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Mary Grabar, The Influence of Howard Zinn’s Fake History | National Leadership Seminar — Transcript

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0:00uh our first speaker this morning is
0:02mary graybar
0:04mary is making her first appearance at a
0:06hillsdale college event and
0:08we hope there will be many more she was
0:10born in the former yugoslavia
0:12in what is today slovenia she was
0:15brought to america when she was two
0:16years old by her parents who escaped the
0:18then communist regime
0:20early in her career she worked in
0:21advertising and as a freelance
0:24writer and she later earned a phd in
0:26english from the university of georgia
0:29she's held a number of teaching
0:31positions including most recently
0:33in the program in american democracy and
0:35citizenship
0:36at emory university she has also written
0:39many articles about the corruption
0:41of education i guess that's a constantly
0:45a good source lots of material there
0:50she founded the non-profit dissident
0:52prof education
0:54project which only came about after what
0:56she calls
0:57quote a two-year struggle with the obama
1:00irs
1:01i don't need to remind all of you that
1:03she's not the only conservative who
1:04struggled with the irs
1:06during the obama administration she's
1:09currently a resident fellow at the
1:10alexander hamilton institute
1:12for the study of western civilization
1:14where she is working on a biography of
1:15the black conservative
1:17writer george schuyler
1:20thank you her most recent book was
1:22published in 2019 and is titled
1:24debunking howard zinn exposing the fake
1:27history that turned a generation
1:29against america i wonder how many of
1:32today's protesters learned their
1:33american history
1:34from howard zinn she'll be drawing on
1:38themes
1:38from her book for her talk this morning
1:40would you please welcome to the podium
1:42mary graybar
2:00well thank you for that nice
2:06introduction
2:09i'm going to try to sum up a lot of the
2:12things that
2:13are in my book today
2:16and i was supposed to talk about the
2:18influence of howard zinn today
2:22howard zinn represents the classic
2:24chicken and egg
2:25dilemma people often ask
2:28which came first howard's inn or the far
2:32left were drift of education
2:35how is it that a book like a people's
2:38history of the united states was allowed
2:40to get into the classroom in the first
2:42place
2:44to any reader with a modicum of
2:46knowledge about history
2:48zinn's book first published in 1980
2:51and continuously published ever since is
2:54a
2:54deeply biased and flawed anti-american
2:58polemic zen book presents a view of the
3:02united states is irredeemably corrupt
3:05with a discoverer christopher columbus
3:08committing genocide the founders setting
3:11up a government to enrich
3:13the rich and powerful and capitalists
3:16getting rich off slaves and workers
3:19the bill of rights voting petitioning
3:22initiative and hard work mean nothing in
3:24this corrupt regime
3:27consider zinn's take on the founding
3:30which he describes in his chapter four
3:33titled tyranny is tyranny
3:37around 1776 certain important people in
3:41the english colonies made a discovery
3:44that would prove enormously useful for
3:46the next 200 years
3:48they found that by creating a nation a
3:50symbol
3:51a legal unity called the united states
3:54they could take over
3:55land profits and political power from
3:58favorites
3:58of the british empire in the process
4:01they could hold back a number of
4:03potential rebellions
4:05and create a consensus of popular
4:07support for the rule
4:09of a new privileged leadership
4:12end of quote the myth of the revolution
4:16as he calls it
4:17was that it was on behalf of a united
4:20people
4:21why was this a myth because quote
4:25some americans were clearly omitted from
4:27the circle of united interests drawn by
4:30the declaration of independence
4:33indians black slaves women
4:36aside from these exclusions zinn
4:39presents what is
4:40in his opinion a greater flaw he points
4:43out
4:44quote the declaration talked about
4:46government and political rights
4:49but ignored the existing inequalities in
4:52property
4:53and then he asks suggestively and how
4:56could people truly have
4:58equal rights with stark differences in
5:01wealth
5:03the corrupt founding carries over
5:06throughout american history
5:08into the 20th century to world war ii
5:11which zinn describes as quote a war
5:15waged by a government whose chief
5:17beneficiary was a wealthy elite
5:20the alliance between big business and
5:23government
5:24well back to the very first proposals of
5:27alexander hamilton
5:30end of quotation in zinn's view
5:33we did not defeat fascism
5:36rather fascism's quote essential
5:40elements militarism racism
5:44imperialism were absorbed
5:47into the already poisoned bones
5:51of the victors end of quotation
5:55when i began writing my book debunking
5:58howard's inn
5:59i thought i would be exposing the biases
6:03but although i had been witnessing and
6:05writing about the corruption
6:07in education for years and though i had
6:10graded many shoddy student papers
6:13sometimes plagiarized i was shocked
6:17by how much zinn had gotten away with
6:21zinn presented leading questions often
6:24several in a row
6:25he falsified evidence he left out
6:29key words when quoting sources to give
6:31the opposite impression
6:34of what they meant he plagiarized
6:37and not from a book of history but from
6:40a book for high school students by a
6:42fellow marxist radical
6:44who was a screenwriter and a novelist
6:48this was on columbus on which much of
6:52zinn's claim to fame
6:53as a path-breaking historian is based
6:57he also used as sources works of fiction
7:01statements by anonymous people
7:04and a holocaust denying historian
7:07he presented he valorized the black
7:11panthers
7:12and treated the naacp dismissively
7:16he presented american indians as woke
7:19denizens of 1960s communes
7:22he said all women in colonial america
7:26were slaves and he used the word slaves
7:30my book documents how zinn deliberately
7:34deceived
7:36the big question remains how did zen
7:39get away with this for 40 years
7:42which brings us back to the chicken and
7:44egg question
7:46howard zinn i maintain was the chicken
7:50a communist chicken born in 1922
7:54to russian jewish immigrant parents he
7:56was
7:57early on influenced by the communist
7:59proselytizers
8:01coming into his brooklyn neighborhood
8:03during his teen years
8:05according to the best interpretation of
8:08zinn's
8:09fbi file we can be confident the zinn
8:12was a member of the communist party usa
8:15from about 1948 to 1953.
