Watch out, Disney! Conservatives are lashing out at the company yet again, this time over a show that mentions the existence of slavery.
A major push coming from the far right in recent years has been the idea that teaching even the most basic realities of racism as it pertains to the history of the United States is divisive because it might make white children feel bad. As ridiculous as this sounds, legislation has already been proposed in some places to combat acknowledging reality in this manner.
So the type of people who refer to everything that isn’t white, straight, male, and otherwise ticking off boxes matching their idea of “the norm” as “woke” are doing what they always do, and repeating these talking points over and over and over and over again to get more people to fall for them.
That seems to be what’s happening with the recent outcry against The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder, a revival of an early 2000s animated Disney Channel show about a Black middle-schooler named Penny Proud (Kyla Pratt) and her family.
In the episode they’re highlighting, a group of students puts on a spoken word performance explaining the role that slaves had in building the United States, touching briefly on how systemic racism means that the effects of that era still resonate through Black communities today, and mentioning the idea of reparations.
While the segment may be uncomfortable for those who like to pretend the U.S. now has full racial equality and slavery was just a tiny blip in America’s distant history we should all have forgotten by now, there is ultimately nothing untrue or even “anti-white” in the segment.
But some angry conservatives would have people believe otherwise.
Arguing with these people is next to impossible, since they’re only interested in pushing their anti-education agenda and screaming about whatever it is that might gain them social clout among fellow conservatives, but folks still pointed out the obvious.
And others pointed out just how inaccurate the claims that children’s television has “suddenly” started tackling serious issues actually are.
If anything, this all just goes to show that we need more public education about the uncomfortable parts of American history, not less. Kids can handle it, but so many adults clearly cannot.
