‘You Should be Afraid’: Ta-Nehisi Coates Sounds Alarm on State Push to Ban 1619 Project
Journalist and best-selling author Ta-Nehisi Coates warned against the dangers of the push to ban the 1619 Project — sounding the alarm on state silencing of “discomforting” ideas.
Coates joined the hosts of CBS This Morning on Tuesday, first decrying UNC-Chapel Hill’s decision to deny Project 1619 founder Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure.
“On the one hand this is clearly about Nikole, who is, to my mind, is among, if not the most, decorated journalist in our profession,” he said, referencing the tenure controversy. “But there is a much bigger debate that’s going on here and it is about what ideas our children, what ideas students at colleges will be exposed to or not.”
Coates went on to address the debate surrounding the 1619 Project, saying that the initiative should have its detractors, as “that’s what we want in education. That’s what we want in a free society.”
He lamented the push to ban the project, along with critical race theory, in United States schools — noting that policy is being passed to silence these ideas.
Coates highlighted that the effort to silence the initiative even reached the federal government, as Donald Trump signed an executive order to establish the “1776 Commission,” partially as an attempt to combat the 1619 Project.
He went on to explain that critical race theory is largely based on the idea that “racism is endemic to this society,” adding that people can agree or disagree with the notion, as there are multiple opposing historical theories.
“It’s not what your opinion on it is,” he added. “The idea that it should be banned from teaching at all, or banned from discussion, or banned from education, or pushed out of the public square, I just — I think that’s a huge problem.”
Coated stressed that no matter where you fall on the political spectrum, the thought of politicians banning ideas should be considered problematic. He went on to predict that politicians attempting to silence these ideas are “afraid of a fair and just accounting of American history.”
Ashley Graham, who was guest hosting on Tuesday morning, later asked Coates what he hopes Americans will take away from the controversy.
“I hope they will come to understand that no matter how discomforting an idea is, no matter how an idea makes you feel or whatever, when you see the state using policy to remove those notions from the public square, you’ve got a problem of a different order,” Coates responded.
“When you see the President of the United States directing an executive order towards a journalistic project, you should be afraid,” he added, referring to Trump.
Watch above, via CBS.
