Lawmakers in new Hampshire have proposed a bill banning teachers from teaching
American history because some white people have their feelings hurt every time
they hear about this country's past with things like slavery.
And certain previous provision in our constitution that weren't so
friendly to African Americans.
And so, what they wanna do is prevent teaching history through an accurate lens,
like so many other states, by the way, have already done.
Now there's an insane video involved in this story that I do not want you to miss.
So please stick around until we at least get to that, but first,
I gotta give you some context.
So, first off the people pushing for
this bill are outright questioning the loyalty of teachers
to the United States if they wanna teach accurate US history.
Lawmakers clashed this year over the issue of how teachers talk about race and
racism in the classroom.
Next year, they will debate a bill titled an act relative to teachers loyalty.
>> That sounds good.
>> An update of an obscure Cold War-era law that bans
educators from advocating for communism in schools.
>> They're making the comparisons to that period a little bit on the nose.
>> On the nose, yes.
So, if you teach accurate US history as an educator,
you will be blacklisted.
This proposed legislation comes after you and
questions your loyalty to the United States.
Now, the updated version says this, no teacher shall advocate any doctrine or
theory promoting a negative account or representation of the founding and
history of the United States of America in new Hampshire public schools.
Which does not include the worldwide context of now outdated and
discouraged practices.
Such prohibition includes, but
is not limited to teaching that the United States was founded on racism.
Now, Republican, Erica Leone, who is a co sponsor of this
bill was just asked about specific instances in the curriculum.
How do you teach certain things without going against what this proposed
legislation entails and get a load of how she handled the question.
>> If this became law, what would be the appropriate way for a teacher
to address something like the three-fifths compromise in the constitution, which
basically invalidated the humanity of enslaved people who were black in America?
I mean, that's a racist aspect of America's founding,
is that run afoul somehow to bring this up in the classroom.
>> Well, when you bring this up in the classroom,
you should go back to some of the historical documents.
The three-fifths compromise actually made it so
that the slave holding south didn't have more of a voice in Congress.
They actually were worried that if four representation,
they counted each slave as a whole vote and a whole voter,
that then there might be more slavery throughout the country.
And that it would be unequal because a viewpoint that was on its way
out would be overrepresented.
So, the idea of saying that somebody is less than a human is abhorrent,
it's terrible, it's something that we shouldn't do.
They were trying to figure out how to have a representative democracy without having
a toxic view take hold and overwhelm the rest of this new farming country.
>> I mean it was meant to help the slaves, do,
basically treat African Americans as if
they're three-fifths human to help them.
Okay, it's complete BS of course, which I'll explain in a second, but John.
>> Yeah, there's also the cloak of but
don't worry about it was on his way out and really like totally moving on.
Everybody was totally didn't care about that anymore and didn't want slavery,
that's why you need to lighten up,
you you're acting as if it was sort of baked in or DNA, but we were moving on.
I mean, we only had hundreds of years of slavery and
then decades under the United States of slavery and under the example I'm giving,
which is bias in a lot of different ways.
But let's pretend that it's true, there are multiple states that are desperately
trying to have more slavery, but we're supposed to believe that her explanation
is a demonstration of how America had already long moved on from slavery.
Even though an entire region of the country was desperately trying to create
more slave holding states.
So those people held power in multiple states and
would use it to create more slavery, but there was nothing systemic about it,
nothing baked into the systems of government.
She doesn't understand what she's talking about, but
even if it was an honest reflection of what was going on,
it proves the opposite of what she's trying to demonstrate.
>> All right, so let's do something super naughty,
you wanted something naughty, all right.
Let's teach a little history that's banned in some of these reds states.
>> We're gonna be locked up.
>> We're baddies, all right.
>> You're free speech in your facts.
>> So, let's talk about the history of the three-fifths compromise.
What is it, where did it come from?
Well, in 1787, the Constitutional Convention then address the appointment
in the House of Representatives and the number of electoral votes each state
would have in presidential elections based on a state's population, right?
This is where the awful electoral system is kind of being set up and they're
deciding on how much representation each state should have based on its population.
So, that's when the issue of non voting African American slaves come up, right?
And I say they're non-voting because they're not allowed to vote, and so
what happens here?
They had to determine the count of the slave population again,
which was considered legal property.
So they couldn't vote, part of what she says in that video, there's a tiny,
tiny sliver of truth, okay.
So the north did worry a little bit that counting a slave as a whole
person would give the south too much power.
But it puts states that permitted slavery in the position of arguing that enslaved
people should count for more than 3/5 because they wanted the representation
that came with that albeit without letting enslaved people be free or
actually vote for that representation.
States that did not permit slavery argued for less because they feared
such representation would make the south too powerful, okay.
The compromise eventually landed on three-fifths, it is inhumane,
it is disgusting, it is a dark.
>> Isn't Democratic, clearly.
