PBS is a taxpayer-funded sandbox for the Left. Take the example of Michael Eric Dyson, a professor at Vanderbilt and a former MSNBC political analyst and fill-in host. On Monday's Amanpour & Co., interviewer Walter Isaacson rolled out the red carpet for Dyson to rip America and slash Gov. Ron DeSantis for aspiring to lead a "United States of Amnesia." PBS has amnesia that it's supposed to be for all the public, not just leftist academics.
The topic was the 60th anniversary of Martin Luther King's March on Washington, but it became an unchallenged forum to lie about Governor Ron DeSantis over "banning books" and the teaching of black history in Florida.
Toward the end of the interview, Isaacson brought up the issue of the wealth gap between blacks and whites: "But 60 years later, wealth inequality in America is still as great -- the difference in wealth inequality between black and white. What does that say to you?"
Dyson ripped America for being a "hypocritical" nation and then took his first shot at DeSantis as he began his response:
It talks about the stunning ability of America to absorb protest and to re-articulate it as the basis for American practice while denying it. In other words, the hypocrisy of America has always been great. "Oh, yes, we're sorry for what happened -- it's horrible -- it's terrible." Every now and again, we have episodes of reckoning. But, more likely, we have the Governor Ron DeSantises of the world who want to whitewash history.
He then seemed to compare DeSantis to Confederates who were pardoned after the Civil War who went on to try to "erase" history in the aftermath:
Ron DeSantis isn't the first person. Right after the Civil War -- when Lincoln was dead and Johnson was in office, and the South was supposed to pay, all of them got pardons. And they were pardoned not for the sin of slavery -- they were pardoned for taking action against the Union. And all of the great enslavers were forgiven without reckoning with their great sin. So the best route to reconstructing America for those white folk was to erase memory of racial fracture and history. And, unfortunately, that has continued till this date.
Isaacson followed up by asking why there has been a backlash to the Black Lives Matter movement and the pushing of a systemic-racism narrative. Dyson dec decried "the merchants of amnesia" and went after DeSantis again:
The late great Gore Vidal said, "We live in the United States of Amnesia." And that's where we are. We're citizens of the kingdom of amnesia. I'm trying to get us to become citizens -- and as you are so brilliantly -- trying to get us to become citizens of the kingdom of memory. I think Barbra Streisand supplies the theme song to the amnesiac. What's too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget.
And so we're forgetting it. This is why a governor in Florida wants to ban books -- books about that history that would tell the truth about how America got where it is. And especially, he said, the problem is linking the past to the present. "Oh, you can talk about slavery as a skill set developer for black people, but you can't talk about the fact that it had an impact on contemporary social struggle."
"Memory," in their mind, is enacting a leftist agenda, to use the memory of slavery to spur reparation payments and other compensations. It was not mentioned that the anti-police activism supported by BLM and the liberal media led to a sharp increase in violent crime, which should undermine the moral halo networks like PBS always put around the leftist movement.
After this all-too-typical PBS interview concluded, host Christiane Amanpour appeared again and praised Dyson's commentary: "Such a powerful invocation against historical amnesia."
This segment was paid for in part by the Mutual of America and by viewers like you. You can fight back by letting advertisers know how you feel about then sponsoring such content.
Transcript follows:
PBS & CNN International
Amanpour & Co.
August 28, 2023
WALTER ISAACSON: But 60 years later, wealth inequality in America is still as great -- the difference in wealth inequality between black and white. What does that say to you?
MICHAEL ERIC DYSON, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: It talks about the stunning ability of America to absorb protest and to re-articulate it as the basis for American practice while denying it. In other words, the hypocrisy of America has always been great. "Oh, yes, we're sorry for what happened -- it's horrible -- it's terrible." Every now and again, we have episodes of reckoning. But, more likely, we have the Governor Ron DeSantis's of the world who want to whitewash history.
Ron DeSantis isn't the first person. Right after the Civil War -- when Lincoln was dead and Johnson was in office, and the South was supposed to pay, all of them got pardons. And they were pardoned not for the sin of slavery -- they were pardoned for taking action against the Union. And all of the great enslavers were forgiven without reckoning with their great sin. So the best route to reconstructing America for those white folk was to erase memory of racial fracture and history. And, unfortunately, that has continued till this date.
We have denied the systemic basis of inequality, the banks are still messed up when it comes to giving black people loans, the housing crisis underscores the degree to which there is still rampant segregation there. When we look at education -- the two-tier, three-tier system that assigns people relatively inferior statuses. So when you look across the board, African American people continue to struggle as a result of systemic inequities that are deeply entrenched in American political life.
ISAACSON: And we seem to be seeing a backlash, especially against things you just said -- people being able to say it was systemic or there's systemic racism -- backlash that comes a few years after the Black Lives Matter marches. Why are we going through this backlash? And is it something that is like a pendulum -- it'll swing back.
DYSON: It will. It takes a lot of hope to believe that because the fracas is so bitter -- the contestation of those who are the merchants of amnesia is so powerful. The late great Gore Vidal said, "We live in the United States of amnesia." And that's where we are. We're citizens of the kingdom of amnesia. I'm trying to get us to become citizens -- and as you are so brilliantly -- trying to get us to become citizens of the kingdom of memory. I think Barbra Streisand supplies the theme song to the amnesiac. What's too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget.
And so we're forgetting it. This is why a governor in Florida wants to ban books -- books about that history that would tell the truth about how America got where it is. And especially, he said, the problem is linking the past to the present. "Oh, you can talk about slavery as a skill set developer for black people, but you can't talk about the fact that it had an impact on contemporary social struggle." So this is a predictable response. The great prophetic mystic Howard Thurman said, "Never reduce your dreams to your present event." He said you're either going to be a prisoner of an event, or you're going to be a prisoner of hope. He said, "I choose to be a prisoner of hope," and I echo the great Howard Thurman.
ISAACSON: Michael Eric Dyson, thank you so much for joining us.
DYSON: Thanks for having me.
CHRISTANE AMANPOUR: Such a powerful invocation against historical amnesia.
