Thread by @Ben_Sawyer

Just got through watching the White House Conference on American History. If you think they're not pushing an agenda, I'll begin with this clip from Ben Carson, then I'll just point out a few quick observation that I think are worth noting. #1776Commission

Note: this comes right after a bizarre statement in which Dr. Carson seems to question freedom of the press. (I'm not sure) And then lays out some ridiculous history (Madison is behind both the 1st amendment & the National Gazette which was founded to attack the Washington admin)

What follows are 9 people. A few are legit scholars. Most aren't. All are white. Peter Wood has a PhD in anthropology- before he was issuing warnings about anarchy, he was denying climate change. Mary Grabar has an English PhD & hates Zinn so much she wrote a book about it.

Three are affiliated w/ Hillsdale College, a MI school famous for attacking affirmative action and eventually refusing all gov't aid to avoid complying with it. In 2013, the President of Hillsdale said it might have been "because we didn't have enough dark ones, I guess..."

That President, Dr. Larry Arnn, was the moderator for today's WH Conference on American History. Dr. Bill McClay is soon to be on faculty at Hillsdale (per Dr. Arnn's statement) and the final speaker, Jordan Adams, is an alum who now works for Hillsdale's charter school arm.

Alongside Arnn & Mr. Adams, two of the other speakers, Ted Rebarber & Robert Jackson are charter school boosters (both admins). Rebarber is working on a American history curriculum based on one of McClay's books. This seems to be a lot of people in a tight circle.

To be fair, a few participants brought up good points about understanding the humanity of those in the past. But they were overwhelmingly focused on making heroes, and the defendant in this case was clearly a straw man, making the agenda Dr. Carson referenced pretty clear.

As far as I can tell, that agenda is to further undermine historians and experts in general. Experts are full of information that you might not like to hear, so turn the public against them & pass the work off to the private sector who will sell you anything you want to hear.

One last thing (it's my favorite)- shout out to Ben Carson for concluding this panel by referring to the United States an empire. 🤣

I'll conclude here by saying I'm open to anything I missed here. If you think I got any of this wrong, just let me know (though I'll only respond to people showing good faith). Thanks.