Well, Ms. Rachel isn’t sticking exclusively to songs, colors and early childhood education anymore.
Rachel Accurso, the enormously popular children’s entertainer known as Ms. Rachel, has once again stepped into a politically charged debate, this time by sharing an excerpt from Ta-Nehisi Coates’ famous essay The Case for Reparations with her more than five million Instagram followers.
And we’re not talking about an obscure passage.
“Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy,” the quote reads. “Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.”
That comes from Coates’ 2014 essay, which became one of the most influential modern arguments for reparations and a broader national reckoning with the economic consequences of slavery and subsequent racial discrimination.
Now, one important distinction here: Coates’ argument was considerably more complicated than simply saying, “Write everybody a check.” His essay examined slavery, Jim Crow and discriminatory housing practices while arguing that the United States needed to confront how those policies affected the accumulation of wealth.
But Ms. Rachel sharing that passage is noteworthy because this isn’t happening in isolation.
The children’s star has increasingly used the massive audience she built through educational entertainment to engage in politics and contentious social issues.
Last month, she encouraged followers to support Denver congressional candidate Melat Kiros, who had previously generated controversy for describing the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as “inevitable.”
Accurso has also become publicly involved in the debate over Gaza, advocating for Palestinian children and appearing with journalist Mehdi Hasan to defend her commentary after critics accused her of repeating claims favorable to Hamas.
So, yes, there is a pattern here.
And here’s where the reparations discussion gets historically messy.
Critics on the right frequently point out that the Democratic Party’s historical record includes deep connections to slavery, the Confederacy and Jim Crow.
That’s not invented history.
Former Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. once put the point about his own party in remarkably direct language.
“There is no doubt that the Democratic Party is the party of the Confederacy, historically,” Jackson said.
“It was our party’s flag,” he continued, before noting that Jefferson Davis was a Democrat and that Southern secessionists identified with the Democratic Party.
But hold on, because history doesn’t stop in 1865 — or 1965.
The Democratic and Republican coalitions changed substantially over generations, particularly through the 20th century and the civil-rights era. So saying today’s Democratic Party is simply the same political coalition that defended slavery or enforced Jim Crow would flatten a complicated history into a bumper sticker.
You can acknowledge what Southern Democrats did without pretending American political coalitions remained frozen for 150 years.
The more immediate question surrounding Ms. Rachel is different anyway.
What exactly does she support?
Her post signals agreement with Coates’ call for America to reckon with what he describes as “compounding moral debts.” But based on the material provided, she didn’t offer a specific reparations program.
No dollar amount.
No eligibility requirements.
No explanation of who would pay.
No proposed legislation.
That matters because “reparations” can refer to substantially different policies, from direct payments to targeted programs or other forms of redress.
What we do know is that Accurso chose to put Coates’ argument in front of millions of people.
And those millions didn’t originally gather around her because they were looking for political commentary.
That’s the fascinating part of the Ms. Rachel story.
She became famous sitting in front of a camera helping toddlers learn words and songs. Parents invited her into their homes because their kids adored her educational videos. That gave Accurso an audience most political activists could only dream about.
Now she’s using that platform to talk about candidates, Gaza and reparations.
