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Prominent Historians Criticize The NY Times’ 1619 Project As ‘Biased,’ ‘Anti-Historical’
Hotair ^
| 12/01/2019
| John Sexton
Posted on 12/01/2019 10:24:47 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The NY Times 1619 Project was a sprawling effort earlier this year to convince Americans that slavery was part of the DNA of America. Made up of various pieces by different authors, the 1619 Project seemed to promote an idea that matched current far left sentiment about the importance of identity with an underlying anti-capitalism. The Times is now promoting the Project for inclusion in high school curricula, so its likely it will be with us for some time. But where did all of this material come from?
One site has done some important work looking into the Times Project by simply asking top scholars what they though of it and whether or not they were consulted. In published interviews, three of those scholars have said they were not consulted and that the Project seems to be based as much on a biased an narrow ideology as history. But there is one twist in this story that you probably wont see coming. The site which has done these interviews is the World Socialist Website. Take that for what its worth but I think the work speaks for itself in this case.
Earlier this month the site interviewed James McPherson on his reaction to the Times Project. McPhereson is a Princeton history professor who specializes in the history of the Civil War including a Pulitzer Prize winning history on the topic. Heres a sample of what McPhereson had to say about 1619:
Q. What was your initial reaction to the 1619 Project?
A. Well, I didnt know anything about it until I got my Sunday paper, with the magazine section entirely devoted to the 1619 Project. Because this is a subject Ive long been interested in I sat down and started to read some of the essays. Id say that, almost from the outset, I was disturbed by what seemed like a very unbalanced, one-sided account, which lacked context and perspective on the complexity of slavery, which was clearly, obviously, not an exclusively American institution, but existed throughout history. And slavery in the United States was only a small part of a larger world process that unfolded over many centuries. And in the United States, too, there was not only slavery but also an antislavery movement. So I thought the account, which emphasized American racismwhich is obviously a major part of the history, no question about itbut it focused so narrowly on that part of the story that it left most of the history out.
So I read a few of the essays and skimmed the rest, but didnt pursue much more about it because it seemed to me that I wasnt learning very much new. And I was a little bit unhappy with the idea that people who did not have a good knowledge of the subject would be influenced by this and would then have a biased or narrow view
Q. Nikole Hannah-Jones, the lead writer and leader of the 1619 Project, includes a statement in her essayand I would say that this is the thesis of the projectthat anti-black racism runs in the very DNA of this country.
A. Yes, I saw that too. It does not make very much sense to me. I suppose shes using DNA metaphorically. She argues that racism is the central theme of American history. It is certainly part of the history. But again, I think it lacks context, lacks perspective on the entire course of slavery and how slavery began and how slavery in the United States was hardly unique. And racial convictions, or anti-other convictions, have been central to many societies.
But the idea that racism is a permanent condition, well thats just not true. And it also doesnt account for the countervailing tendencies in American history as well. Because opposition to slavery, and opposition to racism, has also been an important theme in American history.
The WSWS also interviewed James Oakes, Distinguished Professor of History and Graduate School Humanities Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Oakes has written several award-winning books about slavery and anti-slavery in America. In this interview, Oakes was asked directly about the attempt by one of the 1619 authors to connect slavery to capitalism:
Q. Can you discuss some of the recent literature on slavery and capitalism, which argues that chattel slavery was, and is, the decisive feature of capitalism, especially American capitalism? I am thinking in particular of the recent books by Sven Beckert, Ed Baptist and Walter Johnson. This seems to inform the contribution to the 1619 Project by Matthew Desmond.
A. Collectively their work has prompted some very strong criticism from scholars in the field. My concern is that by avoiding some of the basic analytical questions, most of the scholars have backed into a neo-liberal economic interpretation of slavery, though I think Id exempt Sven Beckert somewhat from that, because I think hes come to do something somewhat different theoretically.
