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Juneteenth Is Not a History Lesson We Can Afford to Forget
A PragerU video about the holiday is an example of how history can become propaganda.
Jun 23, 2026
Juneteenth celebrations in my town were lit. There were so many events I had a difficult time choosing which ones to attend. As a grandmother, I ended up at the event on the grounds of the Historic Harriet Barber house (circa 1875) in Hopkins, South Carolina, where my daughter and her 3-year-old son were drumming. The celebration was filled with spirited performances, great food, and camaraderie. Historical reflections centered on the origins of Juneteenth, commemorating June 19, 1865, when African-descended people who were enslaved in Texas finally learned of their freedom—more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation had officially declared them free. Many gave shout-outs to African American ancestors for all of their visions, sacrifices, and accomplishments. It was a joyful space.
While we are still in the Juneteenth celebratory spirit, we should not sleep, lest it will be another two-and-a-half years when we wake up and realize that our freedom has been lost through a series of recent institutional white supremacist political maneuvers such as: weakening voting rights; attacks on Black political districts, and bans on African American studies.
In his classic 1933 book, The Mis-Education of the Negro, Dr. Carter G. Woodson, father of Black History Month, warned Black people not to believe the lies taught in school that are full of distortions, intentional inaccuracies, and omissions. He also warned that one of the most effective tools of institutional white supremacy is to recruit Black voices to legitimize and advance ideas that work against Black liberation. Nearly 100 years later, we are still facing the revision and erasure of Black history.
For example, PragerU—a conservative website that promotes conservative viewpoints via digital media—has produced a series of edu-tainment videos full of revisionist historical distortions and half-truths.
Juneteenth reminds us that freedom is not simply a legal status. Freedom requires historical memory, vigilance, and the courage to question what we are told.
One video, "The Inconvenient Truth About Juneteenth," is narrated by a young Black man, Xaviaer. In the 56 second TikTok-style video, the narrator presents himself as an “influencer” and is casually walking down the street, iced coffee in hand, as he opines that Black folks are mentally enslaved for believing the conventional story about Juneteenth.
Immediately, evoking the name of Rosa Parks, Xaviaer signifies that Rosa should have made the viewers sit in the front of the bus and take a history class. The cleverness of the misinformation, though, is apparent when he says that Democrats kept Black people enslaved two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. This slight of hand fails to clarify that the ideologies of the Republican and Democratic parties switched around 1870. Before that time, Republicans controlled the government and used its power to protect Black people who were formerly enslaved and guarantee their civil rights during Reconstruction. Most Democrats, particularly in the South, opposed many of these efforts. However, as the nation shifted its attention toward economic growth and industrial expansion, support for Reconstruction began to wane. Many Northern Republicans became less willing to invest political capital in protecting Black rights in the South.
By the mid-to-late 1870s, the Republican Party had largely retreated from its commitment to reconstructing Southern society and safeguarding the rights of African Americans. Following the Compromise of 1877 and the withdrawal of federal troops from the South, White Democrats regained political control across much of the region and systematically dismantled many of the gains Black people had achieved during Reconstruction. Over the following decades, political allegiances gradually shifted, and by the mid-20th century, many African Americans increasingly aligned with the Democratic Party, particularly as it became more supportive of civil rights initiatives.
Xaviaer concludes "The Inconvenient Truth about Juneteenth" by admonishing Black people for referring to Juneteenth as a Black Independence Day. He argues that the political left has repackaged the holiday through what he characterizes as a segregationist lens. He adds a mocking remark, suggesting that if viewers truly believe Juneteenth is a separate Black Independence Day, he does not want to see them "twerking on a boat" on the Fourth of July—not resisting the urge to slide in a stereotype.
The comment is intended to be humorous, but it serves a deeper purpose. By ridiculing those who celebrate Juneteenth, the video dismisses the historical reality that many enslaved African-descended people were excluded from the freedoms celebrated on July 4, 1776. Rather than engaging this historical contradiction, the video substitutes mockery for analysis and caricature for historical understanding.
From a critical perspective, Black people should not be getting history lessons from social media influencers, political propagandists, or organizations masquerading as educational institutions. History is too important.
Fortunately, other scholars have challenged the distortions and omissions that permeate traditional historical narratives. While Dr. Carter G. Woodson's The Mis-Education of the Negro remains one of the most important warnings about the dangers of accepting history uncritically, James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me, exposed how textbooks sanitize and distort the past. Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States intentionally centers the experiences of people who were oppressed, marginalized, and excluded from dominant historical accounts.
Misinformation is not merely about getting facts wrong. It is about shaping how people understand themselves, their communities, and their possibilities. Dr. Carter G. Woodson once reflected that it took him 20 years after earning his doctorate from Harvard University to recover from what he described as his intellectual conditioning. James Baldwin similarly observed that it took years to free himself from the myths and falsehoods he had been taught about race, history, and human worth.
The stakes are especially high when misleading narratives are packaged in entertaining videos designed to reach young people. And by the way, Dr. Carter G. Woodson, father of Black History Month, cautioned that one of the most effective tools of institutional white supremacy is to recruit Black voices to legitimize and advance ideas that work against Black liberation.
Juneteenth reminds us that freedom is not simply a legal status. Freedom requires historical memory, vigilance, and the courage to question what we are told and the understanding of the need to seek truth from credible sources.
