Disney has come under fire for releasing new highly-divisive content that features strong claims about the United States, its founding, and its history.
The controversy stems from a performance in an episode of The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder in which characters claim that the country is, was, and has always been a racist institution and demand reparations.
“Slaves built this country and we the descendants of slaves in America have earned reparations for their suffering and continue to earn reparations every moment we spend submerged in a systemic prejudice, racism, and white supremacy that America was founded with and still has not atoned for,” the characters recite in spoken word-style.
The characters also claim that President Abraham Lincoln did not free slaves.
“We had Tubman, Turner, Frederick D. Then they say Lincoln freed the slaves, but slaves were men and women and only we can free ourselves. Emancipation is not freedom,” they chant in the song.
The animated characters conclude, “Jim Crow, segregation, redlining, public schools feeding private prisons where we become slaves again.”
A clip of the song went viral on social media, with many weighing in.
Conservative intellectual and writer Christopher Rufo tweeted, “This Disney clip is pure critical race theory, including the insane conspiracy theory that Lincoln did not free the slaves.”
Megyn Kelly, a conservative pundit, took to her radio show to call the song “absolute filth.”
“The anger that they put in the mouths of these little kids … They’re trying to plant these ideas early,” Kelly remarked. “They’re trying to make these children hate America.”
But some celebrated the choice by Disney.
“They are literally mad that kids are learning that slaves helped build our nation. What the hell are they afraid of?” tweeted leftist social media personality Brian Krassenstein.
The outrage comes as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis unveiled a new plan to finish breaking up Disney’s special legal and tax privileges in his state, a fight that began when the corporation waded into the political debate around legislation prohibiting the discussion of gender identity in kindergarten through third-grade classrooms.
Announcing that his next move would ensure Disney would begin paying its share of taxes under Florida law and begin repayment on nearly $700 million in debt, DeSantis proclaimed, “there’s a new sheriff in town,” as Daily Mail reported.
A deputy press secretary in DeSantis’ office told Daily Mail, “Florida is dissolving the Corporate Kingdom and beginning a new era of accountability and transparency.”
Adding to the situation, Disney just announced that its Disney+ subscription service lost 2.4 million subscribers during the last fiscal quarter, marking the first-ever decline for the service.
The Proud Family’s executive producer, Latoya Raveneau, has been very candid about her politics and intentions with the content she creates, specifically as it relates to gay and transgender issues, as reported by The Dallas Express.
“Our [Disney] leadership over there has been so welcoming to my not-at-all secret gay agenda,” Raveneau claimed in a recently released video that has circulated on Twitter. “All that momentum that I felt, like that sense of I don’t have to be afraid, to like, let’s have these two characters kiss… I was just, wherever I could, adding queerness.”
“No one would stop me and no one was trying to stop me,” she remarked.