What you really have with this literature is a marriage of neo-liberalism and liberal guilt. When you marry those two things, neo-liberal politics and liberal guilt, this is what you get. You get the New York Times, you get the literature on slavery and capitalism
Q. And a point we made in our response to the 1619 Project, is that it dovetails also with the major political thrust of the Democratic Party, identity politics. And the claim that is made, and I think its almost become a commonplace, is that slavery is the uniquely American original sin.
A. Yes. Original sin, thats one of them. The other is that slavery or racism is built into the DNA of America. These are really dangerous tropes. Theyre not only ahistorical, theyre actually anti-historical. The function of those tropes is to deny change over time. It goes back to those analogies. They say, look at how terribly black people were treated under slavery. And look at the incarceration rate for black people today. Its the same thing. Nothing changes. There has been no industrialization. There has been no Great Migration. Were all in the same boat we were back then. And thats what original sin is. Its passed down. Every single generation is born with the same original sin. And the worst thing about it is that it leads to political paralysis. Its always been here. Theres nothing we can do to get out of it. If its the DNA, theres nothing you can do. What do you do? Alter your DNA?
Finally, just this week the site published an interview with Gordon Wood, professor emeritus at Brown University. Wood is author of a Pulitzer Prize winning book on the Revolutionary War. Like the others, he was not contacted by the NY Times for the 1619 Project and doesnt know any of his fellow expert historians who were either. Wood tells the WSWS, I was surprised, as many other people were, by the scope of this thing, especially since its going to become the basis for high school education and has the authority of the New York Times behind it, and yet it is so wrong in so many ways.
The entire interview is worth reading but some of the highlights are contained in the video clip below. The conclusion of any one of these scholars would be a problem for the NY Times 1619 Project, but the fact that all three of them see it as fundamentally wrong, anti-historical, and lacking perspective ought to lead schools around the country to reconsider its value.
CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO
TOPICS: Education; History; Society
KEYWORDS: 1619project; 2020election; antihistorical; biased; cancelculture; curriculum; dnctalkingpoint; dnctalkingpoints; election2020; godsgravesglyphs; history; learning; mediawingofthednc; newyork; newyorkcity; newyorkslimes; newyorktimes; nikolehannahjones; nytimes; partisanmediashills; presstitutes; slavery; smearmachine; teaching
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To: SeekAndFind
Good, it’s about time the Ministry of Propaganda got some push back.
2
posted on
12/01/2019 10:26:02 AM PST
by
Lurkinanloomin
(Natural Born Citizens Are Born Here of Citizen Parents_Know Islam, No Peace-No Islam, Know Peace)
To: SeekAndFind
Didn't beto use it to his advanta. ......... 😵 Oh!
3
posted on
12/01/2019 10:37:42 AM PST
by
rktman
( #My2ndAmend! ----- Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?)
To: All; ProgressingAmerica
This past September, I posted my own analysis of this massive lie about 1619.
The Lies of the New York Times 1619 Project...:
A few months ago, I started posting this little historical exercise about Slavery in pre America:
Slavery was, not yet a reality, even in any British Royal American Colonies by 1619.
1619: The year, the first Endentured Africans, not slaves, were brought to Jamestown, is drilled into students memories, but overemphasizing this date distorts history!
1619: First Africans:
In August 1619 “20 and odd Negroes” arrived on the Dutch Man-of-War ship at Jamestown colony. This is the earliest record of Black people in colonial America.[38] These colonists were freemen and indentured servants.[39][40][41][42] At this time the slave trade between Africa and the English colonies had not yet been established.
Records from 1623 and 1624 listed the African inhabitants of the colony as servants, not slaves. In the case of William Tucker, the first Black person born in the colonies, freedom was his birthright.[43] He was son of “Antony and Isabell”, a married couple from Angola who worked as indentured servants for Captain William Tucker whom he was named after. Yet, court records show that at least one African had been declared a slave by 1640; John Punch. He was an indentured servant who ran away along with two White indentured servants and he was sentenced by the governing council to lifelong servitude. This action is what officially marked the institution of slavery in Jamestown and the future United States.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Jamestown,_Virginia_(160799)#1619:_First_Africans
Jamestown was not an American colony nor even a British Colony at that time, 1619.