8:20this was while zinn was attending
8:21graduate school on the gi bill
8:24after serving in world war ii as a
8:26bombardier
8:28he earned his phd from colombia and
8:30began teaching at spelman college in
8:331956.
8:35following party directives howard zinn
8:39led the long march of marxists into the
8:42institutions
8:44thus laying the egg that hatched the new
8:48left at spelman
8:51and later at boston university zinn
8:54a charismatic pied piper radicalized
8:58students
8:59turning them against the college
9:00administrations that sought to maintain
9:03academic standards zinn also
9:07churned students against their own
9:09country he was an
9:10influential mentor to the violent
9:13student nonviolent
9:15coordinating committee boasting of such
9:19leaders as stokely carmichael and h wrap
9:21brown
9:22at boston universities and inspired
9:25students to resist the draft for the
9:27vietnam war
9:28and to view ho chi minh as the true
9:31jeffersonian democrat
9:34it was one of his boston university
9:37students from the 1970s
9:39who became wealthy in our capitalist
9:42system
9:43that zinn disparages and who in 2007
9:47donated the money to start the
9:49non-profit zen
9:51education project
9:54zinn was given the opportunity to put
9:56his communist
9:58version of american history into a book
10:01published by harper collins
10:04as i discovered it follows the contours
10:07of a history book written by cpusa
10:11chairman william z foster in 1951
10:15the year party member howard zinn was
10:19teaching marxism at the brooklyn
10:21cpusa headquarters as his fbi file
10:25reveals
10:27by 1980 a change had come
10:30over the profession at the 1969 meeting
10:34of the american historical association
10:37the radicals began to take over
10:41harvard historian oscar handland rude
10:44the changes
10:46in his 1971 essay living history
10:50he described quote the pressures toward
10:54falsification that were arising from the
10:57radical historians
10:59objectives of social activism
11:02he compared these pressures to what
11:05happened in the soviet union
11:07when scholarship was put in service of
11:10ideology
11:12handlin wrote it was one of stalin's
11:15most
11:15impressive achievements to have
11:17converted marxism
11:19to an instrument of state purpose and it
11:22was not
11:23by coincidence that history was the
11:26first discipline to suffer in the
11:28process
11:29the soviet union did more than impose
11:32an official party line on
11:35interpretations of trotsky's role in the
11:38revolution of 1917.
11:41it actually expunged the name trotsky
11:43from the record
11:45so that the fact of the commissar's
11:47existence disappeared
11:49what started in the domain of history
11:51led in time to lysinko's invasion of the
11:54natural sciences
11:56end of quote i think the analogy applies
12:00to our current situation
12:03zin smeared such great historians as
12:06samuel
12:06elliott morrison and bernard baylin with
12:10false charges of defending genocide and
12:13tyranny
12:14and he did it with such moral fervor
12:18as he pretended to uncover historical
12:21secrets
12:22so as to disabuse any sophomore of a
12:25desire to read these historians
12:28or anyone other than howard zinn
12:31champion of the oppressed indeed
12:34zinn's book to many a naive adolescent
12:38has the power of revelation as others
12:41have noted
12:43today we are suffering from our own
12:45lysenko-ism
12:47the sciences including medicine are
12:49suffering from quotas
12:51as well as their overall rejection of
12:53euro-centric
12:55thinking down to the idea of rejecting
12:58two plus two equals four
13:02in the wake of the summer's rioting and
13:05struggle
13:06sessions librarians have also
13:09vowed to decolonize their libraries
13:13one book these librarians would keep is
13:17zinn's the people's history of the
13:18united states
13:20so will amazon and other retailers
13:23considering how well it continues to
13:25sell
13:26the book has broken records in terms of
13:29sales for its
13:31type topping 3 million
13:35today the book is sold in adaptations
13:37such as a young
13:38people's history of the united states
13:42used now for several years in all 8th
13:44grade classrooms
13:46in portland oregon and surrounding areas
13:50no surprise about what's going on in
13:53portland
13:54there are spin-off people's histories
13:58of everything from the civil war to art
14:00history to sports
14:02as well as graphic adaptations and films
14:06nearly a hundred and twenty thousand
14:08educators have signed up to receive
14:11material from the zen education project
14:14and over 300 000 follow it on social
14:17media
14:19as i can attest after participating in
14:22the recent white house conference on
14:24american history
14:25they are ready to spring into action
14:28whenever
14:29their hero is criticized
14:33whereas at one time teachers would
14:35photocopy pages of zinn's book
14:37to distribute and then collect before
14:40the end of class
14:41as i learned from attending teachers
14:44conferences
14:45since the revision of the ap advanced
14:48placement u.s history standards
14:50under the obama administration the book
14:53or
14:54chapters of a people's history are
14:56frequently and openly assigned
14:58to high school students other history
15:01courses tend to follow the lead of ap
15:05even other subjects like high school
15:07english
15:08follow zinn's example and present ho chi
15:12minh
15:12speech his proclamation of independence
15:16during his propaganda stunt
15:18in 1945 as a legitimate work of
15:21rhetoric to be investigated alongside
15:25the declaration of independence
15:27for its appeals to ethos pathos and
15:30logos
