Neo-Marxist Race Wars and the Disintegration of the American System

Recently I have been fielding sincere questions from good friends and members of my several Facebook groups about my course, "Six Foundational Principles of Free Republics" and other historical summaries I have written at Freedom ED. The current events and the impact of new "historical narratives" from sources like the 1619 Project, social commentaries such as the book "White Fragility," and the echoes of these narratives in the main stream media have prompted many to question what they have believed and known about the American system and our history.

Many are turning to these new sources to examine their understanding of the complexities of American's history with race. One of my readers said she was inspired by the 1619 Project, that it gave her a different view of history, "one from a black lens." Many are impacted emotionally by the stories that invoke empathy and compassion for historical black suffering. Exposures to the raw historical record of the evils of slavery appropriately prompt tender feelings. The problem with the 1619 Project is not in the historical record of the atrocities of slavery and discrimination in our history, it is in the brazen assertions in the underlying assumptions the project's author makes about the American system being conceived in racism, not liberty. One fallacious claim, is the claim that the real birth of the American nation was 1619, the year the the first slaves from Africa arrived in British North America, and not in 1776 when Americans declared their independence from that monarchical parent.

John McWhorter, writing for the 1776 Unites Project, explained the most fraudulent misrepresentation of the Project this way: "The New York Times’ 1619 Project is founded on empirical sand. The fundamental claim that the Revolutionary War was fought to preserve slavery simply does not correspond with the facts, too conclusively for the point to be dismissed as mere hair-splitting. The issue is not differing interpretations of history, but an outright misinterpretation of it."

These deceptive claims of the American founding are foundational to the premise that the American system was and is thoroughly constructed in racism, inequality, bigotry, and discrimination. Even when the fallacies of the underlying assumptions of the 1619 Project are exposed it is surprising how thoughtful Americans are reticent to refute or critically critique the project because the emotions invoked by it stand out as greater proofs of it's authenticity then established historical facts. "School districts nationwide eagerly received pedagogical materials based on the idea of offering students a fresh, revealing take on American history." McWhorter warns that "in the end, the 1619 Project is more than a history lesson. It is founded on three basic principles, none expounded with a great deal of clarity, but all of them pernicious to a truly constructive black American identity."

If the 1619 Project is the historical frame for a Neo-Marxist disintegration movement, then "White Fragility," by Robin DiAngelo, is the philosophical underpinning of the movement. White Fragility seeks to reeducate white people on their unconscious sins stemming from their white privilege. The book echos the 1619 Project premise and frame for American history, a historical narrative that is presented as the first genuine perspective on American history.

As it relates to race relations in America today, DiAngelo claims that racism presents a more significant road block for the progress of black Americans then existed under the era of Jim Crow. Her premise, founded on the same historical narrative as the 1619 Project, denies the progress black Americans have made since the civil rights movement, it denies the growth of the black middle class and all the legal, social, and economic progress that has been made in the decades since the civil rights era. DiAngelo essentially takes the established and acknowledge evils of slavery and fast forwards past all the intervening history and attributes all the conditions and disparities we see today as a direct result of slavery. This is a construct that creates a historical nonsense that denies all the intervening events as though they have no impact on the present.

White Fragility's redefinition of racism creates an undefinable construct in which racism is the force that moves all the systems of power regardless of whether or not it is measurable or realized. This ideology attempts to dispose of the concrete idea of racism in lieu of a broader and more mystic idea of "systematic racism." The premise is simply that whiteness prevents white people from seeing racism properly. A white person doesn't have to be personally racist to be guilty of racism because white people are part of the hierarchy of power in a system that is thoroughly racist. If a white person doesn't think they are racist they are exposing their intrinsic unconscious racism, but if they admit their racism then they are racist anyway, so essentially white people are racist, period. In this construct of racism only white people have the power to redeem black people from the clutches of racism and only the disintegration of the American system will allow the woke to get in touch with their unrealized racism.

In response to my sincere readers who have been impacted emotionally by the 1619 Project, who believe they are learning American history through a "black lens," the 1619 project is not a telling of American History through a "black lens," rather, it is a telling of American history through a anti-western lens. Black Americans are not monolithic in their thinking or viewpoint of American History and there are many black people who do not see the world through the lens presented by Nikole Hannah-Jones. 

I would encourage my readers to broaden their scholarship of black history and expose themselves to viewpoints from black authors that are counter to the ones that underlay the 1619 project. An entire project was formed to counter the 1619 Project by Bob Woodson, a life-long service oriented leader in the black community, called the 1776 Unites Campaign. Woodson represents black Americans who are unionist who see the founding of our nation as a promise of the racial equality that can be achieved as we strive to build the more perfect union our Constitutional government enables.

Corey Brooks writing for the 1776 Unites Campaign counters the 1619 Project by saying:

The overarching theme of our founding documents is the possibility of what the individual can achieve, thanks to his or her freedom. We often call it the American Dream. It is the heart and soul of our nation’s mission statement. Political projects such as The 1619 Project do nothing to help black Americans escape the noxious “us versus them” mentality, and they rob generations of Americans of the power of the American Dream.

