Nikole Hannah-Jones is a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times Magazine journalist best known for creating the 1619 Project — a New York Times Magazine initiative that aims to reframe U.S. history by treating 1619 (the year the first enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia) as the genesis of the American story and arguing that slavery’s legacy still shapes American institutions.
But it appears the principles that undergird Hannah-Jones’ initiative backfired in her personal life. Earlier this week, she published an essay expressing regret that she sent her daughter to struggling, predominantly black Brooklyn public schools as a political statement.
“[Hannah-Jones] said that white kids and rich kids went to the same school because it’s much better, and that left behind other kids at the bad school,” says Glenn Beck, “so even though she could afford to send her child to the best school, she didn’t, and everybody on the left praised her for that.”
But payment for this political stunt eventually came due. Now Hannah-Jones’ daughter — 16-year-old Najya — is complaining she’s been academically cheated.
“She has missed major years of education. She’s so far behind in math now, and it’s her favorite subject, she can barely catch up even with a tutor,” says Glenn.
He imagines what Najya is saying to her mother right now: “Mom, you put your ideology ahead of me. You were making all of this money, and you were so against privilege that you wouldn’t use that money from supposedly your hard work to put me in a better school. You left me behind to make a point. You’ll fight for all the kids, but you won’t fight for me.”
Glenn, calling the story “terrible” and “devastating,” frames Najya’s undeserved fate as an example of what happens when parents “sacrifice their kids for the god of their ideology.”
By the time Nikole Hannah-Jones figured out that’s what she’d done to her daughter, “it was too late,” he says. “The damage was done; she had harmed her own child.”
Even still, Glenn doesn’t judge her.
“I don’t know if I’m any different than she is because … I sacrificed my time with my children, and I’m paying a heavy price,” he acknowledges. “All that praise that Nikole got from strangers, it didn’t mean anything. Any of the praise I get from the audience, it doesn’t mean anything.”
“The life of our children is the only thing that has meaning in the world — more meaning than any ideology,” he continues.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where ideology often ranks above the well-being of children.
“We have a generation of parents that is wrapped so tightly in the collective, they can barely see out,” says Glenn.
To hear more, watch the video above.
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1619 project, Glenn beck, New york times, Racial justice, Blazetv show, Nikole hannah-jones