15:33many of zinn's claims such as the sins
15:36of omission of slaves women and
15:38indians in the founding have become
15:40commonplace
15:41in textbooks since zinn's book came out
15:44most textbooks now begin with
15:46christopher columbus and also portray
15:48him as a genocidal rapist to zindas
15:52zinn was proud of how his book had
15:55changed americans views of columbus
15:58and in my book i chronicled how columbus
16:01statues were being defaced on columbus
16:04day
16:04and how municipalities and states were
16:07replacing columbus day with indigenous
16:10people's day
16:12then recently cbs
16:15a few days ago reported that at least 33
16:19statues of columbus
16:21have been taken down or are in the
16:23process of being removed since the
16:25renewed
16:26black lives matter protests began in
16:28late spring
16:30they were either toppled by protesters
16:33voted to be removed or stored away to
16:35avoid vandalism
16:38what is the reason christopher columbus
16:41committed genocide
16:43as the protesters claim as we know
16:46protesters had moved on from confederate
16:49statues and from columbus
16:52and on to any figure in american history
16:55in a summer of writing
16:57the zen education project attacks exempt
17:01501c3
17:02distributes lessons based on zinn's book
17:05and also material for teachers
17:08to engage their students in political
17:10lobbying
17:12they offer abolished columbus day
17:15packets that include sample resolutions
17:19resources and articles to teachers
17:22the project's lessons are also
17:25overtly political frequently naming
17:29republicans
17:30and president trump and indicting him as
17:33a re
17:33racist xenophobe the zen education
17:37project and other zen acolytes repeat
17:40zinn's own claims
17:42and argue that he was a path breaker in
17:45writing a history from the bottom
17:47up the perspective left out of
17:50traditional histories
17:52of the common people african-americans
17:55indians workers immigrants
17:59zinn however in a stalinist manner
18:02wiped out such things as the reality of
18:05brutal tribal warfare on the north
18:07american continent
18:09long before europeans arrived the role
18:12of peaceful christians in the
18:14abolitionists and civil rights movements
18:17and the stories of millions of
18:19immigrants like myself
18:21coming to america for a better life and
18:24achieving it
18:25and becoming citizens and celebrating
18:28national holidays like independence day
18:33but for zinn 1776
18:37did not mark the birth of a united
18:40states
18:41remember those excluded and then
18:45in the post-revolutionary society
18:48as he writes the problem of democracy
18:51went far
18:52deeper than constitutional limits on
18:55voting
18:56it lay in the division of society into
18:59rich and poor
19:00for some people had great wealth and
19:02great influence
19:03if they had the land the money the
19:05newspapers the church the educational
19:07system
19:08how could voting however broad cut into
19:11such power
19:12one of his favorite questions zin admits
19:16that madison's argument for an extensive
19:18republic and federalist ten
19:20can be seen as a sensible argument for
19:23having a government which can maintain
19:25peace and avoid continuous
19:27disorder then comes a series of his
19:30questions
19:31but is it the aim of government simply
19:33to maintain
19:34order as a referee between two actual
19:37actually matched
19:39fighters or is it that government has
19:41some special interest in maintaining a
19:43certain kind of order
19:44a certain distribution of what power and
19:47wealth
19:48in that case the disorder they might
19:50worry about is the disorder of popular
19:53rebellion
19:54against those monopolizing the society's
19:57wealth
19:58this interpretation makes sense when one
20:00looks at the economic interests the
20:02social backgrounds of the makers of the
20:04constitution end of quotation
20:08of course the idea that governments
20:10represent
20:11dominant economic interests comes from
20:14charles beard
20:15whose theory which was first put out in
20:191913
20:20has been repeatedly debunked but which
20:23zinn presents as a long hidden radical
20:26idea that he
20:28is finally revealing for those who would
20:32see
20:32opportunity here in america zinn says
20:35the constitution quote illustrates the
20:38complexity of the american system
20:40that it serves the interests of a
20:42wealthy elite but
20:43also does enough for small property
20:46owners
20:47for middle-income mechanics and farmers
20:49to build a broad base of support
20:52the slightly prosperous people who make
20:54up the space
20:55are buffers against the blacks the
20:57indians the very poor whites
20:59they enable the elite to keep control
21:02with a minimum of coercion
21:04a maximum of law all made palatable
21:07by the fanfare of patriotism
21:11and unity so according to zen
21:15our fundamental rights are hollow shams
21:19in fact according to zen the united
21:22states
21:22has no right to exist zinn writes
21:27that the idea quote that there really
21:31is such a thing as the united states
21:35a community of people with common
21:37interests
21:39a nation is nothing but a pretense
21:44so i ask is it any wonder that
21:47young people some serving in congress
21:51are fighting the very idea of borders
21:54much less enforcement of immigration law
21:59with such ludicrous claims
22:02it's easy to see why most historians
22:07shunned howard zinn's book when it came
22:09out
22:11except for again oscar handlin
22:14who in his review in american scholar
22:17attacked a handful of important points
22:20of fact
22:21noted zinn's presentation of fiction as
