Nikole Hannah-Jones Tells Survivor of Mao’s Cultural Revolution Why She’s Wrong about American Exceptionalism

Nikole Hannah-Jones, the architect of the New York Times 1619 Project, lectured a Chinese woman who survived Mao Zedong’s cultural revolution on the subject of oppression on Sunday.

Responding to Hannah-Jones’s criticism of the idea of American exceptionalism on Twitter, Xi Van Fleet, who lived through Mao’s China only to find success in America, argued that her experience in the U.S. militates against the argument that America is irrevocably tainted by its participation in slavery.

“Our very presence on these lands is the greatest rebuke to the narrative of American exceptionalism,” Hannah-Jones wrote at the top of a three-part Twitter thread.

“Yourself and I, an immigrant from China with 200 borrowed dollars in my pocket when I arrived more than 30 yrs ago, are the proof of American Exceptionalism,” Van Fleet said.

Van Fleet pointed out that the natural-rights doctrine, “unique to American founding,” paved the way for the abolition of slavery, Jim Crow, and anti-Chinese laws. The lack of such liberal principles in her home country of China allows atrocities such as slavery to persist to this day, she pointed out. (The Chinese Communist Party is currently perpetrating egregious human-rights abuses against the Uighur Muslim minority in Xinjiang, China.)

Hannah-Jones suggested that the oppression people experienced under Mao’s regime, and still endure under the Chinese Communist Party, is also happening in some form in the United States.

“Ma’am, the idea of natural rights may have been unique, but 1/5th of the population was enslaved at our founding and had no ‘natural rights.’ Further, you do not think protesters in the US face state violence and arrest? You think the US has no political prisoners?,” the journalist asked.

Hannah-Jones then directed Van Fleet to educate herself on America’s legacy by watching “episode five of the #1619hulu series called FEAR.”

“I’m afraid your vision of America does not match the reality,” she scorned.

Posting two graphic images, Van Fleet compared the political violence she observed during Mao’s rule to that which has been waged by Black Lives Matter and Antifa.

“You’re joking right? Google treatment of Black Americans and violence against Black voters and civil rights activists during the period Mao was the leader of the CCP. You can’t actually be serious here,” Hannah Jones shot back.

Van Fleet, who came to the U.S. 35 years ago at age 26, recently spoke out against critical race theory during a Virginia school board meeting, likening the doctrine to the hateful ideologies she encountered as a child in communist China.

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