This is Democracy Now.comocracy.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman with Nermine Sheikh.

We turn now to part two of our interview with Jesse Hagopian, long-time educator and high school teacher in Seattle, whose new book is titled Teach Truth, The Struggle for Anti-Racist Education.

Jesse is on the leadership team of the Zinn Education Project, which draws on historian Howard Zinn's influential book, A People's History of the United States. And he serves on the National

Steering Committee of Black Lives Matter at school. Jesse, your recent article for the nation is headlined the far rights plan to force

teachers to lie about race. I wanted to go to this issue even before President Trump was

reelected. You have states across the country that have introduced and

passed legislation that force teachers to change their curricula. For example, Florida,

where teachers are required to say chattel slavery in the U.S. was beneficial because it taught

them useful skills. Can you, first of all,

talk specifically about what they're supposed to teach and then respond to this?

Yes. It's an astounding situation in our country right now where even before Trump took office, almost half of all public

school children are subjected to laws that require their teacher to lie to them about racism,

black history, gender, indigenous history, oppression, and just so much of U.S. history. I call these laws

truth crime laws because they criminalize honest education. And the fact is the impact goes

far beyond just where states have passed these laws because the fear of retribution for teaching

the truth has created such a chilling effect that's just so cold that an incredible two

out of every three teachers in this country report self-censoring around discussions of race, gender, and sexuality.

This is the new McCarthyism, where teachers are scared to teach the truth because many have been

attacked and fired. Many have faced death threats sent to them. And really, I think that we have to consider the reality of what's happening now imposing

what we could call post-truth schooling in present-day America.

And I think in the boundless satire that is the United States of America, you have a situation

where Juneteenth, the oldest commemoration of ending slavery became a federal holiday at the same

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