22:24fact
22:25and deemed it a quote fairy tale
22:30however zinn's book was then
22:33in 1997 prominently featured
22:37in the oscar-winning movie good will
22:39hunting
22:40and sales shot up the book got more of a
22:44boost after the formation of the zen
22:46education
22:47project in 2007 their lessons
22:51today teach zinn's lessons
22:54that the black panthers were civil
22:56rights activists
22:58that japanese internment camps were
23:00prison camps much like nazi
23:02concentration camps
23:04that vietnam achieved independence
23:08after the withdrawal of you american
23:10troops
23:11that many of the statues of historical
23:14figures
23:15gracing our public places are those of
23:17racists
23:19and that michael brown and other black
23:21men were ruthlessly gunned down by white
23:23police officers
23:25the organizers of black lives matter
23:28were honored with an
23:29award in zinn's name in 2015
23:32and the zen education project has been a
23:35distributor of black lives matter
23:38lessons
23:39and a promoter of black lives matter
23:41week
23:42in schools every february
23:45recently their curriculum writer
23:48ursula wolf raka wrote that the black
23:52lives matter
23:53protests in her city portland oregon
23:57sparked by the quote murder of george
24:00floyd
24:01were as she described it
24:04exhilaratingly extended period
24:07of nationwide protest
24:11wolf raqqa promotes zinn's idea that the
24:14united states is systemically racist
24:18zinn's storyline in his book
24:22is one of the people rising only to be
24:25put down by
24:26the system a word he uses
24:30nearly 200 times the heroes
24:33are the martyrs like abolitionist john
24:37brown
24:37who died violent deaths for their cause
24:42in a people's history zinn makes
24:44outrageous
24:46unhistorical claims such as one on page
24:4923 where he writes there is not a
24:53country
24:54in world history in which racism has
24:57been more important
24:59for so long a time as the united states
25:03this comes after he quotes a lengthy
25:06creatively rendered description of the
25:08arrival of the africans
25:11at jamestown in 1619.
25:15american slavery zinn says was
25:18quote the most cruel form of slavery in
25:22history
25:23this is because of the quote frenzy for
25:26limitless profit that comes from
25:28capitalist
25:29agriculture and because of quote racial
25:33hatred
25:34this racism comes from money incentive
25:37for exploitation
25:41so we've seen how howard zinn presents
25:451776 as a sham
25:48so which year better represents the
25:51slaveocracy
25:52that pretends to be the united states
25:57you you guessed it it's 1619.
26:00the 1619 project the 100 page new york
26:04times magazine supplement
26:07has been adopted in over 500
26:10schools the zen education
26:13project quite naturally promotes
26:17the 1619 project and offers their own
26:21lessons to supplement it as
26:24in nicole hannah jones's 1619
26:27project narrative in zinn's narrative
26:30the united states has never
26:32gotten over its slave past
26:36zinn calls the civil rights movement of
26:38the 1950s and 1960s the black revolt
26:42he's it emanated he says from the memory
26:45of slavery and after that of segregation
26:48lynching humiliation
26:50and it was not just a memory but a
26:52living presence he says
26:55part of the daily lives of blacks and
26:57generation
26:58after generation what follows then is
27:02langston hughes's poem about the dream
27:04deferred
27:05exploding and a number of similar
27:07passages
27:09from other poems
27:12martin luther king's i have a dream
27:16speech
27:17in 1963 according to zinn
27:20was quote magnificent oratory
27:23but it did not express the anger that
27:26many blacks felt
27:28malcolm x was probably closer to the
27:32mood
27:32of the black community says zinn
27:36ignoring surveys that consistently said
27:39otherwise
27:40zinn writes that the new civil rights
27:43laws did not
27:44change the root condition of black
27:46people
27:47the civil rights bills emphasized voting
27:51but voting was not a fundamental
27:53solution to racism or poverty
27:57racism in zinn's book is also evidenced
27:59in police brutality
28:02zinn presents five dubious cases of
28:05black men
28:07shot or beaten by police zinn claims
28:10these were quote
28:12normal cases and says they were
28:15and i'm quoting endlessly repeated in
28:18the history of the country
28:20coming randomly but persistently
28:24out of a racism deep in the institutions
28:29the mind of the country
28:32it's an example of some of his rhetoric
28:35howard zinn died in 2010
28:38but since then his influence has grown
28:40he was mourned by rock bands and
28:42hollywood celebrities like jane fonda
28:45his words are read in performances
28:49book fairs are held in his name lectures
28:52in his name
28:53are given every year at boston
28:54university barack obama was reported to
28:58have a special
28:59interest in zinn's book in 2011
29:03during the occupy wall street protests
29:06zinn's book was a favorite in the
29:07library of the new york city encampment
29:11out of occupy wall street grew the
29:13american version of antifa
29:16in 2012 as i can personally attest
29:20georgia state university held an all-day
29:23teach-in
29:24for teachers led by the zen education
29:27project it was an effort to stop
29:30legislation that would
29:31forbid the classroom use of la raza
29:34materials
29:36zinn's book has influenced political
29:39leaders
29:41for oklahoma city council member jo beth
29:44hammond a people's history has replaced
29:47the bible
29:49in april 2019 she took her oath of
29:53office on it
29:54instead of the bible last december
