Meet the Press - December 26, 2021

Nikole Hannah-Jones, Joshua Johnson and Keith Mayes

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CHUCK TODD:

This Sunday: Schools, America and Race.

TEXAS PARENT:

We should be teaching American pride, not to hate our country and to hate each other.

CHUCK TODD:

The battle over education and critical race theory -- CRT -- in schools --

APRIL LEE:

Our painful past, right, that’s part of who we are and what’s made us who we are as a country, even though it’s sometimes difficult.

CHUCK TODD:

Eight states passing laws banning the teaching of CRT.

BRYAN HUGHES:

If we were to tell a little white children that they are inherently oppressors, that's not good. If we tell little children of color that they are inherently victims, neither one of those is good.

CHUCK TODD:

The battle pitting parents --

VIRGINIA RESIDENT:

The light is shining. All of you must go, and we will take back our schools.

CHUCK TODD:

-- against school board members.

SHIRLEY BROWN:

You know, I'm a public official, so I guess I'm open, open prey.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

What do you think this debate about critical race theory is really about?

LEONDRA DOAKES:

Control. Control over what can and cannot be taught.

CHUCK TODD:

It's even become a political weapon.

GLENN YOUNGKIN:

Virginia parents have a right to make decisions on their children's education. That's the Virginia I grew up in. Terry McAuliffe wants to change that.

CHUCK TODD:This morning, we'll look at the fight over how children should learn about America's troubled racial history, how the CRT debate has divided one community and I'll talk to author Nikole Hannah-Jones, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her work on The 1619 Project about slavery and race in America. Welcome to Sunday and a special edition of Meet the Press.

ANNOUNCER:

From NBC News in Washington, the longest-running show in television history. This is a special edition of Meet the Press with Chuck Todd.

CHUCK TODD:

Good Sunday morning, and merry day-after Christmas. When Republican Glenn Youngkin won the governor's race in blue Virginia this year, the second most important issue to voters, according to the exit polls, was education. And for many of Youngkin's voters, "education" was code for something called critical race theory or CRT for short. It's an academic concept about racism being embedded in law, policies and society, and it has come to mean different things to different people these days. To many African-American parents, CRT represents a long-overdue reckoning with America's racial history and how it's taught. Conservative groups have campaigned against CRT, and to many white voters, it has been seen as a way to make white children feel ashamed of their race. The result has been loud and angry demonstrations, raucous school board meetings, the dismissal of school administrators and state laws banning the teaching of critical race theory. Today we're going to take a look at the debate over not just CRT, but education as a whole and its impact on schools and politics. I'll also talk to Nicole Hannah-Jones, whose New York Times 1619 Project puts slavery at the center of American history. And we're going to begin, though, with a special report from NBC News' Antonia Hylton. She embedded herself in a Texas town near Dallas and has the story of what happened when a popular principal was accused of putting critical race theory into his school's curriculum.

[BEGIN TAPE]

JAMES WHITFIELD:

Alright buddy you ready? Let's go.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

This is what most days are like now for Dr. James Whitfield and his family.

JAMES WHITFIELD:

I'd be lying if I told you that it -- it didn't pain me to not be with the students that I typically get to serve each day.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

Normally, he’d be up by 6 a.m., in a suit, ready to lead a school of about 2,000 kids. But since late August, he’s been suspended from his job as the first Black principal of Texas’ majority-white Colleyville Heritage High School, in the wake of accusations that he was pushing critical race theory or CRT on students.

JAMES WHITFIELD:

It has been difficult to be detached from, really, -- my purpose. And they see that. They see the pain, even though I try to mask it. But that's all I've ever wanted to do is be an educator and serve kids.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

He’s become one of the most prominent casualties in a national war over race, history and diversity. Psychologically, what's that like?

JAMES WHITFIELD:

Yeah. It's -- you know, I go from -- oh, different extremes. There is the part of me that goes, you know, as any human, "Why -- why me? And why is this -- I didn't sign up for this.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

Texas is one of 8 states with new, broad laws banning the teaching of critical race theory -- a decades-old, graduate-level study, examining the relationship between the law and racial inequality. But conservative organizers and parents have seized on the phrase, turning it into shorthand for lessons or programs they feel are un-American and could make white students feel guilt.

TEXAS PARENT:

Right now, it's very trendy. I know that. It's very unpopular for me to be against it.

TEXAS PARENT:

We should be teaching American pride, not to hate our country and to hate each other.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

There is no evidence that Colleyville Heritage High or Dr. Whitfield taught critical race theory. When Whitfield became principal, parents claimed anniversary photos of him and his white wife, found in an old album on his Facebook page, were inappropriate. Others grew outraged after he took part in a district-approved presentation on diverse differences. Later, anger after he wrote an email about George Floyd’s murder, stating systemic racism was alive and well. They flooded school board meetings. One resident, accusing Whitfield by name.

