1776 Honors America’s Diversity in a Way 1619 Does Not: Academic historians, conservatives, and Trotskyist socialists rightly reject The New York Times’ reframing of the past.

The Atlantic ^ | January 6, 2020 | Conor Friedersdorf

[C19fan]

America’s original revolutionaries, along with Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Martin Luther King Jr., all placed the universalist ideals of the Declaration of Independence at the center of this country’s founding. But that paradigm is under vigorous challenge from The New York Times Magazine. Last summer, the magazine began publishing the 1619 Project, marking the 400th anniversary of enslaved Africans’ arrival in Virginia. In essays, stories, poems, podcast episodes, and more, the Times has grappled with how slavery shaped all that followed.

[C19fan]

Never thought I would see the day when the World Socialist Web Site is a go to site for US History than the NY Slimes.

[C19fan]

I live in Virginia and have no problem with sites like Colonial Williamsburg and Mount Veron giving voice to the slaves who lived and worked there. I do have a problem when the NY Times puts that experience as THE narrative not A IMPORTANT narrartive.

[dljordan]

The Communists have to go. There is no place in a constitutional republic for them. They have taken over our government at all levels by disguising themselves as caring, sensitive, progressives. They have fooled the young people and the suburban women and bought the minorities with other peoples money.

[IrishBrigade]

‘In essays, stories, poems, podcast episodes, and more, the Times has grappled with how slavery shaped all that followed.’

this country will sacrifice itself to exorcise the sin of slavery that hasn’t existed in over a century...

[mountainlion]

1776 is the year for me to remember. My 1st cousin 6 times removed died August 27, 1776 in the battle of Long Island. I have never found any slaves in my family. Only 3% of the population had slaves and most of them were purchased from Muslims in Africa.

[Salvavida]

Even if you found a plantation of slaves in your family line, better still, a merchant slave ship, that isn't your problem. You were not brought up in the context of that era and you made no decision, directly or indirectly, towards acquisition.

We should be boasting about ONE thing: Negro spirituals. Whites cared enough about their slaves that they taught them the Bible so that they could make a decision for Jesus Christ for all eternity. In doing so, it ushered in a new genre of worship music. Winning!

[oldvirginian]

“We should be boasting about ONE thing: Negro spirituals.”

At the start of the civil war it was illegal to teach a slave to read. General Thomas “Stone wall” Jackson broke that law every day.
His reasoning was very simple.
He wanted each and every one to be able to read the bible for themselves.
Until the day he died he helped raise money to buy bibles for slaves in Virginia.

[Salvavida]

Indeed, but I was not arguing off the virtues of one man. Negro spirituals resulted from the widespread effort to convert the blacks from African Traditional Religion (same tenants as Native American Spiritualism), to Christ.

Living with blacks made it impossible to ignore their humanity, thus, their inherent worth being made after the image of God.

The tragedy of holding to the Old World theology that the blacks were descendants of Cain (Gen 4) was their downfall. Lazy theology.

[Mrs. Don-o]

True dat.

[jocon307]

I read at least one of the interviews they published about this, and it was a very, very good piece. Truly amazing it came from the Commies, but I thank them muchly for it.

I feel like there was someone over there who was just completely intellectually outraged by the BS in the Times and did something about it.

They really got the ball rolling on calling this malarkey out for what it is.

[oldvirginian]

Yes, the old spiritual songs were very heartfelt and biblically based. The “spiritual” songs of today can’t hold a candle to them.

[ronnie raygun]

The true history is either not known by these dolts due to the failure of the American education system or they don’t want to know because it wont fit their narrative. I side with either.