29:58a fairfax county virginia school board
30:01member
30:02also took her oath on zinn's book
30:05in maine in 2019
30:08newly elected district attorney natasha
30:12irving
30:13pledged to follow zinn's example from
30:16his autobiography
30:20we also of course have professors now
30:23espousing
30:24the violence of antifa one of them is
30:28mark bray teaching at rutgers probably
30:31today
30:32this is the kind of violence that zinn
30:34glorifies
30:36in his book zinn's book has also
30:39influenced terrorists tarak mahana who
30:42was ultimately found guilty of terrorist
30:44conspiracy with
30:45al qaeda requested a people's history
30:48along with other
30:50reading materials like the autobiography
30:52of malcolm x
30:54and an islamic text according to an
30:57article
30:58published in 2010 boston bomber
31:02zokar and sarnov if i'm pronouncing that
31:06correctly
31:07said that reading a people's history of
31:09the united states
31:10had opened his eyes to america's evil
31:15he had bonded with his history teacher
31:17larry
31:18r aronson a long time friend of the late
31:22howard zinn
31:24willem vance bronson a member of antifa
31:27and the john brown gun club who tried to
31:31blow up an ice detention facility in
31:342019
31:35left behind a manifesto saying
31:39read howard zinn a people's history of
31:42the united states
31:44he said it would reveal the quote
31:47fascism ascendant
31:49in the u.s a new book in defense of
31:52looting
31:53uses zinn as one of many marxist sources
31:58this year many schools are following
32:01the lead of the zen education project
32:03and teaching black lives matter
32:05curriculum
32:07zen education project has been reminding
32:10teachers of black lives matter week
32:12every february encouraging them to wear
32:15t-shirts
32:16advertising such and to use their
32:18lessons such as
32:19when black lives matter why
32:22teach reconstruction by adam sanchez
32:26this lesson begins every day seems to
32:29bring new horrors
32:30as the u.s president's racist rhetoric
32:33and policies
32:34have provided an increasingly
32:36encouraging environment
32:38for attacks on black people and other
32:41communities of
32:42color in the buffalo new york
32:45public school districts blm lessons will
32:48begin with pre-k
32:50and will infuse black lives matter
32:52guiding principles
32:54into everyday curriculum and resources
32:58there is a service that adapts news
33:01articles for grade appropriate reading
33:04levels called new zealand
33:06as one of its partners it has the zen
33:09education
33:10project to put the spin on the news
33:14a year ago two teacher teach-ins
33:18really continuing education programs
33:21on abolishing columbus day were put on
33:24by the zen education
33:26project one was held at the smithsonian
33:30as i reported in my book the zen
33:33education
33:34project for a fee provides trainers
33:37to schools across the country
33:41taxpayers through the national endowment
33:44for the humanities
33:46subsidize continue summer continuing
33:49education
33:50programs for teachers coordinated by
33:53or with the zen education project
33:57one being held this coming summer
34:00at duke university called the civil
34:04rights movement
34:05grassroots perspectives features
34:08veterans from the student non-violent
34:11coordinating committee
34:13the group mentored by zinn in the 1960s
34:18writing the curriculum are deborah
34:20menkar
34:21co-director of the zen education project
34:24and ursula wolf raqa one of
34:27the organization's two curriculum
34:30directors the one who had praised the
34:32black lives matter protests in portland
34:36she too wolf rocca
34:40regularly infuses her articles and
34:42lessons with anti-trump invective
34:46one article published in september 2018
34:49bore the headline civics will not
34:52save us from trump
34:56this is not the first time such a
34:58workshop was put on
35:00in 2018 a similar one was conducted
35:04again at duke with the zen education
35:07project's mencart as the curriculum
35:09coordinator
35:11the zen education project i think
35:14was disappointed that their lessons
35:17offered for this
35:18constitution day in a mailing labeled
35:22black lives matter rethinking
35:25constitution day in 2020
35:28and beginning with these words black
35:31lives did not matter to the rich white
35:33men who met in
35:351787 were challenged by the president
35:39of the united states and me
35:50i was so happy to get that invitation
35:54mere hours after my talk at the white
35:57house conference
35:58on american history on constitution day
36:01the zen education project sent
36:05out a fundraising email stating
36:08teaching people's history is about
36:11empowering
36:12and invigorating students to better
36:14understand the perspectives of workers
36:16women black
36:17indigenous and people of color whose
36:20voices are too
36:21often erased in the corporate produced
36:23textbooks
36:25but mary graybar doesn't want young
36:28people to hear those voices
36:30graybar who has written an anti-howard
36:33zinn
36:34book and travels the country attacking
36:36zinn and the zen education project
36:39said at the white house conference on
36:41american history
36:43that zinn's writing imposes the false
36:45idea that the united states is
36:47characterized by quote
36:49systemic racism wealth inequality and
36:51police brutality
36:53end of my quote graybar offered no
36:56evidence
36:56to refute this critique of u.s history
37:01of course they knew about my book and
37:04the evidence i provide there
37:07they seemed to know my travel schedule
37:13but they did not even mention the title
37:15of my book
37:17instead they charged that i quote