STETSON CLARK:

Tonight I'd like to express my concerns, not only of myself but of many in the community, about the implementation of critical race theory in our district. Specifically the views and goals of the principal of Colleyville Heritage High School, James Whitfield. Later in this letter, he goes further --

BOARD MEMBER:

Mr. Stetson? Mr. Clark? We really prefer you don't criticize a particular employee of the district.

STETSON CLARK:

Okay.

MAN IN AUDIENCE:

How about you fire him? How does that sound?

BOARD MEMBER:

Sir.

MAN IN AUDIENCE:

How about you fire him?

BOARD MEMBER:

Sir.

STETSON CLARK:

Because of his extreme views, I ask that a full review of Mr. Whitfield’s tenure in our district be examined and that his contract be terminated effective immediately.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

Much of the outrage focused on the views in his email. Clark and other parents calling for Whitfield’s firing declined to speak with NBC News. Do you regret writing that email?

JAMES WHITFIELD:

Absolutely not. Here in Fort Worth we had Atatiana Jefferson who had just been murdered in her home. You've got George Floyd. And I saw this moment. And I was just saying, "I'm here with you to work towards that. We're gonna have to have uncomfortable conversations.” I would write it again in a heartbeat.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

In the hours and days after that school board meeting, did anyone stand up for you?

JAMES WHITFIELD:

No. Behind the scenes: text messages, phone calls, voicemails. "I'm so sorry that happened," "We love you," like, "We're -- we're s -- we support you. We've got your back." Nobody would say that publicly, though.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

Two hundred miles away, in Oklahoma, the state is facing the first-ever federal lawsuit against an anti-CRT law, filed in October by the ACLU, arguing the law violates free speech. Educators at Millwood Public Schools in Oklahoma City have been working under a law nearly identical to the one in Texas, that banned concepts that could make students feel discomfort or guilt. But at this majority-Black school, teachers like Ms. Leondra Doakes aren’t budging

LEONDRA DOAKES:

Let's go before the massacre. Okay? What do you know about Greenwood the city?

ANTONIA HYLTON:

Today’s lesson is about the Tulsa Race Massacre, and how a white mob burned down Black homes and businesses in a community called Greenwood in 1921.

BRYLYN HAYWOOD:

Just seeing the planes -- makes you just terrified, like you probably are just sitting there, froze, just looking out. All the other businesses gone.

BRANDON WILLIAMS:

I would have had a little bit of animosity towards them, because it's just, it's the whole factor of the situation. It’s like, you came into my home town, killed my people and then y’all going to dispose of our bodies without a proper burial. Like, just the fact of it -- that's that’s crazy. Like how are you just going to do that?

ANTONIA HYLTON:

Her students are only in 8th grade. But intensely aware of the politics around them.

ZION RODRIGUEZ:

We're smarter than we -- than we look. We know what's happening in America.

MALACHI MORRIS:

You wanna grow up to tell your kids about your story and not your kids tell them about your own.

ALAYAH HUNTER:

At the end of the day, if you don’t teach history, it's gonna repeat itself.

LEONDRA DOAKES:

Honestly -- it's been like walking on eggshells. There are moments where I have to really be conscious of – am I getting as much from my students. I'm wondering, am I? Or is this law causing me to hinder their education?

ANTONIA HYLTON:

Is there a case to be made for, "Look, leave the tough divisive concepts to parents at home. And at school, just stick to basic history?"

LEONDRA DOAKES:

That is -- to me, is not going to solve anything. Those questions eventually come to -- back to us. What they learn at home will definitely end up right where they are engaging with one another.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

Oklahoma’s law went into effect in July. Doakes says she searched her syllabus, worried she’d violate it. But ultimately decided she wouldn’t change. What do you think this debate about critical race theory is really about?

LEONDRA DOAKES:

Control. Control over what can and cannot be taught. But is it really avoidable? That's the question. That's the one thing that I -- I fear, is like, why are we trying to avoid something they already see?

CECILIA ROBINSON-WOODS:

Good morning. Hey Noah.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

Cecilia Robinson-Woods is Oklahoma’s only Black female superintendent. As the law went into effect, she placed Millwood teachers through four days of training to assure them: their lessons aren’t CRT. They’re just history.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

Are you on an island?

CECILIA ROBINSON-WOODS:

I -- I definitely believe that I'm on an island -- which is one of the reasons I wanted to be in this school district. My board is all African American. They almost expect me to speak out, because we know there's so many more that cannot.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

A local conservative PAC published her photo in their newsletter, warning supporters “if we continue to allow these kinds of superintendents, there is no hope for the future.” As someone who's been identified by conservatives as a potential problem, are you worried?

CECILIA ROBINSON-WOODS:

I'm not sure what I'd be worried about. I mean -- I answer to a local school board, and I have the support of my school board.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

But Millwood is the exception. Next door in Texas, several school districts are struggling to interpret new laws and protect employees. In Southlake, Texas, NBC News obtained exclusive audio of an administrator telling panicked teachers that they would comply with Texas law by balancing books about the Holocaust with an opposing view.

GINA PEDDY:

Make sure that if, if, if you have a book on the Holocaust, that you have one that has opposing -- that has -- that has other perspectives.