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Iran Says YouTube Is Trying to ‘Suppress the Truth’ By Banning AI Lego-Style Videos Mocking US-Israeli War
One expert said the videos have gone viral by "hitting on points of disaffection in the United States."
Apr 14, 2026
Iran's foreign ministry is accusing YouTube of trying to "suppress the truth" by banning the account responsible for a series of viral Lego-style animations mocking the US-Israeli war.
The small team known as Explosive Media has racked up tens of millions of views across several platforms, with slickly produced music videos mercilessly lampooning the Trump administration and glorifying Iran's struggle against the US and Israel's attacks that began at the end of February.
Last week, Explosive Media had its channel suspended from YouTube for "violent content," which its owners disputed. "Are our LEGO-style animations actually violent?” the group asked on social media.
On Monday, Esmaeil Baghaei, the spokesperson for Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, joined the criticism of the ban.
"In a land that proudly hosts Pixar, DreamWorks Animation, and The Walt Disney Company, an independent animated YouTube channel—which had organically grown by depicting US aggression and warmongering, and garnered millions of viewers—was abruptly shut down!!" he wrote on social media.
"Why?!" Baghaei said. “Simply to suppress the truth about their ‘illegal war’ on Iran and shield the American administration’s false narrative from any competing voice.”
While Explosive Media's content can no longer be viewed on YouTube—which is owned by Google—it appears unaffected on other major platforms like Instagram, X, and TikTok, where it has garnered millions of views.
The videos appear aimed at a US audience, often leaning into jokes and memes about the personal foibles of those leading the war.
They frequently reference the familiar accusation that President Donald Trump launched the war to distract from the growing scrutiny of his connections to the late multimillionaire sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein. Another video takes aim at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's history of alcoholism and accusations of serial adultery and sexual misconduct.
The videos also portray a strident pro-Iran message. Following the announcement of a ceasefire last week, a video declared that “Iran won” the war. Others have shown Iranian missiles hitting the White House or heading toward Tel Aviv.
The videos also seize on growing domestic outrage over the US government's devotion to Israel, which it implies is controlling Trump and dragging the US into a war against its interests. One video, uploaded last week, portrays Trump being literally walked like a dog by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Your government is run by pedophiles. They ordered you to die for Israel," repeats one video's chorus.
A spokesperson for the team, who identified himself as "Mr. Explosive" in an interview with the BBC, has described his group as "totally independent." But he did say that the Iranian government is a “customer,” implying possible collaboration.
Explosive Media has denied any links with the Iranian government. Responding to a journalist at The Associated Press who said the sophistication of the videos suggests government involvement, the group's official X account replied, "We’ve told you—and other journalists—multiple times that we are independent. Yet you keep repeating the same false claim, insisting that we are connected to the government."
It added: "Western media shows no real commitment to truth—they simply repeat their own baseless claims until they start to sound like facts."
While the Trump administration often portrays the war as a clash of civilizations, the videos posted by Explosive show the American people in a sympathetic light.
Though the videos pull no punches toward their leaders, ordinary Americans are portrayed protesting the Trump administration or fearful about being sent to fight in a foreign war by an administration that promised to end such conflicts.
Polls show that the majority of Americans disapprove of the war and fear it escalating. Moustafa Ayad, a researcher with the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, told WIRED that the videos have likely gotten so much attention because they tap into this discontent.
"People are disengaging from some of the real conflict content and looking for something that can distill what's happening quickly and in a language and tone that they understand, and that's what those Lego videos are doing,” he said. "They're making it easily accessible to understand the conflict from Iran's point of view, and it's hitting on points of disaffection in the United States at the same time. It's working on two fronts.”
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Leaked Cable Details Rubio’s Push for Pro-US Propaganda That Includes Psyops and Social Media
The State Department initiative aims to thwart efforts to weaken US alliances, something President Donald Trump has done repeatedly on his own social media posts.
Mar 31, 2026
A leaked diplomatic cable signed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio instructs American embassies and consulates worldwide to engage in a coordinated campaign to counter foreign propaganda, which the missive defines in part as messaging that seeks to “shift blame to the United States.”
The Guardian, which obtained a copy of the cable, reported on Monday that US State Department employees have been asked to "work alongside the US military’s psychological operations unit to address the problem of rampant disinformation" on social media.
The cable points to the Community Notes feature on Elon Musk's X platform, which allows other X users to provide context or correct false claims on other users' posts, as a particularly useful feature for the US to push back against narratives promoted by foreign governments.
The initiative's main goals are "countering hostile messaging, expanding access to information, exposing adversary behavior, elevating local voices who support American interests, and promoting what it calls 'telling America’s story,'" The Guardian reported.
In explaining the need to the initiative, the State Department cable cited foreign influence campaigns that "seek to shift blame to the United States, sow division among allies, promote alternative worldviews antithetical to America’s interests, and even undermine American economic interests and political freedoms."
The cable did not address social media posts by US President Donald Trump, who has repeated sowed divisions among US allies. On Tuesday, for example, the president once again lashed out at European nations for not helping carry out his unconstitutional war with Iran, telling them to "start learning how to fight for yourself" because "the USA won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us."
The president's posts have also undermined the country's political freedoms, including multiple instances where he has described US journalists as the "enemy of the people," while pushing for American TV networks to lose their broadcasting licenses if they continue airing negative stories about him and his administration.
The plan to combat foreign influence operations comes as the US has struggled to fight a propaganda battle against Iran, and Trump last month even floated "charges of treason" for journalists who report what he described as "fake news" about the conflict.
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