We recently told you about President Donald Trump’s move to eliminate more than $1 billion in public broadcast funding through 2027. The decision led to the announcement that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which has helped fund independent PBS and NPR stations across the country since 1967, will eliminate most of its staff by September 30 and ultimately shut down. And one cartoon in particular is ruffling some Black folks’ feathers.
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As PBS stations across the country are looking at alternative sources of funding to keep long-running educational shows like “Sesame Street” on the air, another company, PragerU, is trying to fill in the gap, and people are justifiably terrified.
Founded by conservative radio host Dennis Prager, PragerU is a nonprofit conservative media organization which produces “pro-American, pro-capitalism and pro-family values” content. Their PragerU Kids division makes books, videos and lesson plans for kids that are “grounded in traditional American values,” (aka MAGA-friendly). PragerU Kids is already an approved educational resource in states including Florida, Texas, and Louisiana, with plans to expand nationwide.
One PragerU Kids clip, featuring an animated Christopher Columbus explaining how he “found” America has recently gone viral on social media and has viewers sounding the alarm about presenting kids with a watered down version of an awful period in our country’s history.
“The place I discovered was beautiful, but it wasn’t exactly a paradise of civilization,” Columbus tells the kids in the clip. “And the native people were far from peaceful.”
Cartoon Columbus goes on to tell the kids that some of the Native American tribes he encountered when he arrived were cannibals.
“In Europe, we draw the line at things like eating people and human sacrifice,” he said.
When asked about slavery, Columbus continues to downplay, calling it a practice that has gone on for thousands of years in all corners of the world.
“Being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no? I don’t see the problem,” he said.
As you can probably guess, there were plenty of people online who didn’t find anything about this animated explanation of events funny.
“Please tell me this isn’t real,” wrote someone on TikTok
“Wtf am I looking at,” wrote someone else.
But if you think that’s bad, there’s also another clip of an animated Frederick Douglass, in which kids from the present are telling him how all of his hard work paid off.
“In our time, all Americans are equally protected under the law and have equal voting rights, regardless of race,” says one of the children.
“Prager is slick at omitting key pieces of history,” wrote someone on TikTok.
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