

Dennis Math
Dennis Math
1 year ago

If somehow my state goes completely insane and passes some moronic “reparations” bill, I will immediately sue for refunds over the taking of property. “They” supposedly were formerly “our” property, right? What compensation did “we” receive? I believe that every black American owns every white American the inflation adjusted amount, plus interest of their ancestors purchase price as well as fees associated with that former ownership.
Its fair, right?

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