TEACHER:

How do you oppose the holocaust? What?!

GINA PEDDY:

Believe me, that's come up.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

The district apologized and the administrator in the audio has not responded to NBC News. In Katy, Texas -- the school canceled, then postponed an event with a prominent Black children's book author. State Senator Bryan Hughes is the author of Senate Bill 3, the second and most stringent of the anti-CRT laws passed in Texas. When you look at some of what's happening around the state right now, you don't think that any of this has gone off the rails?

STATE SEN. BRYAN HUGHES:

Well, I think folks need to focus on what's in the bill and not what's in other states or what they've heard or -- or things like that. And if we were to tell a little white children that they are inherently oppressors, that's not good. If we tell little children of color that they are inherently victims, neither one of those is good.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

Was that the primary motivation for these laws --

STATE SEN. BRYAN HUGHES:

Yes.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

-- to make sure that white kids don't feel guilty?

STATE SEN. BRYAN HUGHES:

So the bill is pretty clear. It would be wrong to tell white kids or children of color that they are limited based on the color of their skin or that they are guilty of -- because of what people of their race did in the past.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

What about the teachers who say they're closing their classroom libraries, or Dr. Whitfield, the principal here who's about to lose his job?

STATE SEN. BRYAN HUGHES:

I would just ask folks to look at the words of the bill. The words of the bill matter, not the Facebook memes.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

But do you have a message to them? I mean, is there something that, that you can clarify at a statewide level?

STATE SEN. BRYAN HUGHES:

So what we've said, I want to make sure this is clear. So what we do not teach in Texas public schools is that one race is inherently superior or inferior.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

I understand that. But I want to know what you think of the current lives people are living as a result of this entire movement.

STATE SEN. BRYAN HUGHES:

Well, I can't speak to the national movement about CRT, what other states are doing. All I can tell you is what's in Senate Bill 3.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

A group of Colleyville Heritage High students have led classroom walkouts and spoken out at school board meetings.

SAMANTHA ZELLING:

Vote to keep my principal. They fired the best principal that any of -- of us have ever had in our entire life. Just because he's the first Black principal and they could get away with it.

SUNEHRA CHOWDHURY:

By dismissing the concerns of students of color, they're guaranteeing that that kind of behavior and thought processes can continue living on.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

In a statement to NBC News -- The Grapevine Colleyville school district said James Whitfield violated district policies and “The District has proposed the nonrenewal of Dr. Whitfield's contract due to deficiencies in his performance as principal that have been documented and discussed.”

ANTONIA HYLTON:

The school district says that what's happened to you has nothing to do with critical race theory. Has this all just been a misunderstanding?

JAMES WHITFIELD:

So, it is interesting that they would say that. Promoting me twice in the last three years -- what’s changed?

ANTONIA HYLTON:

And after months of anxiously waiting, students and parents packed into the Grapevine-Colleyville meeting room, as the board voted on whether or not to settle and formally separate with the principal.

TEXAS PARENT:

None of you can identify with a black man in America and his experiences. But he brought those experiences to our students. Two of my kids were lucky enough to have him as an educator.

TEXAS STUDENT:

Dr. Whitfield has done so much good for the school and the community. Do better. Be better. The entire nation is watching what you will do.

ANTONIA HYLTON:The very first resident to publicly accuse Dr. Whitfield last summer, made the night’s final remarks.

STETSON CLARK:

The question should be asked: how did we get here? Critical race theory --

CROWD:

Because of you! You!

ANTONIA HYLTON:

At almost 10 p.m. that night, board members voted unanimously to let Dr. Whitfield go. School officials wouldn’t speak on record with NBC News. But in a joint statement with Whitfield -- the district acknowledging that both parties believe they are in the right. Why did you want to stay around to the end?

RAFA MERLAND-ROA:

I needed to see the look on their faces when they read that. The fact they said that with a straight face. They're hurting students.

JAMES WHITFIELD:

Love you dude. Have a great day buddy.

JAMES WHITFIELD’S SON:

You too.

JAMES WHITFIELD:

Thank you.

JAMES WHITFIELD’S SON:

Have the best day.

JAMES WHITFIELD:

You have the best day.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

Where do you go from here?

JAMES WHITFIELD:

I've got a family that needs me. It’s bigger than me.

ANTONIA HYLTON:

Whitfield still doesn’t know where he’ll work next, but worries educators are in peril.

JAMES WHITFIELD:

I plan on speaking up, because that's what you're supposed to do. Right? But you got to think about what that -- what is that silence doing not only for you, but is it being harmful to moving us along as a society?

[END TAPE]

CHUCK TODD:

My thanks to Antonia Hylton for that report and frankly her excellent reporting all year long on this topic. When we come back: What is the best way to teach our children about the history of race in America? The panel is next.

