‘Grave Misuse of Taxpayer Funds’: Training Advocates Slam Virginia County for ‘Switch of Wealth’ to Nikole Hannah-Jones

Training advocates slammed public establishments in Fairfax County, Virginia, for spending greater than $30,000 to carry The New York Instances Journal’s Nikole Hannah-Jones, writer of “The 1619 Challenge,” to talk at a Black Historical past Month occasion.

In the course of the Feb. 19 speech on the McLean Group Heart, Hannah-Jones promoted her ebook and the New York Instances undertaking of the identical identify, admitting that the undertaking rewrites historical past and urging her viewers to assist reparations and “subvert” America’s financial system, which she claimed is beset by institutional racism. She additionally advised that the Confederates understood the Structure precisely, establishing america as a “slave nation.”

The Fairfax County Public Library paid Hannah-Jones $29,350 for the one-hour speech, and the group middle—funded by an actual property surcharge—gave her a further $6,000. That quantities to $589 per minute, all paid for by native taxpayers.

“It’s a grave misuse of taxpayer funds to pay Hannah-Jones to hawk lies about our nation,” Alex Nester, investigative fellow at Mother and father Defending Training, informed The Every day Sign in an announcement Wednesday. “Perhaps as an alternative of spending $30,000 on Hannah-Jones, the library may’ve introduced in studying specialists to get children again on observe in studying, post-pandemic. High quality training is the nice equalizer.”

“Hannah-Jones has a story and picks info to suit her telling of American historical past,” Nester added. “We will criticize the failures of our nation and its founders to stay as much as the rules they enshrined in our Structure: specifically, that every one males are created equal. That doesn’t imply our Structure is improper. It implies that males are flawed. It additionally doesn’t imply that the Confederates had the proper understanding of our Structure—simply the alternative.”

“So, the taxpayers of Fairfax County paid Nikole Hannah-Jones $589 a minute to spew off Marxism for an hour? Since that may be a gigantic switch of wealth, and one imposed by a small guilt-ridden minority of the entire inhabitants of the county, one should admit that there’s some type of inside consistency there,” Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at The Heritage Basis and writer of “BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution,” informed The Every day Sign in an announcement Wednesday. (The Every day Sign is the information outlet of The Heritage Basis.)

Jessica Hudson, director of the Fairfax County Public Library, defended the choice to host Hannah-Jones in an announcement to The Every day Sign Wednesday.

“We have been honored to host Ms. Hannah-Jones, a Pulitzer Prize and Peabody Award profitable writer, and creator of the landmark ‘1619 Challenge,’ throughout our Black Historical past Month celebration,” she stated. “Authors are chosen for quite a lot of causes, together with instructional worth, as a result of they encourage a excessive degree of curiosity amongst our numerous group members and for his or her skill to supply distinctive perception into essential cultural and social points.”

Hudson famous that the occasion registration “crammed shortly” and the library had “a waitlist of greater than 400 individuals.” She didn’t handle issues in regards to the taxpayer funding of left-wing advocacy and questions in regards to the potential that the library may host a conservative activist to stability out any obvious institutional bias. She didn’t reply questions on why the library and the group middle paid such exorbitant charges to Hannah-Jones.

The Fairfax County Public Library additionally paid controversial “anti-racist” writer Ibram X. Kendi $22,500 for an hour-long occasion final 12 months, and Fairfax County Public Colleges paid him $20,000 to talk at a teleconference in 2020.

Throughout her speech, Hannah-Jones condemned former President Donald Trump as an “brazenly white nationalist president” and condemned the response to the George Floyd riots of 2020 as “racist progress” following “racial progress.”

She additionally advocated for an undefined coverage of racial reparations—the switch of wealth from one race (Individuals whom the federal government defines as white or privileged) to a different race (Individuals whom the federal government defines as black or disfavored). She didn’t handle sensible issues about that coverage, corresponding to establish which white Individuals right now can be thought of accountable for slavery to pay which black Individuals right now thought of victims of the establishment’s legacy, or which Individuals even rely as white and black.

“If we begin to say the inequality I see, proper, whether or not it’s class or race, is as a result of we’re a society constructed on anti-blackness, that the legacy of slavery, of labor exploitation, of racial capitalism shaping our society, then we assist totally different insurance policies,” she stated. “If I feel everybody has the identical alternatives in America and the place black individuals battle it’s due to their very own pathology, then I assist regressive individualistic coverage that doesn’t change the construction or hierarchy or inequality in our society in any respect.”

“But when I say every little thing I see has been created by authorities coverage, native, state, federal, by personal coverage, then I begin to assist insurance policies of redistribution,” she added.

Hannah-Jones criticized the established historical past of america as a story that “legitimizes the facility construction that we presently have.”

“What’s justice? It’s reparations,” she argued. She claimed that the financial exploitation of black individuals didn’t finish with slavery, however continued by Jim Crow segregation, such that “merely ending racial discrimination within the legal guidelines as we do within the Nineteen Sixties doesn’t change something in regards to the major reason for black struggling, which is financial exploitation. … If we really acknowledge what this nation’s achieved to black individuals, there’s no option to consider that you simply don’t owe an important ethical and monetary debt.”

She in contrast “The 1619 Challenge” to the “pink capsule” in “The Matrix.”

“I prefer to say ‘The 1619 Challenge’ is the pink capsule in ‘The Matrix.’ You learn this ebook and all of the sudden you begin to query your actuality and also you notice all of this—all of this was created, and you then attempt to subvert it. I would like y’all to do this,” she stated.

Hannah-Jones didn’t reply to The Every day Sign’s request for touch upon whether or not she thinks it acceptable for taxpayer {dollars} to fund her advocacy for the subversion of America’s financial system and for reparations.

The New York Instances stealth-edited claims from The 1619 Challenge, eradicating the declare that the arrival of slaves in Virginia in 1619 represented the nation’s “true founding.” Historians criticized the undertaking for claiming that the Founders launched the Revolutionary Battle to guard slavery and for claiming that the 1619 arrival of slaves in Virginia represents the start of slavery in what would change into the U.S. Black slaves first arrived in Florida in 1526, and slavery as an establishment is almost common in early human societies, together with indigenous North American tribes.

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