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/misguided-focus-1619-beginning-slavery-us-damages-our-understanding-american-history-180964873/#rw41X6dSPyUlLd4m.99
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/slavery
Before going to the link above, everyone, ask yourself a simple question:
In what year did the former British/American Colonies, become America/the USA and recognized by the world powers as America.
Hint, It was not in 1619.
It was 1783! Americas independence was recognized by Britain in 1783.
The Emancipation Proclamation was in 1863, 80 years after we became a recognized country.
This year,2019, will make freedom from Slavery/1863, for 156 years in America, the USA. Thanks to the The Emancipation Proclamation being declared in 1863.
The US had legal slavery for 80 years! Liberal liars scream 400 years of slavery, and it is a complete lie.
At this point, blacks in todays America, have been free for much longer than their ancestors were slaves! (nearly twice as long).
*How many union soldiers died to free the Slaves: - Quora:
https://www.quora.com/How-many-union-soldiers-died
*Approximately 110,000 Union Soldiers died due to battle-related causes during the Civil War. Around 250,000 died of disease. Yes, you were more likely to die of illness later than on the battlefield. The deadliest battle for both sides was the infamous Battle of Gettysburg, totaling more than 50,000 casualties.
At least 360,000 Union soldiers died from battle causes or illnesses linked to their service in the Civil War. More suffered from physical and mental wounds for most of their lives post Civil War.
Women born just before, during and after the Civil War in the battleground states often died in their 20s to 30s. My Dads mother and one of her sisters died in their late 20s. Women in their families before and after the civil war lived into their late 70s to 80s.
Lincoln: The Founders did not make America racist or slaver. They inherited it that way!
PGA Weblog ^
Posted on 9/2/2019, 4:35:14 PM by ProgressingAmerica
Abraham Lincoln:
Judge Douglas asks you, “Why cannot the institution of slavery, or rather, why cannot the nation, part slave and part free, continue as our fathers made it forever?” In the first place, I insist that our fathers did not make this nation half slave and half free, or part slave and part free. I insist that they found the institution of slavery existing here. They did not make it so, but they left it so because they knew of no way to get rid of it at that time.
When Judge Douglas undertakes to say that, as a matter of choice, the fathers of the Government made this nation part slave and part free, he assumes what is historically a falsehood. More than that: when the fathers of the Government cut off the source of slavery by the abolition of the slave-trade, and adopted a system of restricting it from the new Territories where it had not existed, I maintain that they placed it where they understood, and all sensible men understood, it was in the course of ultimate extinction; and when Judge Douglas asks me why it cannot continue as our fathers made it, I ask him why he and his friends could not let it remain as our fathers made it?
The Founding Fathers could not undo in just a few short years what the King spent over a century doing.
Because of the false teachings of progressivism, it has become one of the greatest of ironies that the “Great Emancipator” was also one of the most ardent defenders of the Founding Fathers - specifically on the topic of slavery.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3776122/posts
4
posted on
12/01/2019 10:41:00 AM PST
by
Grampa Dave
(Nanzi Pelosi Thinks/Says Americans Are Too STUPID To Elect Their President! Time for #DCEXIT!)
To: SeekAndFind
5
posted on
12/01/2019 10:41:14 AM PST
by
Chode
(Send bachelors and come heavily armed.)
To: SeekAndFind
It’s very much simple minded arrogance on the part of the NYT to do this as part of legitimizing the politically correct worldview at the expense of ignoring all sorts of important and obvious truths.