37:20fretted that impressionable readers have
37:23been stirred to action by the zen
37:25education
37:26project curriculum and howard zins of
37:29people's history of the united states
37:31saying quoting me again people reading
37:34it cry and get angry
37:36sometimes taking to the street the zen
37:38book was the most popular book for
37:40occupy wall street protesters
37:43and of quoting me they continue
37:46we at the zen education project plead
37:50guilty
37:51teaching people's history can elicit
37:54great emotion
37:55about oppression and injustice and may
37:58inspire people to move to action
38:02so there you have it teaching people's
38:06history
38:07can elicit great emotion about
38:09oppression
38:10and injustice and may inspire people to
38:13move
38:14to action in their words
38:17these people however are often mere
38:20children
38:20or adolescents so
38:24the zen education project admits to
38:27being an activist
38:28organization they do not even deign to
38:32defend
38:32criticism of their lessons there is more
38:36than enough reason
38:37in my opinion to remove zinn's materials
38:41from
38:42classrooms i think all would agree here
38:44there is no reason
38:46also not yank zen education projects
38:50non-profit status
38:53and educators openly brag about using
38:57zinn's history
39:01we may keep our own children from zinn's
39:04baleful influence but his
39:07today his true believers are out on the
39:10streets
39:11ready to accost anyone refusing to
39:15repeat their revolutionary slogans
39:18and sadly i have heard from many parents
39:22who had homeschooled or privately
39:24schooled their own children
39:26only to have them lured by a professor
39:29or
39:30friend to zinn's seductive
39:33prose not all
39:36students are like hannah wright
39:40who wrote to me last winter about her
39:42zen
39:43worshiping professor who repeated zinn's
39:46own claim to have written history from a
39:49quote different perspective
39:51the professor told her that callings in
39:54biased was offensive
39:58because it meant quote that either the
40:00author
40:01ignored evidence that would have changed
40:03his conclusions
40:04or he didn't bother with evidence at all
40:08end of quote those who would criticize
40:12zinn's book are quote the people who
40:16have a problem with any history book
40:18that does not seek to stimulate a
40:20nationalist
40:21pride in america or are some
40:24joe schmoe on the internet i guess like
40:27me
40:31and she also accused those like me this
40:34professor
40:35that they never provide evidence for
40:37their criticism my book has been out
40:40for over a year now but zinn's book
40:43does not simply present offer another
40:47perspective without question
40:51the falsifications that pepper
40:54every page are intentional it is
40:57propaganda communist disinformation
41:02and as if such a domestic
41:06disinformation campaign were not bad
41:09enough zinn's book is used in
41:12international anti-american
41:15campaigns it has been translated into
41:19more than a dozen languages including
41:21french
41:22spanish chinese and arabic
41:26it has been distributed all over the
41:28world
41:29including in russia by americans
41:33by the bureau of educational and
41:35cultural affairs of the american
41:38embassy which sponsored the
41:412006 russian language publication
41:45of a people's history of the united
41:48states
41:52a few days ago
41:55to bring us up to date i received an
41:57email
41:59from a journalist in iran
42:02a former american studies student as he
42:05described himself
42:06at the faculty of world studies at the
42:08university of tehran
42:11where he said a people's history was
42:14quote a bible
42:16as it was for anti-americans in iran
42:20it is the only book on u.s
42:24history not published by the regime
42:28in publication in iran
42:31he wrote that he was happy to see my
42:35speech and the white house's initiative
42:37i guess he
42:38caught it on the youtube channel that
42:40the white house has
42:42and he would try to get my book
42:46this young iranian is inspiring
42:50but i i think that we can do more
42:53than someone living in iran in terms of
42:56taking zinn's falsified
43:00communist propaganda out of our schools
43:05and i hope people will
43:08start to work on that so thank you very
43:13[Applause]
43:24much
43:27some time for q a if you have a question
43:30please make your way to one of the
43:31microphones in the side aisles
43:43question on the speaker's right
43:47thank you my name is tanya store and i
43:49am
43:50so grateful to get to be here and and
43:52listen to you today and just
43:53more of a statement i guess um than a
43:56than a question but
43:58this is much deeper than even i was
44:00aware and in january i took a
44:03serious look and actually one of the
44:05reasons that i filed to run
44:07for the nebraska legislature was because
44:09the sitting senator
44:11had co-sponsored a bill to replace
44:13columbus day
44:14with indigenous people day it
44:18struck me as very wrong and as i
44:20continued to do
44:21a little homework and including what
44:23you've shared today
44:24i understand why and and how and i'm
44:28shocked at even how deep
44:29the roots of this go my children were
44:32all raised in a conservative home
44:34went to country school in nebraska
44:38and i i was shocked in a conversation
44:41with my son
44:42who is a conservative a strong christian
44:45young man
44:46about this issue of columbus day and he
44:49agreed we shouldn't be getting rid of
44:50american holidays
44:51absolutely mom i support you in that but
44:53he said something very troubling to me
44:55that woke me up and he said
