by Troy Worden
A basic knowledge of civics and belief in American exceptionalism are in startling decline among younger Americans, a new report suggests. About half of those surveyed under age 38 said they view the United States as a “sexist” or “racist” nation.
More than 4 out of 10 Americans under 21 said the nation’s 44th president, Barack Obama, had a “bigger impact” on America than its first president, George Washington.
The Foundation for Liberty and American Greatness, a nonprofit that provides civics education and resources to K-12 students, released these and other surprising findings Tuesday in its first annual “State of American Patriotism Report.”The report, based on a survey of 1,078 Americans conducted by the market research and data analytics firm YouGov, found that 49 percent believe the U.S. is “racist” while 50 percent believe the country is “sexist.”
“We suspected that we would find decreasing numbers of Americans well-versed in our nation’s most important principles and young people less patriotic than the generations that came before,” said Nick Adams, founder of the organization and a White House surrogate, “but we were totally unprepared for what our national survey reveals: an epidemic of anti-Americanism.”The report also found that 46 percent of young people say they believe “America is more racist than other countries,” and 38 percent say they don’t agree that “America has a history we should be proud of.”
Fourteen percent of millennial’s—those born between 1981 and 1996, according to Pew Research Center—agreed with the statement that “America was never a great country and it never will be,” the report found. And 19 percent said they believe the American flag is “a sign of intolerance and hatred.”
In addition, 44 percent of those surveyed under age 21 said they believe Obama had a “bigger impact” on America than Washington, long known as the father of the country. Eighty-four percent could not identify the specific rights enumerated in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Adams said the report “shows that we have a major fraction of an entire generation that has been indoctrinated by teachers starting in grade school that America is what’s wrong with the world.”
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Troy Worden is a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation. Donate now.
Photo “Young People” by Gage Skidmore.
Those young people have no clue what real sexism and racism is. There was a time if a White child played with a Black child or spent the night, that families could look forward to the KKK burning a cross in their yards. I remember my mother and our neighbor (my mother being White and our neighbor being Black) conspiring to keep it quiet so that their two children (the little girl and me) could spend time together. Or, when little girls had to wear dresses in 0 degree weather or teenage girls were required to take Home Economics. I also remember a time when competitive sports outside of school was reserved for boys. I also remember as a young mother looking for a job and the first question to me was if I had children. The second one was how would I take care of them and do my job. I lost many jobs due to me being a female and a female with children. For those college age women, they no longer have to worry about being asked what happens when they get their degree and then get married. Many intelligent women lost out going to prestigious colleges to study medicine or law, just because they were women.
We still have work to do, but it is night and day from just 30 years ago.
This just proves the socialist infiltration of the secondary education system. The saving grace will hopefully be that as these young people assimilate into the real world they will realize what they were taught in college was not all the truth.