1619, 1776, or A.D. 33?

One way denies the issue, the other says the issue is everything. Is there a third way?

Note: With Florida governor Ron DeSantis preparing to announce his candidacy for the office of President of the United States, I thought I’d reprise an article from last year about one of his “signature” legislative accomplishments. One man’s actionable conservatism is another’s anti-conservative government overreach, reflecting how dramatically the GOP, the alleged “conservative” party, has changed since Ronald Reagan and George Bush (the Elder and the Younger) bore the standard. However, that’s not the main point of the article. Read on!

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January 30, 2022

When I read the news reports about the bill introduced in the Florida Senate that makes it illegal to teach students or train employees about racism or sexism if it causes “psychological distress,” I found myself somewhat distressed at this bald-faced attempt to sanitize history for our comfort. If you have the time, I would encourage you to read the entire bill. For a political party that used to champion federalism, private enterprise, and the autonomy of local governments within a framework of equal liberty and justice, the Florida GOP is staging a massive intervention by a higher level of government into the local classroom or boardroom.

The bill, in part, declares “An individual should not be made to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race” as a result of public school instruction on topics related to "slavery, racial oppression, racial segregation, and racial discrimination.” I wonder how they intend to equip teachers to determine whether or not someone’s feelings are hurt?

Frankly, I would be concerned about a child that didn’t feel discomfort from discussing such topics. In fact, our sense of righteousness and justice should lead us to feelings of sorrow or anger at humankind’s savagery toward other humans. It’s when we allow ourselves not to feel, to numb ourselves to the horrors of the world, that we give license to those horrors to repeat themselves. As I’ve stated in the past:

If people feel that way when they hear these stories, perhaps that’s the Imago Dei within them spurring them to do something to make it right rather than engaging in a pity party or an angry response.

Even if we aren’t culpable in the stories being told, we should be disturbed by them, shocked by them, and therefore determined that they shouldn’t happen again.

Florida isn’t the only state attempting to codify the whitewashing of American history, effectively propagandizing the subject in much the same way as those they accuse of denigrating America with their curriculum. In fact, Texas and Tennessee already have laws enacted to do fundamentally what the Florida legislature and Governor Ron DeSantis are attempting to do in the Sunshine State. A parents group in Tennessee has already attempted to remove books about civil rights icons Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ruby Bridges from the school curriculum in their county, citing the law’s “psychological distress” clause.

Bills and executive orders are being issued in state capitals across the nation to prohibit the teaching of “critical race theory” (CRT), a concept most people have never heard of until recent years and, frankly, can’t define. For the most part, it’s a solution in search of a problem, since critical race theory is not a topic generally taught at the elementary and secondary school level. I’ve offered the opinion in the past that the true target isn’t CRT specifically, but “any narrative that would show what lies underneath the veneer of history we were taught in school.” In short, it’s not about CRT, it’s about IDWHI (yes, it’s a real acronym).

The classroom has always been a battleground for the hearts and minds of young people, and this isn’t the first time political and cultural institutions, in the interest of self-preservation or veneration, have meddled with the education of our children. A classic example that I encourage you to research is how the Daughters of the Confederacy, an organization created to preserve and defend the legacy of the Confederate States of America, used its power and money to help perpetuate an alternative history commonly called the “Lost Cause.” Their influence on generations of children born and raised in the South is evident to the present day.

These myths are powerful, and I am led to ponder how discomfort at having those myths challenged is not just an individual response but has implications for anyone who has built their life around a story of the way things were that was crafted specifically and deliberately to ease their consciences. One has only to look at the ferocity with which white Americans, mostly in the South, fought to maintain the status quo, their comfort zone.

However, Newton’s third law of physics states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and the same could be said for political movements. The current tensions over CRT and other forms of anti-racism training were spurred by the 1619 Project, an ambitious undertaking by the New York Times in 2019 to reframe the American conversation on race. In declaring August 20, 1619, the day "20 and odd” slaves arrived at Point Comfort in the Jamestown Colony in Virginia, as the metaphorical founding date of the United States, journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones provoked a firestorm of criticism and ignited a debate that continues to have far-reaching effects across the nation.