CHUCK TODD:

Welcome back. I recently sat down with three guests to discuss the fight over how we teach about race in America. Republican Congressman Byron Donalds of Florida, who opposes the teaching of critical race theory in public schools. Brenda Sheridan, the school board chair in Loudoun County, Virginia, which has become one of the epicenters of the battle over critical race theory. And Jelani Cobb, who covers race and politics for The New Yorker. Jelani, I want you to frame this conversation here, and I want to start because it does seem as if – if you take the Oklahoma law at its word for word, I guess it means we teach the fact that the Tulsa massacre happened, but you can't teach why. Is that – is that how you would understand the law? And – and is there a way to devise a law to somehow find a middle ground on that?

JELANI COBB:

Yeah, I mean, I think that's probably what would – what in theory would happen, but in practice, what would happen is that people just wouldn't teach about the Tulsa race riot. And we should bear in mind that we're having this conversation now in 2021 because that history has been excavated, that there are generations of people – as a matter of fact, I just spoke with a former senator from Oklahoma who talked about growing up in the state and in the 1960s having no idea that any such thing had ever happened. So it's only because of the diligent work of historians that we even know that the public even has access to this information, much less the fact that there was an epidemic of these kinds of tides of racial violence in the period after – following World War I into the 1920s. So this wasn't an uncommon phenomenon. We don't know that and we don't teach that and we don't talk about that. And so what the practical effect of these laws is is that people will not be able to understand and will not be able to appreciate exactly how these problems arose, and therefore we will be poorly equipped to confront them or prevent them from arising again in the future.

CHUCK TODD:

Congressman Donalds, I think this is the concern. You've heard this concern, which is – and I brought up the Tulsa race massacre because I didn't – I wasn't taught it in schools, with the public schools in Florida. Something I learned in the last two years was Ax Handle Sunday, which was a horrible racial violence in Jacksonville, Florida. I assume you think we should be teaching these events in our public schools.

REP. BYRON DONALDS:

Absolutely.

CHUCK TODD:

So how would you do it? And – and what is banning critical race theory, in your mind, do to impact the teaching of, say, Ax Handle Sunday?

REP. BYRON DONALDS:

Look, the number one thing we all agree on is that history should be taught. Objective history should be taught at all times. I went to an elementary school –

CHUCK TODD:

Even if it's painful, right?

REP. BYRON DONALDS:

Even if it's painful. I went to an elementary school where they taught objective history about our nation, from – from slavery, through Jim Crow, through civil rights era. So I learned that in elementary school. Every child should have that. The issue with critical race theory is that it's a subjective view of American history and America law using race as the lens to focus. And when you bring subjectivity into the classroom, that is what has parents upset. That is what leads, unfortunately, to children being divided in certain class segments based upon race. That has happened in some schools across our country, not all. But when you have something like that occur, that is when parents step up and they oppose it, and we shouldn't have subjectivity. We should definitely teach objective history in our country.

CHUCK TODD:

Well, let me ask you this –

JELANI COBB:Chuck, can I respond to that really quickly?

CHUCK TODD:

Go ahead, Jelani.

JELANI COBB:

Yeah. I mean, I happen to be a historian, and historians don't really believe that there’s such a thing as “objective history.” What we do is recognize that we have a perspective, that there are – we’re all subjective. And what we try to do is, despite those subjectivities, follow what the evidence suggests most stringently. And so that's how we come to the conclusion that there is this dynamic of race in which people – one group of people have disproportionately been victimized and one group of people have disproportionately benefited from that victimization. It's difficult to get around that, even if people think that it will make people feel uncomfortable. The last thing I'll say is that there is no teaching of critical race theory in our schools. You know, I wrote about this in The New Yorker. The critical race theory is an advanced issue of jurisprudence, legal jurisprudence for which there's an extensive body of scholarship. If your fifth -grader is learning critical race theory, then I would say congratulations because you have a genius on your hand, and they’re in their last year of law school.

CHUCK TODD:

Congressman, I want you to respond to that. The idea that is – are we – did we search for a solution to a problem that didn't exist when it comes to critical race theory?

REP. BYRON DONALDS:

Oh no, that is not true at all. That's not true at all. Look, the number one thing that's happened with critical – CRT ending up in classrooms, it's not an actual course. It is through diversity, equity inclusion seminars that teachers take. It's through what happens – comes in classroom material, in textbook material, in library material and all these things. All of these things actually bring the subjective view not of our history, but how children are – that subjectivity is being brought to children today, how they view each other, how they view themselves. That's what we have to be very, very careful about. That's what parents are very, very careful of.

CHUCK TODD:

All right. So Brenda, this is where I bring you in. You're a school board member. You're hearing these conversations in some ways, what Jelani and the congressman – this is, this is happening at your school board meetings. My guess is not as, not as politely as we're having here.

BRENDA SHERIDAN:

Correct.

CHUCK TODD:

How do you guys decide as a board what belongs in history, in a history curriculum? We're talking about the state of Virginia here whose history with race is very fraught.

