An operating system is the foundational input and combination of presets by which a device functions. The device cannot do anything other than what its operating system will allow it to do. What then is the operating system of today’s American youth? Who is the designer of said operating system and how do they wish for future American generations to “function”?
One man who thought extensively about this question is the late Howard Zinn, who dedicated his career as a university professor and public intellectual, to demonizing America and its history under the guise of honest scholarship. His 1980 book, A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, although riddled with gross inaccuracies and half-truths, is used by many school teachers across the country to this day. Zinn argued against what he perceived to be the over-romanticization of American history in traditional school curriculum. He resolved to go to the opposite extreme with his approach to history, and in so doing ignited a new culture of anti-America cynicism in American education.
Though it may seem unconnected, the perpetual push by congress for federally-recognized grievance days is part and parcel of the cynicism that self-proclaimed progressive education advocates wish to instill in the minds of American youth. Marxist Community Organizing has gone from the streets to the schools. To build citizens who will join the ranks of American left-wing progressivism (i.e. Marxian socialism) without question, two things must be done to that citizen from an early age; first, the educator or politician must identify Marxist-leaning influencers in culture, politics, religious institutions, etc. and teach the youth to admire them as heroes or moral leaders. The youth will be so mesmerized by the charm and talent of their great work that the Marxist undertones in the heroes' rhetoric won't always be blatantly obvious to the general public. The second thing you must do is perpetually frame the past and the present in such a way to remind the youth of why they should be bitter and angry; this is actually quite easy to do because you can mask it under the guise of “being reminded of history so as not to repeat it”.
This is where grievance days come into play. With the recent passage of “Slavery Remembrance Day” in the House of Representatives, Joe Biden said in his statement: “Great nations don’t hide from their history, they acknowledge their past”. While Biden’s commemorative words appear at first to be agreeable and harmless, behind them awaits an entire industry of curriculum-makers who will use the day as yet another opportunity to do as Marxist organizer, Saul Alinsky advises in his 1971 book, RULES FOR RADICALS. “An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent: provide a channel into which the people can angrily pour their frustrations. He must create a mechanism that can drain off the underlying guilt for having accepted the previous situation for so long a time. Out of this mechanism, a new community organization arises.” Thus, the problem isn’t that slavery is being taught in itself; as Jesse Lee Peterson says rightly in the 2022 film, UNCLE TOM II, “We learned about slavery, but not in a way that made you hate”. This is because there are some educators, like Jesse’s, who are capable of responsibly teaching about slavery without exaggerating it on the one hand, and acknowledging the glory of America which ended it, on the other.
Marxist Community Organizing has gone from the streets to the schools, as the classroom is the number one target that policy makers have in mind when establishing these “days of recognition”. To use volleyball terms, the real problem is that Marxian opportunists are pushing for these types of grievance days as an “assist”, and using them to teach revisionist, anti-America curriculum as the “kill”, all to groom future citizens after their own ilk. They are actively reinforcing a post-modern operating system. Part of the seamless nature of federally recognized grievance days, or the thing that makes them seem typical or necessary, is that Marxian-scholars didn't exactly invent the concept of them. Days have been marked to commemorate events by various cultures for millennia. In biblical tradition we learn of the importance of Pesach, or Passover, which was meant in part to remind the Hebrew descendants that God delivered them out of the oppressive grip of Egypt. The passover, as with all religious holidays, is indicative of a culture or nation which has at its base a deeply embedded operating system of faith. When one considers the overwhelming majority of nationally recognized days, weeks and months that have emerged over the past 20 years, it becomes startlingly clear that post-modernism is the religion-like operating system of our day. The oppressor/oppressed paradigm is the “dissatisfaction” which Alinsky says must be exploited, and is vitally crucial to the spreading of the religion of Marxism. Where in the Christian tradition, the scriptures - together with the Holy Spirit - help the individual to see clearly the evils of the world and their own sin, and calls upon that individual to repent, do justly, love mercy, and to walk humbly with God in their new life that Jesus alone has purchased for the individual. The Marxist tradition calls upon the individual to look at systems, classes and other individuals as their biggest threat to true liberation. It promises a new world order, here and now, that can be accomplished if the named ‘oppressors’ are defeated with the collective help of a given intersectional group and their ‘allies’. What makes the latter tradition so deceptive and difficult for most people to see is that it’s proponents rarely call what they are doing, “marxism”; they conceal their ideology under the guise of “progressivism”, “liberalism”,“patriotism” or sometimes “neutralism”, or even Christianity itself. They know how to borrow Christian themes of ‘justice’, ‘transformation’ and other spiritual-sounding words to push an agenda that is actually antithetical to genuine Christianity. They are actively reinforcing a post-modern operating system by getting into every facet of western institutions and co-opting them.
The creation of a “Slavery Reembrace Day” should not be adopted as a way to “not repeat history”. Perhaps it could be viewed that way if Rep. Al Green, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and others who are vying for it, were more honest. But because they have demonstrated consistently their willingness to act as cogs in the aforementioned agenda to radically restructure America into a new Marxist system, it is utterly naive for one to see the ploy as anything but a deceptive maneuver. The common sense approach here is for teachers and homeschool educators to reject the Howard Zinn-esque revisionist history that has been increasingly force fed to American youth for 60 years. For a good, well-balanced understanding of slavery, read books like Francis Rice’s, BLACK HISTORY, Booker T. Washington’s, THE NEGRO IN THE SOUTH, or the autobiography of Booker T. Washington to name a few. Acknowledge and emphasize to your students the hard fact that it was the fortitude of Americans who were inspired by the bible and the constitution to end slaver; two documents that Ironically, the advocates of “Slavery Remembrance Day” are trying their level best to erase.