This sort of thing went on about 170 years ago regarding the John Frankin expedition to find the Northwest Passage. Even though Franklin was completely unsuited for this sort of endeavour (as he nearly died during a previous exploration of the Arctic in the 1820s), his widow Lady Jane Franklin was very influential in London society at the time and with their news media back then. She had them portray him as this tragic hero who likely died at the hands of native savages and refused to ever consider the likelihood that his ships both got caught in ice jams and that he and his crew tried to escape on foot and ending up being lost and even resorting to cannibalism, as what the indigenous peoples there told explorer John Rae and others who went to investigate what possibly happened. All of that to legitimize the idea of the superiority of the white, British, Protestant nation and culture over all others. Basically the same mentality all over again under a different can label.
6
posted on
12/01/2019 10:56:11 AM PST
by
OttawaFreeper
("The Gardens was founded by men-sportsmen-who fought for their country" Conn Smythe, 1966)
To: SeekAndFind
To: SeekAndFind
8
posted on
12/01/2019 11:08:38 AM PST
by
tbw2
To: SeekAndFind
Thank you. Gordon Woods' comments are worthwhile.
Whether out of ignorance, or by attempting to rewrite history in order to carry out an agenda, "Progressive Regressives" often utilize the claim that Thomas Jefferson and other Founders were "slave owners."
When countering that claim, it is well to ask those know-it-all 21st Century "elitists" to consider the historical context within which America's Founders found themselves, as well as the enormous contributions they and their generations made toward eradicating slavery from these shores and creating a constitutional republic which could, ultimately, affirm and protect the rights of ALL people:
Of special interest in that regard is Jefferson's Autobiography, especially that portion which states:
"The first establishment in Virginia which became permanent was made in 1607. I have found no mention of negroes in the colony until about 1650. The first brought here as slaves were by a Dutch ship; after which the English commenced the trade and continued it until the revolutionary war. That suspended...their future importation for the present, and the business of the war pressing constantly on the (Virginia) legislature, this subject was not acted on finally until the year 1778, when I brought a bill to prevent their further importation. This passed without opposition, leaving to future efforts its final eradication."
Jefferson also observed:
"Where the disease [slavery] is most deeply seated, there it will be slowest in eradication. In the northern States, it was merely superficial and easily corrected. In the southern, it is incorporated with the whole system and requires time, patience, and perseverance in the curative process."
He explained that,
"In 1769, I became a member of the legislature by the choice of the county in which I live [Albemarle County, Virginia], and so continued until it was closed by the Revolution. I made one effort in that body for the permission of the emancipation of slaves, which was rejected: and indeed, during the regal [crown] government, nothing [like this] could expect success."
Below is another quotation, cited in David Barton's work on the subject of the Founders and slavery, which also cites the fact that there were laws in the State of Virginia which prevented citizens from emancipating slaves:
"The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. . . . The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. And with what execration should the statesman be loaded who permits one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other. . . . And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep for ever. . . . The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest. . . . [T]he way, I hone [is] preparing under the auspices of Heaven for a total emancipation."
A visit to David Bartons web site
(www.wallbuilders.com) provides an essential, excellent and factual written record of the Founders' views on the matter of slavery. One source he does not quote, I believe, is the famous 1775 Edmund Burke
"Speech on Conciliation" before the British Parliament, wherein he
admonished the Parliament for its Proposal to declare a general enfranchisement of the slaves in America.
Burke rather sarcastically observed that should the Parliament carry through with the Proposal before it: "Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and dull as all men are from slavery, must they not a little suspect the offer of freedom from that very nation (England) which has sold them to their present masters? from that nation, one of whose causes of quarrel with those masters is their refusal to deal any more in that inhuman traffic?"
He continued: "An offer of freedom from England would come rather oddly, shipped to them in an African vessel, which is refused an entry into the ports of Virginia or Carolina, with a cargo of three hundred Angola negroes. It would be curious to see the Guinea captain attempting at the same instant to publish his proclamation of liberty and to advertise his sale of slaves." Ahhh, how knowledge of the facts can alter one's opinion of the revisionist history that has been taught for generations in American schools (including its so-called "law schools"!!)
Human beings are allotted ONLY A TINY SLIVER OF TIME ON THIS EARTH. (Pardon shouting) Each finds the world and his/her own community/nation existing as it is.
