White elites from the founding of the U.S. have perpetrated racial animus

They are popping up like mushrooms throughout Florida. The Hamilton Center at UF and the proposed Freedom Institute at New College. These new centers are the leading edge of Florida’s efforts to instill a Hillsdale College classical curriculum within higher education. A classical curriculum’s intent is to inculcate students in the Western tradition through history, literature, philosophy, and the fine arts.

Indeed, the interim president of New College, Richard Corcoran, justified its Freedom Institute by first citing Thomas Paine’s "The Crisis." "The Crisis" was Paine’s rallying publication that inspired the troops fighting the American Revolution. Its opening sentence is infamous and quoted by Corcoran: “THESE are the times that try men's souls.” Thomas Paine’s revolutionary writings are crucial to a classical education as they argued for overthrowing tyranny in the pursuit of freedom.

At the surface, it all sounds good. Students need to embrace the Western Tradition that advocates for individual freedom and the abolition of authoritarian governments. Ron DeSantis’ clarion call for a classical education is also his basis for making it illegal to teach Critical Race Theory (CRT) in the state of Florida. Opponents of CRT (e.g., Christopher Rufo) declare that it is unpatriotic, hostile, divisive, race-obsessed, poisonous, elitist, and anti-American. In short, Governor DeSantis outlawed CRT because it argues that racism was and is foundational to the United States.

However, ironically, exposing students to Thomas Paine’s "The Crisis" and other classical writings will only affirm that racism remains foundational to the U.S.

CRT argues that one of the most debilitating forms of racism that “classical” white elites created and institutionalized was depicting African Americans as violent/criminal. Paine’s "The Crisis" is a perfect example as he repeatedly depicts African Americans as violent; “negroes invited to the slaughter” of the colonists, and “negroes to cut the throats of the freemen of America”. Relatedly, in his book "Notes on the State of Virginia," Thomas Jefferson declared that African Americans “are inferior to the whites in the endowments of both body and mind” and “that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous.” Further, he concluded that after their emancipation, African Americans needed to be sent back to Africa otherwise there will be great “convulsions, which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race.”

Current research shows that the “classical” elites were successful in institutionalizing racist stereotypes. Studies show that the prevailing racialized gendered stereotype of African Americans is that of the criminalblackman — the angry, young, male, urban, black superpredator that has no remorse. Indeed, research shows that when people were asked to “close your eyes for a second, envision a drug user, and describe that person to me?” more than 95 percent of the respondents identified the person as an African American. Additionally, studies indicate that the stereotype that associates African Americans with crime is bidirectional. Among whites, thinking about crime triggers images of African Americans and that thinking about African Americans triggers thoughts about crime. Furthermore, research indicates that African Americans youths are perceived as more adult like, culpable for their offenses, and less amenable to treatment.

Perhaps, the most powerful evidence that “classical” authors have systematically institutionalized this horrid depiction of African Americans as violent is found in Florida’s new standards for teaching African American history. These new standards mandate that every student learns as a benchmark the “acts of violence” perpetrated by African Americans. Thus, from 1776 to 2023 the systemic circle is unbroken. White elites from the very founding of the U.S. to today have perpetrated and institutionalized racial animus; they have created and promoted the systemic belief that African Americans are violent/criminal.

In sum, it is ironically naive that Harvard educated elite conservatives (e.g., Ron DeSantis, Christopher Rufo) believe that the antidote to CRT is mandating a classical studies curriculum. Unfortunately for them, if taught with virtue, students will learn that while these “classical” white elites advocated for freedom, they also promoted animus toward African Americans. Thus, there are two related questions that we must now answer. First, how can we as a nation liberate ourselves from the racial animus of African Americans that “classical” and contemporary elites have deeply ingrained in the American psychic? Second, can we do so when it is illegal to talk about systemic racism?

James D. Unnever is a retired USF professor and currently a research fellow at the University of Cincinnati.

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: White elites from the founding of the U.S. have perpetrated racial animus