BRENDA SHERIDAN:

Right, and I'll echo that we are not teaching critical race theory. It's not in our curriculum because it would be inappropriate. It is – it is a graduate-level theory and it would be inappropriate if a fifth-grader was doing that and learning that in school, and it's been manipulated. Critical race theory has been manipulated to replace what is really equity initiatives and teaching students about their biases and our teachers about their biases. And that's what leads to discipline disproportionality and students being treated differently just based on their skin color or perhaps poverty – their poverty, their socioeconomics and those types of things. What we're really teaching students is compassion and empathy for the other students' experiences. It can't be objective because we're experiencing it subjective.

CHUCK TODD:

Are you having a rational debate in Loudoun or has this gotten out of hand?

BRENDA SHERIDAN:

There is no rational debate.

CHUCK TODD:

Okay. It is just totally screaming?

BRENDA SHERIDAN:

It’s beyond that.

CHUCK TODD;

What is it?

BRENDA SHERIDAN:

Well, we go back to the – I have to go back to the pandemic because it stirred from parents who were very legitimately concerned about schools being closed. And then – so you had angry parents who I absolutely empathized with, and we wanted to help, and we took their kids out of school because we had to. And then, so you had a group of angry parents and then someone lit the fire with critical race theory.

CHUCK TODD:

Will you do this job again? There’s a lot of school board members who have run for – who are walking away.

BRENDA SHERIDAN:

I’ve been on the board now for ten and a half years.

CHUCK TODD:

Yeah.

BRENDA SHERIDAN:

I’m in my third term. And it’s a long time. I don’t make decisions based on –

CHUCK TODD:

Of course.

BRENDA SHERIDAN:There have been all types of –

CHUCK TODD:

I’m not asking you to make news about your political future.

BRENDA SHERIDAN:

Thank you.

CHUCK TODD:

But what I’m seeing is, the unintended consequence here, and I want to get to Jelani and the congressman on this, is I feel as if we’re just going to separate on this. Whether teachers are going to walk away, school board members are like, “Don’t want the fight.” Parents may go to their own schooling.

BRENDA SHERIDAN:

And I think we’re already seeing that. We see people – we see a lot of our teachers saying – just as an effect of the pandemic, and this piled on top of it. They’re walking away. It’s an underrated profession as it is.

CHUCK TODD:

Right. Jelani, that seems to be the unintended consequence that I think we're all bracing for. We could have segregation of education.

JELANI COBB:

Yeah, I'm not sure that's an unintended consequence because this is just an extension of the sort of dynamics that we've seen before. We've seen a death by euphemism, you know, where Texas textbooks were referring to the triangular slave trade as the triangular trade or referring to people who were enslaved as workers and kind of trying to find ways around the most uncomfortable parts of this story in the first place. And so this is tremendously treacherous as we've seen the increasing tide of hate crimes, that we've seen white nationalist violence resurging across the country. We really need to understand what the pitfalls are. We teach history. We teach this – this difficult history because it's the only chance we have of immunizing ourselves against the vectors of evil in the past.

CHUCK TODD:

Yeah. Congressman, are you – I take your beliefs very sincerely. Are you worried there are people that are using this, hijacking this because of their own, maybe their own nefarious views?

REP. BYRON DONALDS:

No. My view is that the parents who are coming to school boards all across the country, whether it's a red state or a blue state or red district or a blue district, they're legitimately concerned that their children are not just being taught history, but that they’re being taught about biases that they may or may not have based upon the color of their skin. And with young kids in America today, they should be looking at each other and viewing each other as equals, understanding our history. I think that's what everybody wants.

CHUCK TODD:

This was actually part of our original report on critical race theory. It aired on our streaming show, Meet the Press Reports, that’s where we dive into one subject for the entire half hour. We just wrapped up season three. You can see all of our episodes -- all three seasons -- anytime you want on Peacock. Go make that a second home. When we come back, my conversation with journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, who led The New York Times' 1619 Project, which places slavery and its aftermath at the core of our nation's history.

CHUCK TODD:

Welcome back. When The 1619 Project was published by The New York Times, it became an object of both admiration and criticism. The series of essays was named for when African slaves were first taken to these shores and it places slavery and its legacy at the center of American history. Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones won a Pulitzer Prize for the project, but also came under criticism for suggesting that the American Revolution itself was fought to preserve slavery. Few people have spent more time researching, thinking and writing about race in America than Nikole Hannah-Jones, and she joins me now. Nikole, welcome to Meet the Press.

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES:

Hi. Thanks for having me.

CHUCK TODD:

Let me just start with this. Describe in your own words what The 1619 Project is and its mission.

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES:

The 1619 Project is a book now. It began as a magazine and a special section of The New York Times. And what it is is it marks the advent of African slavery in the original 13 colonies. So 1619 is the year the first Africans were sold into slavery in Virginia. And what the project argues through a series of essays is that very little about American life today has been left untouched by the legacy of slavery and the anti-Blackness that developed in order to justify it. So it is trying to place the leg – slavery as an institution, which is one of the oldest institutions in America, really at the center of the story that we tell ourselves about our country, and to explain so much about American life through that lens.

