Hannah-Jones: Parents Are Wrong — America Was Founded as a Racist Country

Nikole Hannah-Jones, 1619 Project creator and professor, said Wednesday on the CNN+ show “Who’s Talking” that parents were wrong when they complained about her work claiming America was founded as a racist country.

Wallace said, “What’s your response when people say that you’re saying the country’s racist and that this is a central part and making us feel, making them, kids, feel bad about it. Are you saying parents are wrong?”

Hannah-Jones said, “Yes, I think that I don’t know how one can argue we were not founded as a racist country. I believe that we were. I believe that the record is clear. If you’re founded as a country where black people, because they are black, don’t have rights, don’t have freedom if you have a Supreme Court that’s dominated by enslavers, 10 of the first 12 presidents dominated by enslavers, our founding fathers dominated by enslavers. If you have these things, the Father of the Constitution wasn’t enslaver. The drafters of the Declaration was an enslaver of the Bill of Rights. So to argue that people who were explicitly white supremacist in their writings, I mean, the notes on the state of Virginia says black people are inferior as a race. That is a racist foundation. This is just a factual rendering to me. Now, does that mean that most white Americans are racist? The project doesn’t argue that.”

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