The Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart joined MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports on Friday to discuss Juneteenth being made the newest national holiday where he ignored that all but 14 House Republicans voted in favor and used the opportunity to falsely accuse the move to proponents of banning Critical Race Theory of not wanting to teach "the fullness of our history."
Leading up to his point about CRT, Capehart noted how Juneteenth came to be a holiday because people had an important story they wanted to tell, "You don't have to be young, you don’t have to have grand plans. You just have to have an idea and have to be willing to make make some sacrifices to ensure that the story of your family, the story of your people, the story of your state and your nation is not only not forgotten, but that it is told, that it is told accurately and that told as part of a larger conversation and the larger history of our nation."
Capehart then turned his attention to Republican efforts to ban CRT from public schools, "The people who are trying to -- pushing back against quote, unquote Critical Race Theory which is a blanket way of keeping us from recognizing, talking about, and teaching the fullness of our history. What they are doing is denying the country its full retelling."
The good thing about the anti-CRT laws that have passed is that they are quite short and can be read in just a couple of minutes. It therefore behooves Capehart to show one anti-CRT law that is "keeping us from recognizing, talking about, and teaching the fullness of our history."
Despite defending it, Capehart then showed he probably doesn't know what Critical Race Theory actually:
as President Biden has said many times and said it again in Europe, you probably heard it Andrea when you were over there, that great nations don't ignore their uncomfortable past, their uncomfortable truths. The United States is a great nation and even though people are trying to keep us from learning all of our history, Ms. Opal Lee showed that it is possible to do things to make it possible so that the generations coming and unborn get to know their entire history, warts and all.
Saying "The United States is a great nation..." is not something a CRT believer would ever say. Teaching the "entire history" of the U.S. is not CRT, it is, among other things, the teaching of only the "warts" without any chance of moral improvement or pretending as if the U.S. in 2021 is the same as the U.S. pre-Civil War.
Before, journalists falsely accuse Republicans of banning historically accurate education, they should inform themselves of what exactly it is they are defending.
This segment was sponsored by Subway.
Here is a transcript of the June 18 show:
MSNBC
Andrea Mitchell Reports
12:41 PM ET
JONATHAN CAPEHART: You caught me trying to find my notes, because just before this hit, Andrea, I did a Washington Post Live report with Annette Gordon-Reed, talking about her book on Juneteenth and she has a passage in there that I can’t find, but will paraphrase, something like, a lot of people think the past is dead, but they don't understand the past has echoes and those echoes reverberate into our present and future and we need to know what our past is so we know where we're going.
We also talked about Opal Lee, Ms. Opal Lee, and the fact she was 89 years old when she started her effort to get Juneteenth a federal holiday, the newest federal holiday. When you have elders like Ms. Opal Lee who as she say, -- it's such a wonderful quote from her, saying that the good Lord will have to catch her. To show that history is made by the people are doing the things that need to be done to make it and it doesn't matter your age. You don't have to be young, you don’t have to have grand plans. You just have to have an idea and have to be willing to make make some sacrifices to ensure that the story of your family, the story of your people, the story of your state and your nation is not only not forgotten, but that it is told, that it is told accurately and that told as part of a larger conversation and the larger history of our nation.
The people who are trying to -- pushing back against quote, unquote Critical Race Theory which is a blanket way of keeping us from recognizing, talking about, and teaching the fullness of our history. What they are doing is denying the country its full retelling. We, as President Biden has said many times and said it again in Europe, you probably heard it Andrea when you were over there, that great nations don't ignore their uncomfortable past, their uncomfortable truths. The United States is a great nation and even though people are trying to keep us from learning all of our history, Ms. Opal Lee showed that it is possible to do things to make it possible so that the generations coming and unborn get to know their entire history, warts and all.