CHUCK TODD:

Did you intend for The 1619 Project to become public school curriculum? Or did you intend it to start a debate to improve the curriculum of how we teach American history?

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES:

Well, when I first pitched the project, I simply pitched it as a work of journalism, which it is. I mean, I'm a journalist at The New York Times, and I pitched a project to run as a piece of journalism in The New York Times. Now, some months in, as we were working on the project, we began to talk about – that this could be a great learning tool for students. Particularly we were thinking about the broadsheet that ran in partnership with the National Museum of African American History and Culture that talks about -- teaches slavery through objects found in that museum. Now, The New York Times has an education division. The New York Times regularly turns its journalism into curriculum, as does the Pulitzer Center, who we ultimately partnered with. They are constantly turning works of journalism into curriculum. It's only become controversial because people have decided to make The 1619 Project controversial.

CHUCK TODD:

I think in the last two years, a lot of people have come to realize that our teaching of of history has been -- has been incomplete, to be generous, particularly on I would say whether it's Reconstruction – I mean, we start – talk about glossing over that. Or specifically, think about the Tulsa Massacre and how so many people have said, "I didn't get taught that." I grew up in Miami, Florida. I didn't get taught about Ax Handle Sunday in Jacksonville. When you look at our public schools, eight in ten public school teachers are white. Yet, half of the public school students are students of color. How do we improve that aspect of education in America?

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES:

So I don’t think that, you know, we have to have -- we should definitely have more Black and Latino educators because that is what our country looks like. But I don't think you have to be Black or Latino in order to teach a more accurate history. The problem is that our teacher preparation programs are not equipping educators with the knowledge that they need to teach this history better. When you look at the survey by Teaching Tolerance, they found that about half, or slightly more than half of American educators say they don't feel equipped to teach about slavery. And they really struggle to teach about slavery. It's kind of ironic that we're seeing these bills being passed, these anti-history laws, to make it more difficult to teach about slavery and racism and our country's long history of racism, when in fact, we have educators who are struggling the opposite way. They're having -- holding mock slave auctions in their classrooms. They're having students do assignments where they have to list the pros and cons of slavery because they really don't know how to teach this very well. And that's because as a country, we have not honestly grappled with the truth about our history. And the history we learn is often about national and patriotism, but not about telling --

CHUCK TODD:

Where should that --

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES:

– the unvarnished truth.

CHUCK TODD:

– come from? You know, I've thought about this and, you know, I know that if government says, "This is our history," people are going to say, "Huh, I'm not letting government historians decide what our history is." This seems to be a real challenge in an open society, is how do we get agreement on this, especially when parents want to have -- look, the Virginia's governor's race was arguably decided on the strength of how influential should parents be on curriculum? How do we do this?

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES:

Well, I would say the governor's race in Virginia was decided based on the success of a right-wing propaganda campaign that told white parents that they needed to fight against their children being indoctrinated as race – as being called racists. But that was a propaganda campaign. And there are a lot of Black parents in Virginia. There are a lot of Latino parents in Virginia. And they were not being featured in that coverage. And what they wanted for their kids' education, which is more teaching about race, more teaching about the history of racism, seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. So I think we should frame that question properly. And I don't really understand this idea that parents should decide what's being taught. I'm not a professional educator. I don't have a degree in social studies or science. We send our children to school because we want them to be taught by people who have an expertise in the subject area. And that is not my job. When the, when the governor or the candidate said that he didn't think parents should be deciding what's being taught in school, he was panned for that. But that's just the fact. This is why we send our children to school and don't homeschool, because these are the professional educators who have the expertise to teach social studies, to teach history, to teach science, to teach literature. And I think we should leave that to the educators. Yes, we should have some say. But school is not about simply confirming our world view. Schools should teach us to question. They should teach us how to think, not what to think. –

CHUCK TODD:

At what age?

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES:

– And I wouldn’t want my child to go to a school --

CHUCK TODD:

Is there an age restriction in your mind?

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES:

About teaching what?

CHUCK TODD:

Teaching sort of -- when it comes to teaching our past, you know there’s this, and I think this is coming basically through a racial lens, but there’s this, you know, -- parents are saying, "Hey, don't, don’t make my kid feel guilty." And, you know, and I know a parent of color is going, "What are you talking about? You know, I've got to teach reality." When do you do it, and how do you do it?

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES:

Well, I think you should just think a little bit about your framing. You said "parents," and then you said "parents of color." So the white --

CHUCK TODD:

Right, its white parents --

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES:

– is silent –

CHUCK TODD:

– and parents of color. You’re – no. Fair point. Yeah.