I have discovered on the south side of Chicago that the absolute best way to overcome racial disparities in economic and academic outcomes is to teach individuals about the incredible opportunities of being in America — not to fixate on the mistakes of the past. Personal responsibility, an American concept closely linked to individual freedom, is the ticket to a turned-around life.

Read the essays from the members of the 1776 Unites Campaign. Listen to lectures from Dr. Voddie Bauchum, and read books from the great black intellectual Thomas Sowell.

Those delving into the work of Nikole Hannah-Jones and Robin DiAngelo are understandably conflicted by the dissonance of the competing ideologies between the disintegration view of history that surmises the only way to equality is the overthrow of the American system and the unionist view that believes progress toward equality is best pursued through the American system. After studying the "Six Foundational Principles of Free Republics," one reader expressed the common concern that "these principles- beautiful and inspired - were not applied to everybody." It is true. The principles in America's founding documents were not applied equally at the birth of the nation, but just because truth is not applied to everyone doesn't make them untrue. The atrocities inflicted on human beings throughout history, and the black marks on American history, do not invalidate the inspired principles the founders articulated and constructed our government upon.

It is encouraging that so many are seeking to better educate themselves in American history and the founding. It is concerning that they are turning to pseudo academic works like the 1619 Project, but still I hope that thoughtful and inquisitive Americans will challenge themselves with a wider study of history and an exposure to viewpoints that counter the narratives of the 1619 Project. Correct perspective and context is essential to understanding the past and making wise judgments about the future.

It's natural when we discover new information to have questions regarding the principles, practices, culture, or history that seem difficult to understand. Asking questions and seeking answers is a vital part of our effort to learn truth. Whatever the source of our questions may be, we have been blessed with the ability to think and reason. The attitude and intent with which we ask questions and seek answers will greatly affect our ability to learn. We must examine concepts, questions, and social issues with a perspective rooted in timeless truths, we must consider our questions or concerns in the context of those truths. This allows us to reframe the questions and suppositions presented to us (to see the question differently) and view ideas based on the standard of truth rather than accepting the world’s premises or assumptions.

Especially questions that relate to historical events need to be examined with this context and perspective. As we stay anchored to these principles, we are able to see issues more clearly. We must examine historical questions in the proper historical context by considering the culture and norms of the time period rather than imposing current perspectives and attitudes. When we consider our own history, we ought to compare and contrast our history with the history of other nations in the world.

As part of a thorough and thoughtful historical study of the principles of freedom it is important to study the precepts of anti-freedom forces. A little over 50 years after the U.S. Constitution was ratified, and the great American experiment in individual freedom and free markets commenced, Karl Marx published the antithesis to the American system in the communist manifesto. From that point the world began a march toward the great ideological divide. Two systems, two viewpoints colliding on a grand scale. Carl Marx set forth doctrines of communism that were a blueprint to overthrow American liberty and democracy throughout the western world.

Why did it happen just at that moment, the dawn of the greatest economic advancement in human history?

I believe that it is no coincidence that after western civilization had progressed for hundreds of years to the point at which the birth child of English democracy was born in a new land, and this new land became the cradle of liberty, not a mature liberty, but a liberty in embryo; that at this exact moment, when America burgeoned into it’s adolescence and stood on the cusp of it’s adulthood, there came an ideology to infiltrate the western academic world and begin to undercut American progress.

It was no more an accident of fate, than the Republic that came out of the Constitutional Convention was an accident of fate. These two separate ideologies, both inspired, one inspired of God for the elevation and agency of man and the other inspired of evil for the disintegration of the civil society and the overthrow of both God given truth and human agency.

To be truly educated in the principles of liberty one must inoculate themselves against the ideologies of post modern Marxism -- yes the ideologies connected to so called "anti-racism," black liberation theology, social justice, and systematic racism are all rooted in a cultural revolution that is at it's core Marxist. These ideologies prey upon emotion and a release from personal responsibility to drive out reason and obscure fact and truth.

For those who are Christians and are tempted to confuse the principles of charity with the philosophies of Socialism and Communism — OR Latter-day Saints who were taught a religious order of communal living — it is all the more critical that we be educate in the principles and tactics of communism and socialism and recognize it as a counterfeit of God's law. I realize that it is hard when stories that invoke empathy and compassion are used to persuade one to throw off the construct of western civilization. Too often these days, Americans are ignoring fact and reason based scholarship for what their "feelings" dictate and in this way falling for these counterfeit principles on the equality of man.

One thing is always true and that is that there are absolute truths upon which happiness and peace in society are most likely to be achieved. Those ideas worked their way into our world through western civilization. Humans are fallen and the failings of systems of government, including those best suited to advance morality and human freedom, are the result of fallen human nature and not a result of fallen ideals and principles of truth.

America does not need another revolution and the world needs the American system that has spread liberty and protected it for over a hundred years. The ultimate aim of the historical narratives of Nikole Hannah-Jones and others false academic philosophies is to bring down the American system. If they succeed and their ideas are not countered, they will be successful at bringing nothing but greater misery to the human race, no matter the skin color or culture from which they descend. It will mean the loss of sacred freedoms that are protected by the American system and it will not end well.