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The irony of the New York Times’ 1619 Project...

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  • #31
    I would encourage a slow and deliberate reading, one that assimilates the facts and claims made before jumping to criticize. Hannah-Jones nowhere claims that her father saw lynchings; she claims that Mississippi lynched more black people than anywhere in the nation and that her fathers home county lynched more than anywhere else in Mississippi.

    --Sam

    Originally posted by Teallaura View Post
    Uh, how exactly, is her Dad in the 30's-40's seeing numerous lynchings? Most lynching had ended in the 1920's and while there were isolated incidents, they were not the rule. Even more impressive since she states her father was 17 in 1962 - giving him a probable birth year of 1945.
    "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

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    • #32
      The implication being, I guess, that America is painted in very negative lighting by stating facts that aren't even in dispute but are common knowledge?

      Interesting.

      --Sam

      Originally posted by seer View Post
      I read the article, it recounts our sins, and it paints our country in a very negative light. And except for the personal stories like that of her father, there wasn't much that wasn't common knowledge. So what is the end game here? The New York times has a goal here, fits right in with this:

      New York Times chief outlines coverage shift: From Trump-Russia to Trump racism

      https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/o...o-trump-racism
      "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

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      • #33
        Originally posted by Sam View Post
        I would encourage a slow and deliberate reading, one that assimilates the facts and claims made before jumping to criticize. Hannah-Jones nowhere claims that her father saw lynchings; she claims that Mississippi lynched more black people than anywhere in the nation and that her fathers home county lynched more than anywhere else in Mississippi.

        --Sam
        Let's be charitable and assume I did misunderstand - one part. I didn't misunderstand the whole thing - or you'd be busily showing me every uncrossed T.

        I think it simply boils down to she's saying what you want to hear - and I'm far more prickly about those little fact things. Happens when you spend your life listening to people who don't know you or your friends - or even the folks they think they are defending - condemn everyone with the broadest of brushes and the fewest of facts.
        "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

        "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

        My Personal Blog

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        • #34
          Originally posted by Sam View Post
          The implication being, I guess, that America is painted in very negative lighting by stating facts that aren't even in dispute but are common knowledge?

          Interesting.

          --Sam
          Excepting the 'facts' part where she gets so many of them either misconstrued or flat out wrong.
          "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

          "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

          My Personal Blog

          My Novella blog (Current Novella Begins on 7/25/14)

          Quill Sword

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          • #35
            You called Samuel Johnson, a famed British abolitionist, "selective" in criticizing American slavers.

            --Sam

            Originally posted by Teallaura View Post
            Excepting the 'facts' part where she gets so many of them either misconstrued or flat out wrong.
            "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

            Comment


            • #36
              Originally posted by Sam View Post
              You called Samuel Johnson, a famed British abolitionist, "selective" in criticizing American slavers.

              --Sam
              British - seems his comment wasn't directed at his own house - which didn't get put in order until 1833. Yeah, it's a fair assessment of the comment.

              Which wasn't one of the facts in dispute, I remind you. Also, you're misusing 'slavers' here.



              Now, the more pertinent question - why the heck are either of us still up arguing this?!?!?!
              "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

              "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

              My Personal Blog

              My Novella blog (Current Novella Begins on 7/25/14)

              Quill Sword

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              • #37
                Originally posted by Sam View Post
                The implication being, I guess, that America is painted in very negative lighting by stating facts that aren't even in dispute but are common knowledge?

                Interesting.

                --Sam
                Exactly, the left keeps rubbing our face in it, opening old wounds. And the fact it lines up with their push to paint Trump as a racist, and by extension his supporters.
                Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

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                • #38
                  Originally posted by Sam View Post
                  I'm skeptical that a person can discern the sole purpose of a project by skimming a few of its essays, myself.

                  What, exactly, is anachronistic?

                  -Sam
                  If you've read the essays then the anachronisms should have stood out pretty obviously. If they didn't, then I imagine dragging chunks of the essays over here, and pointing them out to you isn't going to make much difference. I'm not too interested in going into that sort of work only to have you handwave it away or something. If you'd like to discuss one of the essays here, I'd be more than happy to chime in if I have anything to add.

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                  • #39
                    Originally posted by Sam View Post
                    I'm disappointed in how few people actually read anything at all from the project before deciding what it was so I'll just encourage people to read the articles and give one broad example of the first essay, which is the only one I've read deliberately and slowly so far.

                    Contrary to the general perception of the 1619 Project expressed here, the opening essay (by Nikole Hannah-Jones, the driving force behind the project) does not seek to destroy American democracy or reduce America's greatness or anything like that. Hannah-Jones begins with an account of her veteran father proudly flying the American flag and her bewilderment that black Americans -- who had built the very foundation and power of the country while slaves and still, as freemen, saw themselves forced outside of its protections and privileges -- could have such patriotism. Her essay is about finding that patriotism and finding it in the work and suffering of black Americans throughout the nation's long history (yes, longer than the 1776 date suggests). And, in finding that patriotism expressed by her father, grandmother and countless other black Americans who loved their country even as it was enslaving or persecuting them, Hannah-Jones writes that black Americans made American democracy true and no longer universal claims on paper that were selectively applied to white men.

                    It's an essay about the perfection of American democracy, not its destruction.

                    --Sam
                    Reality:

                    About every nation that exist has been built on the backs of slaves or the poor.
                    "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
                    GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

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                    • #40
                      Originally posted by seer View Post
                      Exactly, the left keeps rubbing our face in it, opening old wounds. And the fact it lines up with their push to paint Trump as a racist, and by extension his supporters.
                      You have to remember what a racist is, to a modern liberal:

                      - anyone who is not a liberal, is racist by default.