44:57but you have to admit he wasn't a very
44:58nice guy
45:00and my response to him was who told you
45:02that
45:04and and the conversation you know i it
45:06became aware that somewhere along the
45:08line
45:09um he had been taught in school that he
45:12wasn't a very nice guy and
45:14and i said i was never taught that um i
45:16was taught he was courageous
45:18and he opened up the free world um to
45:20the gospel among many other things
45:22and and his response was well you you do
45:24have to admit your history books were
45:26probably a little whitewashed
45:28um so so this is a young man who was
45:31raised
45:32in a conservative home into a country
45:34school
45:35um in a small rural conservative
45:38community and so
45:39the the the threads of this are much
45:42deeper than i was even aware so thank
45:44you
45:44so much for what what you've done to
45:46bring light to this
45:49thank you
45:50[Applause]
45:55yeah i'm proud to say that i will be
45:58honored by the sons and daughters
46:00of italy in february or
46:04exposing i've got a lot of italian
46:06groups writing to me and thanking me
46:13because what i do in my book is
46:17what zinn did was criminal he
46:20did what every english teacher says you
46:23should not do which is when you use
46:25ellipses those four dots
46:28or three dots that indicate an emission
46:30of words but you're not supposed to
46:31change
46:32you know the meaning right they're not
46:34essential well
46:36he uses ellipses to eliminate two days
46:39worth of
46:40columbus's journal entries and
46:44he misidentifies uh you know
46:47the who they are and that begins the
46:51quotation
46:52and he leaves out words that columbus
46:55wrote down
46:56like uh and i instructed my men to treat
47:00them with kindness for we can convert
47:03them
47:04more by love than by force and has
47:07repeated
47:08uh you know orders to his men
47:12to treat them with kindness he um
47:15even you know had six of them baptized
47:18he adopted
47:20one of them he did everything that
47:24he could to you know convert
47:28the natives he never pillaged or
47:32raped or chopped off hands which is what
47:35you get from zinn's book and it has just
47:38permeated our
47:41understanding or americans understanding
47:43of christopher columbus
47:45and so i'm hoping that you know
47:49when a young man uh like
47:52the questioner's son asks you know and
47:55says that this is you know
47:57he was not a nice guy that at least
48:01i i provide the evidence
48:04i look at the passage
48:07and i look at what zinn says and i say
48:10this is what he's leaving out
48:12and people can go back and they can look
48:14at my
48:15endnotes and there are almost a thousand
48:17of them and
48:19look at the original source and look at
48:21what zin says
48:22and also there you know i have pages of
48:26comparative quotations from zinn
48:29and the guy he quoted from
48:32hans koning and that's not a history
48:35book it's a polemic
48:37so i'm hoping with the evidence you know
48:40that that
48:41um you know zinn was not simply writing
48:44history from another perspective he is
48:47not
48:48simply biased he changes the facts
48:52and we would never use a textbook
48:55that changes the facts or uses a
48:57holocaust denying
48:59historian um as a source
49:03for a textbook this you know zinn's book
49:05was never vetted
49:07and um but yet you know it's been there
49:09for 40 years and it's
49:10trickled down we we have a question on
49:14the speaker's left
49:16mary a couple things number one is i'm
49:19wondering
49:19in your research if you've come across
49:22any evidence of
49:24george soros dirty money funding any of
49:26this zen
49:27project that's my first question and
49:30number two
49:31i would hope that everyone here contacts
49:34their
49:35congressman and emails and writes
49:37letters to them to request this
49:38organization's 501 c
49:403 status be eliminated
49:44yeah i think there needs to be a public
49:46campaign to pull
49:47um the non-profit status i know from
49:50what i went through just to try to get
49:52my organization going and i was
49:54criticizing common core standards
49:57you know have after having taught
49:59college english
50:00saying that they you know were bad and
50:03um
50:04you know i had to you know they put you
50:07through hell
50:08um i have not come across
50:13you know where the funding comes from
50:15that's not very apparent because the zen
50:17education project
50:19coordinates with rethinking schools and
50:22another
50:22organization that writes the curriculum
50:26and then the zen education project puts
50:29it out there so
50:31it it's not they they don't put their
50:35990s online like a lot of nonprofits do
50:39so that would be an interesting uh thing
50:42to look at
50:43they claim they get a lot of private
50:45donations but i'm
50:46sure um you know that
50:50i wouldn't be surprised um you know
50:53uh the student of howard zinn's from the
50:551970s bill holtzman
50:58uh you know continues to give money uh
51:02matt damon who wrote
51:05and uh co-starred goodwill hunting gives
51:09money
51:10promotes it so you know you've got some
51:14rich people there
51:15supporting this organization we have a
51:18question on the speakers right
51:21thank you so much i learned so much
51:23today
51:24i'm my question is this is just an
51:26overwhelming
51:27amount of information when you try to
51:29share it with somebody so
51:30we're in an era of sound bites of and so
51:32my question to you is
51:34what are the top three takeaways of what
51:37howard zinn is doing
51:38the effective howard's inn today for our
51:41students
51:43he's he inspires them to hate their own
51:47country