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES:

Right. White parents are not representing -- as a matter of fact, white parents are representing fewer than half of all public school parents. And yet, they have an outsized voice in this debate. I have a child who, just by watching the news when she was eight years old, she saw Laquan McDonald, a teenager in Chicago, get shot 16 times by police on CBS in The Morning Show. And she asked me, "Why did that -- why did they kill that boy?" So I can't wait to have these conversations with my child. And I don't think that we should be asking, "What is the appropriate age?" I think we should be asking, "What are the appropriate conversations at that age?" But our children are being raised in a racialized society. They are noticing things. They have questions. And I don't think teaching an accurate rendering of history is about making white children feel guilty. I don’t know an educator -- I've been covering education for two decades. I've never seen a teacher of any race tell a white child, "You are responsible for what happened in the past." I just don't think that that's happening. And even all of the people who have claimed that that has happened have not been able to produce a shred of evidence that that's true. I think some students who are white probably walk away from some of these lessons feeling very uncomfortable, as we should. We should be uncomfortable with the hard parts of our past. And a master educator knows how to give those lessons without making students internalize this -- these feelings of racism.

CHUCK TODD:

At the end of the day, this politicizing of this, it's clearly been weaponized. You've described it I think pretty well on the weaponization of it. Do you think simply time will get us past this? How can we get over this hump?

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES:

I don't know, honestly. I'm quite concerned about what's happening in our country because, as you know, my project, which is a work of journalism by The New York Times, is banned by name in Georgia, Florida, in Texas. There are efforts to ban the teaching of this history in Oklahoma, in South Dakota, in Tennessee. And when we think about what type of society bans books or bans ideas, that is not a free and tolerant democratic society. That is a society that is veering towards authoritarianism. So unless people who believe in free speech, who believe in our children being intellectually challenged, begin to get organized and speak up, I think we're going into a dark age of repression and suppression of the truth. And really, these laws are paving the way for the taking of other political rights like voting rights, like women's reproductive rights, like rights for LGBTQ people. So we're going to have to decide what kind of country we want to be.

CHUCK TODD:

Nikole Hannah-Jones of The New York Times. Really appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective with us. Thanks for this.

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES:

Thank you.

CHUCK TODD:

When we come back: We're going to look at another big problem facing America's schools, as our special report continues.

CHUCK TODD:

Welcome back. Data Download time and a look into perhaps the biggest problems plaguing schools going into 2022. Back in October, our friends at Education Week released a survey of principals and district administrators that found some deep staffing shortages. 37% said these staffing shortages were moderate, 25% said severe, 15% said very severe. Add it all up, that's 77% of those surveyed saying staffing shortages were having notable impacts on the schools. It's nearly eight in ten schools that don't have enough people to serve the students. So where is this problem being felt the most? Well, it's across the board. What's most acute, and you hear this anecdotally and you see it in the survey: substitute teachers, struggling to find them, 77%. Bus drivers, this has been a huge issue. You even had one state call up the National Guard to help. 68% saying they're having that problem. How about teacher aides and other specialty instructors? 55% said they're having a problem in that. And then simply full-time teachers. Nearly half are having this problem. Add it all up, sometimes teacher aides are being asked to be substitute teachers. So in short, this great resignation seems to have hit schools across all positions. And you can see it when you just look at the total number of local education employees nationwide. In July, it was 7.8 million. Believe it or not, that has gone down. In November, it's been 7.6 million. You know what hasn't gone down? So we have 200,000 less people working in the schools. The number of students has not gone down at all. So they went back and resurveyed. Have things gotten better? Not so much. Are the problems more severe? 53% said that. Are things the same? 37% of these administrators said that. Just six percent essentially said things had finally started to improve. This is a huge problem that is only getting worse, especially since this pandemic doesn't seem to ever end. When we come back, why is it that more than 50 years after his assassination, we still don't know how to teach about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?

CHUCK TODD:

Welcome back. Time for a little history quiz. What famous American gave a speech decrying how Black citizens live on “an island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity” and of “the tranquilizing drug of gradualism”? Answer: it was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And he said it in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. The fact that key parts of one of the most famous speeches in all of American history are unknown to so many of us is simply indicative of how we've struggled to tell the history of not just Dr. King, but of all African Americans in this country. Joining me now are Keith Mayes, an associate professor of African American and African Studies at the University of Minnesota; and Joshua Johnson, anchor of Now Tonight, my colleague also at NBC News and NBC News Now. Welcome to both of you. Keith, let me frame the conversation this way. Rashid Darden in Education Week back in 2018 wrote the following, and I think it very much is true today: "Students don't typically have a great understanding of the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Jim Crow South, the racist North. There's really not much after Harriet Tubman until we get to the civil rights movement. Their body of knowledge is focused on those couple of things, rather than the interconnectedness, the intersections." And I think that's why I want to have this conversation and not almost utter the words critical race theory because really what this is about is how do we improve the education of history in America? Keith, where do we begin?

KEITH MAYES:

We begin by telling the truth, Chuck. I mean, I think you are right, that all of these things are interconnected. I was listening to the conversation you had with Nikole Hannah-Jones. And 1619 indeed is a starting point, but we have to talk about the Black colonial American experience, or the experience of people of color pre-American Revolutionary War. But also, you know, what was going on in the new national period of the turn of the 18th century, leading up to the 19th century and the Civil War, abolition, Reconstruction, the post-Reconstruction period, progressivism. I think that in many ways, Chuck, I think we have missed an opportunity to understand what that through-line has been from the very beginning. Whether it's 1619 when the first 20 Africans were brought here, or 1607, when white people came here, all the way up to 2021. I mean, I think that there is something that is important for us to understand as we connect the dots throughout all of the centuries that this country has been the United States, even the colonial period.

