Add The New York Post on Google The hubby of controversial New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones on Monday compared her to civil-rights icon Martin Luther King while defending enrolling their daughter in flailing public schools as a racism-fighting “sacrifice” — even after his wife admitted the kid “got cheated” by the choice.
Faraji Hannah-Jones, 50, balked at criticisms that he and his 1619 Project creator wife were parental “failures” — despite the fact that their daughter was badly behind her peers entering high school and his wife admitted regretting the move in an extensive Times Magazine essay Sunday.
“When history looks back on this, she’s going to be one of our civil-rights leaders,’’ Faraji told The Post, referring to his 50-year-old spouse, outside the family’s more than $1.5 million home in trendy Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.
“She’s going to be one of the very individuals who stood up” the husband said.
“You have to be in it and it requires risk. Martin Luther King, James Baldwin, Ruby Bridges, it all required them to be in it and as a result, things happen.
“There are wins and loses. So when you look at the perspective of that, there were no mistakes made. It’s necessary work.
“It’s never at the present, the most populous time,’’ he said of great leaders being recognized. “No one said, ‘You know, Muhammad Ali, he’s a great man now.’ But back then, he was an enemy of the state.
“Martin Luther King is a great man now, but he was an enemy of the state.”
The woke couple enrolled their young daughter in floundering Brooklyn elementary and middle schools despite being able to send her to the city’s best — a move that left their now 16-year-old child struggling to read, write and do basic math by the time she reached high school.
The questionable decision was not lost on the girl, who was“boiling” mad that her parents chose to “sacrifice’’ her education in that way, Nikole admitted in her essay.
The mom said she and her husband came to their decision after deciding their “connections” and “status” could uplift struggling schools.
Nikole is the mind behind the Times’ controversial rewriting of American history, the 1619 Project, which says slavery is the most important part of US history.
But Faraji said Monday that the blame isn’t on him and Nikole for their daughter’s struggles, saying “irresponsibility is not on the parents, the irresponsibility is on the institutions that never integrated their schools to begin with.”
“I think those are individuals that really don’t understand racism in its complexity,” he said of critics.
“Nikole covered schools for two decades. We knew exactly what we were getting into when we did this. We knew exactly.”
Faraji also said he and his wife didn’t regret the decision, despite Nikole admitting in her piece, “I feel that I failed both my values and my child” in her essay.
“We don’t regret the choice. I think as she gets older, I think she will appreciate it,” he said of their daughter. “We knew that my daughter would be fine because she has parents who know how to advocate and intervene on her behalf.”
“In terms of us being bad parents, get the f–k out of here. Bad parents? Please. I raised an extraordinary daughter who is going to extraordinary things,” he added.
And he characterized his wife — who he’s been with since they were both 23 — as the hero of the story.
“I think she’s one of the greatest writers of our time,” Faraji said. “She’s a very important piece to our American story.”