51:49he inspires them to violence
51:52and i think he inspires a sense of
51:56hopelessness
51:59you know in a country because the way he
52:02presents it is that this
52:04country cannot be redeemed as it is
52:08set up through our own government and
52:10when
52:11president trump described
52:14this kind of education as child abuse
52:18it is it really is it's um
52:23you know it sets people up against each
52:25other and
52:26um you know to to tell young people
52:30that you know the country that they live
52:32in is irredeemably
52:34racist and uh unfair
52:38and unjust it you know has got to do
52:41a number on young people
52:45and that and i think you know i would
52:47like to do a survey
52:48of people out there protesting and black
52:51lives matter and antifa
52:53and see how many of them were inspired
52:56by zen
52:57that'd be very interesting we have a
52:59question on the speaker's left
53:02so zinn seemed to make a very long
53:04career on an indictment
53:06of the united states including
53:09especially the founding of it
53:11so if he took his principles and applied
53:14them outward
53:16towards other countries and nations of
53:18the world
53:19what country or nation's history would
53:22pass
53:23muster under zinn's principles
53:27to him i think you probably would say
53:28none but what would he say to that
53:31well what howard zinn does and he uh
53:34takes this from angles and
53:36william z fosters he presents
53:39uh the native tribes living here before
53:42the europeans came
53:43as this kind of bucolic paradise
53:47where there was no war where women were
53:50empowered
53:51where people were free there was no
53:54greed
53:55which is the exact opposite of the way
53:58it was
53:59and so these were kind of proto-hippies
54:02the way he presents them you know
54:04remember he is
54:05someone of the 1960s that was the heyday
54:09for him
54:10and so he claims like other communist
54:14propagandists do that the native people
54:18lived in this paradise where they shared
54:21and he implies that if we sort of
54:25drop all the characteristics of
54:28eurocentrism or
54:29western civilization like hierarchies
54:33and linear thought and you know all
54:36those uh
54:38you know criticisms of you know that
54:39post-modernists have that we can return
54:42to that sort of garden of eden that
54:45that's
54:46that's who it is and he also he also
54:48claims that in other countries like
54:51vietnam that the communist movements
54:54were
54:55local movements the people just rising
54:58up
54:58and trying to you know have more
55:02control over their own government and
55:04live more fairly and justly
55:07we have a question on the speaker's
55:09right
55:11i've been listening to the nonsense of
55:13the
55:14liberals for many many years
55:17and i fail to understand why seemingly
55:21intelligent people can let themselves be
55:24seduced by
55:26this these thoughts is it they they have
55:29envy the freedom that we have or do they
55:32just want to control
55:34everybody and everything that they do
55:39well zen targets and people who use this
55:43materials
55:43target young people and
55:47what zinn hides in his book
55:52you know are the horrors of communism
55:56so if you get only one side of history
56:01and you don't know any other and
56:03increasingly as surveys
56:04show young people are ignorant about
56:07history
56:09and um and there is a false reality
56:12that's created
56:14and i think this is part of uh
56:17you know the propaganda that's taught in
56:21our
56:22schools so a student can say
56:26well you know um you know we have
56:29affirmative
56:30action uh our
56:33laws are race new supposed to be race
56:36neutral
56:37um i see kids of all races and
56:40ethnicities of varying
56:42income levels but if they
56:45have this material pounded into them day
56:49after day
56:50they begin to believe it and also one of
56:53the
56:53things that i critiqued about common
56:55core is the teaching
56:57strategies have changed we now have
57:00social and emotional learning
57:03so students aren't sitting down
57:07and reading long works discussing them
57:10in class
57:12listening to lectures they get short
57:16snippets you know selected for their
57:19emotional appeal
57:21and they're told to uh you know just
57:24discuss
57:24in their groups they're graded on their
57:28ability to respect you know diversity
57:33and one of the things about howard zinn
57:35and i you know i focused
57:37mostly on the facts that he twists
57:41around
57:42the deliberate disinformation along with
57:45a chapter
57:45on his sordid life which is kind of
57:48interesting
57:51notorious womanizer with his students
57:56is is his very skillful
58:01use of propaganda
58:04to someone who is young and naive and
58:07doesn't know any better
58:09they get sucked up into it they
58:12you people even adults say that
58:16they cry after they read howard zinn's
58:19book
58:20they get angry
58:23so you know he he was kind of an evil
58:27genius
58:28he knew what he was doing and he
58:31used the techniques of propaganda david
58:34horowitz
58:36called it the mind conf of american
58:39history
58:40and he uses the same strategies
58:43and i you know and i think students also
58:45need to be
58:46taught you know what our legitimate
58:49history
58:50writing techniques how is
58:53someone manipulating your emotions
58:57with words so
59:01you know we we need to start teaching
59:04that again
59:05and this reliance on emotion i think
59:08is is you know swaying people and it
59:12sort of clouds their judgment
59:16all right please join me in thanking dr
59:19[Applause]
59:28graybar

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