Kids love the playful PBS cartoons of “Sesame Street,” “Arthur,” and “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.” But what should parents do when Daniel Tiger is used to teach kids about transgenderism? Or a Sesame Street Special teaches white children they are inherently privileged and complicit in systemic racism? Or an Arthur episode acclimates kids toward becoming progressive activists? Or PBS Kids claims babies are racists?
As lawmakers consider approving the budget for Idaho Public Television, they should recognize it is improper to use tax dollars to promote critical race theory, queer theory, and social justice activism. Public television today does far more than teach children to read, write or do mathematics. And House Bill 227 could give $450,000 of ongoing federal tax dollars to Idaho Public Television to breed more propaganda, like that of PBS Kids, rather than teaching ideas with educational worth.
Lawmakers should understand what they are supporting. PBS Kids desires more than damaging young children’s intellectual growth through deceitful cartoons. The group seeks to influence how parents raise their children by providing trainings and resources for parents that bolster the group's radical and progressive agenda.
One PBS Kids special on “Race and Racism” instructs parents to talk to their kids about how racism is “incumbent” in all white people and “perpetuated” by white “groups.” As PBS Kids explains, parents trying to “raise good human beings is not enough.” Instead, parents must make sure kids believe the lie that “differences in [skin color] do matter.” This requires training children to be hyper aware of their own race and other children’s races. Parents, according to PBS Kids, are “racists” if they tell their children that American laws are and should be colorblind.
PBS makes the claim that even babies have “white privilege” and are complicit in racism. The group argues three-month-old babies “show biases for or against different race groups.” The research used to substantiate this claim comes from the idea of implicit bias – a form of pseudoscience claiming to be capable of predicting behavior that has been debunked repeatedly. White babies, children, and parents are complicit in three different types of racism: “Institutionalized, Interpersonal, and Cultural.”
According to PBS Kids programming, white parents can pay penance for their sins of perpetuating racism by getting “their children used to participating in activism.” PBS Kids suggests parents take their kids to rallies or avoid shopping at white-owned businesses. Traci Baxley, the creator of Social Justice Parenting, argues parents should only let their children be treated by “black” pediatricians instead of taking ones’ sick child to the most competent and readily available pediatrician.
Schools must reinforce this dogma. PBS Kids instructs teachers to monitor their classrooms for “microaggressions.” Only white children can be guilty of a microaggression, according to PBS Kids’ definition that microaggressions are only made “towards marginalized groups.” Intent does not matter in the circumstance of a microaggression. For example, a white child with good intentions who tells a black child “their hair is beautiful” should be considered guilty by their teacher of a racist microaggression. Likewise, parents are told to “call on schools to teach teachers about … microaggressions.”
Normalizing transgenderism and propagandizing families and kids with a subjective view of gender is central to PBS Kids’ agenda, with the statement “fathers and mothers are not the only people raising children.” The broadcast network argues that “fathers” are just “one type of parent,” and that when “lifting up fatherhood” one must also “lift up gender non-conforming” and “trans” parents and “all other types of people who raise the children in our world.”
PBS Kids inflicts this radical ideology on children by incorporating it into cartoons. The strategy to inundate children with queer theory through cartoons is strategic and deceptive. PBS Kids states when “struggling with how to explain to [one’s] children that a family member is transgender,” just use the special Daniel Tiger song “You’re Still You.” In a cheerful upbeat tune, Daniel Tiger sings, “It doesn’t matter what you wear or how you do your hair, you’re still you!” It is not enough for transgenderism to be tolerated by families. PBS Kids intends for families to affirm these gender performances as admirable, healthy, and authentic.
Idaho Public Television has proven itself an irresponsible steward of taxpayer funds. Government funds can never be allocated for political purposes. Yet for years and years, tax dollars have been used to support Idaho’s PBS Kids channel and traffic a singular ideology into family’s homes. Tax dollars should not be given to a government media source disseminating propaganda that violates the integrity of family life and advocates for radical ideologies that tear at the fabric of our country.