One of the attempts to counter the narrative of the 1619 Project was the 1776 Report, written by an advisory committee established by then-President Donald Trump in September 2020 to present a story that glorifies the history and legacy of the United States. The emphasis on 1776, the year America declared its independence from Great Britain, made it obvious that the 1619 Project was its primary target. The resulting report, released two days before President Trump left office, was just as controversial as its antagonist, and President Biden disbanded the commission soon after taking office.

Both the 1619 Project and the 1776 Report are available in book form. I bought the 1619 Project and I intend to read it so I can make an informed judgment. The 1776 Report is essentially the American history I was taught from my childhood into my college years, so I believe I’m already familiar with its contents.

So what is the answer when two camps, one focused on 1619 and the other on 1776, stand opposed to one another and have no apparent interest in listening to or learning from one another? While I fundamentally reject the edicts looking to remove hard lessons that cause “psychological distress” from the classroom or the workplace, current anti-racism training apparently doesn’t bring the change its proponents desire.

…[H]undreds of studies dating back to the 1930s suggest that antibias training does not reduce bias, alter behavior or change the workplace (Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev, Why Doesn’t Diversity Training Work? The Challenge for Industry and Academia).

Employees and students who have had diversity training avoid intergroup conversations because of the possibility of reprisal for expressing the “wrong” point of view, and this self-censorship heightens tensions and does nothing to reduce discrimination or increase diversity. That and the fact that most diversity training is compulsory, limited, and typically a one-time event, doesn’t encourage substantive or lasting change and often has the reverse effect of reinforcing racial stereotypes and race-based animus.

Nevertheless, neither do I embrace the deflection, delusion, and denial of the other camp. Sanitizing history to fit their desired narrative is propagandistic and denies us the opportunity to learn from our sins, or acknowledge the possibility of multigenerational trauma that affects us to the present day. When the Lord tells Moses that he will visit “the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation,” he isn’t suggesting individual culpability for the atrocities of the past, but he is warning us of enduring consequences if wrongs are left unaddressed. We need to talk to one another, but we seem to prefer shouting past each other.

Incredibly, we are still struggling with the legacy of slavery, institutionalized discrimination, and racial animus 403 years after Jamestown and 246 years after the Declaration of Independence.

A majority of Americans say race relations in the United States are bad, and of those, about seven-in-ten say things are getting even worse (Pew Research Center, How Americans see the state of race relations).

So what can be done to reverse this trend and truly invest in the healing that is well overdue?

As a Christian, I have an obligation to the truth. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), and He told Pontius Pilate, “I have been born and have come into the world for this reason: to testify to the truth” (John 18:37). Any therapist will tell you that the truth is messy, painful, and can knock you back if you’re not prepared for it, but that it must be told for the healing process to begin. Americans need to stop lying to themselves and embrace the whole unvarnished, unembellished, and uncensored truth of our nation’s history.

As I’ve written before, I don’t agree with the argument that telling the full story of American history will lead people to hate America, because that’s not what happened to me. The revelations of history that I came across late in life shook me to my foundations and, at times, made me angry, but it imbued me with my life’s purpose to make things better in my corner of the universe. The truth, as Jesus promised, has set me free.

Another obligation I have as a Christian is to carry out God’s will wherever I am. Acts 17:26 speaks to how God, for all humankind, “marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.” I believe that God has situated His church, the ekklesia, the called-out assembly of believers, in this time and place to bring the Gospel and transcend these competing historical narratives that are driving us apart.

The Gospel, the “good news,” is that because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who was God incarnate yet “humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:7), God’s righteousness and justice were served, and in His resurrection, God's mercy and grace redeemed us and reconciled us to Him. Because of the historical events of A.D. 33, our unity with God and one another has been restored.

Neither the 1619 Project nor the 1776 Report offers the justice, grace, and, ultimately, the unity guaranteed by the “A.D. 33 report.” If the church sets the example and we “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly” (Micah 6:8) with God as He requires of us, I have faith that a nation hungry for a way forward on the subject of race will emulate us.