CHUCK TODD:

You know, Joshua, we also have this other pattern when we do teach parts of African American history. We fight it. Just think about the Dr. King holiday. Then when it's accepted, it gets watered down. Think about how I opened this segment, about how, you know, how few people actually know all of the contents and substance of the “I Have a Dream” speech. How do we get out of that trap?

JOSHUA JOHNSON:

Well, I think first, we have to decide how much you need to know and when. I mean, there's a reason that we think carefully about the way that we write stories for the news. We don't tell you everything all at once. We have to figure out what to tell you first and then what to tell you next based on where you are and what you probably already know of the story. I mean, there was a documentary that just came out about the creation of Sesame Street. And one of the first things they did before they created the series was they did research with small children to see what they were already watching. And they used the impact of existing commercial television to build a program that would take children as they were and educate them in line with what they were already exposed to. I think that might be one of the missing pieces. It's not just what we need to tell people, but how we need to listen, how we need to receive where America is now and work with the nation we have to build a nation we want. I mean, in Antonia Hylton's piece earlier, you heard that state lawmaker from Texas talking about not wanting white children to be taught that they're superior just because they're white, and that Black children are inferior just because they're Black. That is a huge win. Think about what that means. In the context of the history of this country, having a white person say they don't want their white children taught that, that's something you can build on, even if that's a person who's, like, "Critical race theory scares me." Okay, fine. We'll get to that later. Where are you now? I think we don't have a clear understanding of what America is ready to discuss now because that's a need we can meet today.

CHUCK TODD:

You know, Keith, one of the things I've thought about is, you know, it was 1975 that the president then, Gerald Ford, essentially declared February Black History Month. And it has served as a tool for educators to at least begin some teaching of African American history. There's a part of me that thinks if we didn't have that and President Biden declared it today, we'd be having a very polarizing conversation about it.

KEITH MAYES:

Absolutely right, Chuck, because, you know, the extension of Black History Month from Negro History Week, the great Carter G. Woodson created that back in the 1920s. And it really flourished in the 1930s and '40s. That was the way that we actually taught Black history in public schools for many decades, this week of celebration. And what Carter G. Woodson envisioned was this thing that scholars call contributionism. You know, what is the Black contribution to science and business and education? And that was kind of an easy, fluffy history to place the Black contributions side by side with whites. But the civil rights movement did something very important. It demanded that Black history is not embraced just in one week of February, but we want to actually begin to talk about what it means to be Black all year round. And so – it's really the American bicentennial moment in 1976, Chuck, that opens up the calendar to extend that week into three additional weeks, into one whole month. But I have to say that Black history's still ossified and frozen in time in that one month in the calendar year. And then once February 28th or 29th depending on the year, once that goes, we are back to really talking about – not talking about Black history and the concerns of African Americans and the things that they care about, whether social justice movements or what have you. We don't revisit it again until the next year. So this perennializing, this annualizing of Black history that's been around since the early days of Carter G. Woodson, we have not really moved beyond that even in 2021.

CHUCK TODD:

And that feels like, Joshua, how this debate opened up, is that there are educators who are trying to say, you know, "It isn't a month. This is American history: good, bad, ugly, American history." And it seems that this is where the pushback comes in. Look, I'm a cynic. This feels like it's almost all being done for political gain short term. I'm an optimist. I think over time, we'll get better at this. But I guess the question is: How long is it going to take?

JOSHUA JOHNSON:

I think it's happening. I mean, there's another piece of the equation that we can't forget, and that's young people themselves. This debate about talking about race is over. Young people are doing it on their own. They are Googling the pink elephant that you told them not to talk about, and they're fascinated by this. So they're falling down Wikipedia rabbit holes about the truth about race in this country, and talking about it with their friends as if this never occurred. I'm just not sure that there's actually going to be as much power in these laws as lawmakers think. I think there are going to be a lot of very resentful kids who realize that their parents were trying to hide the truth from them or lie to them about something fundamental about who they are. So the curriculum is part of it. Young people aren't dumb. They know that if you don't want them to know this, there must be something important there. And they might well Google it behind your back. In fact, I think they already are.

CHUCK TODD:

I – with two teenagers in my house, trust me, I'm well aware of that fact.

JOSHUA JOHNSON:

Exactly.

CHUCK TODD:

Anyway, Keith Mayes, Joshua Johnson, I hope you both have a wonderful New Year and have had a Merry Christmas. Thank you both for coming on.

KEITH MAYES:

Thank you.

CHUCK TODD:

That's all we have for today. Thank you for watching. I hope you're having a safe and Merry Christmas week. We'll be back next week, and next year, because if it's Sunday, even in 2022, it's Meet the Press.