>> Exactly, it is a dark part of our history, but it happened.
It is part of our history that absolutely should be taught, but
that doesn't mean the law was some milestone in abolishing slavery.
She made it seem it was a milestone in abolishing slavery, which makes it so
up for it.
Now, generally speaking,
historians do not count this as anything amounting to anti slavery.
Indeed, the historian, Staughton Lynd wrote that the compromise
sanctioned slavery more decidedly than any previous action at a nation,
at a national level, because while not technically codifying slavery into law.
It acknowledged the difference between the free people and
other persons, and by the way the founders of the constitution,
they knew how terrible slavery really was.
Many of them had slaves themselves, so they didn't want to use the word slave in
the constitution instead they would use other wording like other people, right?
I'm sure that right wingers don't wanna learn that part of history either, but
it's true.
>> Regardless that the institution continued for decades and decades and
decades and we had to have a war to stop it.
So, you cannot teach that and
pretend this had nothing to do with American government or society or
our economy, there was nothing structural or foundational or systemic about it.
You cannot actually teach American history if that is the case, and
I would argue that if this is how you want history to be taught, you may think that
what you're doing is turning against people who are disloyal to America,
but you by definition cannot be loyal to America.
If the America you wanna teach about literally never existed, you're loyal to
a ghost, to a figment of your imagination, it never existed in the real world.
>> Now, there's a second part of her interaction during this interview,
I wanna make sure you don't miss it, so let's watch.
>> It was rational, but it was also racist though, right?
>> I mean it's not a good thing to do, if you look at it, it was all slaves.
So, when you had indentured slaves that were coming over from Ireland,
they also counted as three-fifths, my family, the Indians,
I'm part Cherokee we were also counted as three-fifths within that.
So it wasn't good, but when you look at what else was happening in the world at
the time you didn't have representative democracies.
>> That had everything.
>> You're part Cherokee.
>> That everything maybe she is, maybe.
>> John.
>> I've heard people say that for anyway, yeah.
No, the whole thing is nonsense, and even if in her example,
some people were against it and we should really grade on a curve.
We should grade for the most racially liberal or whatever,
they still try to do this by the way.
Mitch McConnell will go on the Senate floor and say there,
how could you say America's a racist country?
We elected a black president first of all, don't say we cuz you had no part in that.
You always are the ones standing against the things you will later use as proof
that racism doesn't exist and you do not evaluate a country that is a mixture
of good and bad things just buy whatever the best part is.
If you have a bowl and you pudding in it and poop in it,
it's not let's be optimistic, it's pudding.
You're not eating it either way and
that's basically racially how America has been for its entire history.
Yeah, some people are good, but we gotta teach about the poop too.
>> Just a few fact checks.
>> I should be a history teacher, I think we can all agree.
>> You should be a history teacher, you're very passionate, it's very good.
Let's also continue on with our history lesson because she said a lot of things of
that answer that were incorrect.
She later apologized for her errors but
wants to move forward with the legislation because of course she does.
So first of all, the text of the law made it very clear that
indentured servants were not to be counted as whole people, okay.
Also native Americans weren't counted at all, so let's be clear about that.
>> Why in her example is racism against native people?
Well, I mean it wasn't just buy, yeah, that's also racism.
That's yet more racism that you're describing.
>> Article one, section two of the US constitution by the way, states
representatives and direct taxes shall be appointed among the several states which
may be included within this union according to their respective numbers.
Which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons,
including those bound to service for a term of years and
excluding Indians, not taxed three-fifths of all other persons.
That's what it said.
>> Sounds progressive to me.
>> Super progressive, but don't teach about that.
So in the end, because of backlash, she ended up apologizing but
wants to move forward with pushing for this bill.
She says thanks to all that pointed out my errors, that is how we learn.
HB1255 will not stop discussion in the classroom, it prevents a teacher
from advocating one viewpoint, teach how to think, not what to think.
>> That is literally what they are doing, teachers have always been able to-
>> You're questioning the loyalty of
teachers to America just by the very nature of them
doing their jobs appropriately and accurately.
Spare me the bs spin, no one's buying it.
And look, is it any shocker that the people pushing for the erasure of our
history of our story are complete morons when it comes to our history.
>> They don't understand it, and well,
maybe they don't have time to actually learn it, because they're spending all
their time talking about how the left is too censorious and what's cancel culture.
>> They're too busy nursing their hurt feelings and
using this as part of their manufactured culture war to distract voters really.
I mean, there's a hateful element to it, there's no question about that.
There are definitely people in this country who do get their feelings are just
by the very nature of what our real history is.
But at the end of the day,
the reason why politicians are laser focused on this issue is because it makes
it appear as though they're representing the best interests of their constituents
while doing absolutely nothing to improve their lives.
That's what this is really about, they're disgusting human beings.
They have really no right in my opinion to be in these positions of power.
Agree.