If lawyers and judges cared enough to educate themselves (in this day of the Internet) on the history of civilization and America's real history, and if they used that knowledge and the resulting understanding, to do as much on behalf of liberty for ALL people as did Thomas Jefferson and America's other Founders, the world in the next century would be a better place.
Remember: Thomas Jefferson was only 33 years old when he penned our Declaration of Independence which capsulized a truly revolutionary idea into a simple statement that survives to this day to inspire people all over the world to strive for liberty!
To: loveliberty2
” Remember,Thomas Jefferson was only 33 years old when he penned our Declaration of Independence which capsulized a truly revolutionary idea into a simple statement that survives to this day to inspire people all over the world to strive for liberty!”
Remember, Thomas Jefferson owed close to 700 slaves during his lifetime. Freeing only ten of them. Five were freed while he was alive, the other five after his death.
To: SeekAndFind
The Declaration of Independence is in our DNA.
It did not outright abolish slavery at the time but from that moment on it made it problematic and led to its ultimate abolishment.
Nothing regarding history today is taught in context.
11
posted on
12/01/2019 12:41:02 PM PST
by
headstamp 2
(There's a stairway to heaven, but there's a highway to hell.)
To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; 31R1O; ...
12
posted on
12/01/2019 1:25:37 PM PST
by
SunkenCiv
(Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
To: SeekAndFind
When the English colonists in North America began importing Africans, they were imitating what the Spanish and others had been doing for 100 years and more. As others have pointed out, the Africans brought to Jamestown in 1619 may have been indentured servants rather than slaves for life.
What should be celebrated about 1619 is the creation of the Virginia House of Burgesses...the first example of self-government in the Western Hemisphere. The experience of self-government is what set the English colonies apart from the Spanish, French, Dutch and Portuguese colonies in the Americas and is why the Founding Fathers were able to establish the United States with representative government. When the Spanish colonies won their independence, they lacked that experience and their subsequent history was much less happy.
To: Grampa Dave
that is your work? wow! thanks!
14
posted on
12/01/2019 3:07:51 PM PST
by
SteveH
(intentionally blank)
To: Bull Snipe
Remember, in Virginia it was illegal to give a slave his freedom. Thomas Jefferson tried to overturn that in the House of Burgesses.
15
posted on
12/01/2019 3:42:52 PM PST
by
Fred Hayek
(The Democratic Party is now the operational arm of the CPUSA)
To: SeekAndFind
16
posted on
12/01/2019 3:47:55 PM PST
by
Grampa Dave
(Nanzi Pelosi Thinks/Says Americans Are Too STUPID To Elect Their President! Time for #DCEXIT!)
To: SeekAndFind
17
posted on
12/01/2019 3:54:00 PM PST
by
Grampa Dave
(Nanzi Pelosi Thinks/Says Americans Are Too STUPID To Elect Their President! Time for #DCEXIT!)
To: SteveH
18
posted on
12/01/2019 4:04:21 PM PST
by
Grampa Dave
(Nanzi Pelosi Thinks/Says Americans Are Too STUPID To Elect Their President! Time for #DCEXIT!)
To: Grampa Dave
The reason for the Oklahoma Panhandle is that it is north of 36 degrees 30 minutes North, the northern boundary of slavery according to the Missouri Compromise (except for Missouri itself). It had been part of Texas when Texas was annexed but in 1850 Texas was reduced to its present borders, none of which was north of 36 degrees 30 minutes because of the compromise of 1820. Ironically a few years later that rule was thrown out by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Looking at the map it doesn’t make sense that what is now the Oklahoma Panhandle wasn’t just part of the Texas Panhandle.
To: Fred Hayek
In 1782, the Virginia legislature past law allowing a master to free a slave without requiring state permission to do so. In 1806 the Virginia legislature passed law requiring manumitted slaves leave the state within one year of their freedom. Jefferson could have met these requirements if he had desired to.
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