                      The goal is to put you on the defensive and you prove a negative, that you’re not a racist by default so they don’t have to defend their poor policies and terrible logic.
                      "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
                      GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

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                      • #41
                        Originally posted by Teallaura View Post
                        'Perfecters of democracy'? Oh please...



                        Actually, many of the Founding Fathers DID believe that liberty applied to all men. And that included Washington and Jefferson - what she fails to realize is that there were laws that prevented manumission. That being the reason Washington freed his slaves at his death - that was what the law allowed.



                        Women were fighting for suffrage before the Civil War - that would be an anachronism. Heck, there were suffrage movements after the Revolutionary War.


                        There were abolitionists in the US before the Revolution - during and after as well. The chances of England declaring an end to slavery or the slave trade at that time were nil - and the American's knew it. This is nonsense. There's a reason England doesn't end slavery until 1833.
                        Yep, this is was one of the areas that jumped out at me immediately upon my initial skim.

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                        • #42
                          I'm reading the essays slowly, one per night. So far, I've read the first two and found nothing that is wrong (save that it was the Pilgrims, not the Puritans, who came in the 1620s). Nothing in the first two essays I saw was anachronistic -- so what did you see out of the first essays?

                          Nothing Teal mentioned is anachronistic -- Hannah-Jones' argument that the founders intentionally codified slavery into the nation's founding documents and laws isn't rebutted by the fact that there were abolitionists in the emerging nation or even among the founders; those who were present did not or could not stop the majority from continuing (and even strengthening) the slave trade.

                          That manumission laws existed before the creation of a new country with entirely new laws is obviously irrelevant -- the framers of the -constitution- could have, but did not, supersede or obsolete such laws -- even though the Constitution and new federal laws superseded or obsoleted other types of law.

                          Britain ended its slave trade in 1807, not 1833; Teal chose the latter of two laws to make her maximum argument but gets the thrust wrong, anyhow: By the 1770s, the abolitionist movement (led by people like Samuel Johnson) in Britain had emerged and was gaining strength. By the 1780s, when the Constitution and other documents were being written, major court cases in Britain (e.g., Sommerset v Stewart) had won freedom for chattel slaves in Britain. The American colonists/revolutionaries/statesmen were not unaware that slavery in Britain was ending at home and threatened in the colonies. What you're calling an "anachronism" is simply history.

                          --Sam

                          Originally posted by Adrift View Post
                          If you've read the essays then the anachronisms should have stood out pretty obviously. If they didn't, then I imagine dragging chunks of the essays over here, and pointing them out to you isn't going to make much difference. I'm not too interested in going into that sort of work only to have you handwave it away or something. If you'd like to discuss one of the essays here, I'd be more than happy to chime in if I have anything to add.
                          "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

                          Comment


                          • #43
                            Originally posted by seer View Post
                            Exactly, the left keeps rubbing our face in it, opening old wounds. And the fact it lines up with their push to paint Trump as a racist, and by extension his supporters.
                            The theme of Hannah-Jones' essay is that black Americans, through their massive contributions to American economy, structure, wealth, and democracy, have earned full purchase in all of these things but have systematically, and often cruelly, been denied -- denied not only their due but even an equal share. Still today, we find politicians, businesses, and other citizens denying black Americans access to democracy, fair representation, business opportunities. The wounds aren't old and black Americans aren't the ones rubbing peoples' faces in an injustice.

                            But, any road, if you find that a basic and true retelling of American history is offensive, perhaps the problem is more that you prefer a mythology to open embrace of truth.

                            --Sam
                            "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              Originally posted by Sam View Post
                              I'm reading the essays slowly, one per night. So far, I've read the first two and found nothing that is wrong (save that it was the Pilgrims, not the Puritans, who came in the 1620s). Nothing in the first two essays I saw was anachronistic -- so what did you see out of the first essays?

                              Nothing Teal mentioned is anachronistic -- Hannah-Jones' argument that the founders intentionally codified slavery into the nation's founding documents and laws isn't rebutted by the fact that there were abolitionists in the emerging nation or even among the founders; those who were present did not or could not stop the majority from continuing (and even strengthening) the slave trade.

                              That manumission laws existed before the creation of a new country with entirely new laws is obviously irrelevant -- the framers of the -constitution- could have, but did not, supersede or obsolete such laws -- even though the Constitution and new federal laws superseded or obsoleted other types of law.

                              Britain ended its slave trade in 1807, not 1833; Teal chose the latter of two laws to make her maximum argument but gets the thrust wrong, anyhow: By the 1770s, the abolitionist movement (led by people like Samuel Johnson) in Britain had emerged and was gaining strength. By the 1780s, when the Constitution and other documents were being written, major court cases in Britain (e.g., Sommerset v Stewart) had won freedom for chattel slaves in Britain. The American colonists/revolutionaries/statesmen were not unaware that slavery in Britain was ending at home and threatened in the colonies. What you're calling an "anachronism" is simply history.

                              --Sam
                              Most abolitionists were, by necessity, white, so it's a bit anachronistic to make it seem like only black resistance and protest is what changed the plight of black people, and forced this nation to live up to it's ideals of "all men are created equal."

                              And on the subject of equality, "all men are created equal," included women ("men" being synonymous with "humans"), and yet women didn't have the same rights as white men. So it's a bit selective to talk about how those words didn't apply to "hundreds of thousands of black people." Why not argue, "But the white men who drafted those words did not believe them to be true for over half the nation." That, of course, wouldn't work for purposes of the essay.

                              The argument that "black rights struggles paved the way for every other rights struggle, including women’s and gay rights, immigrant and disability rights," is disingenuous and seriously downplays those other struggles. One could just as easily argue that the suffrage movement paved the way for black rights struggle if one were so inclined. It might be more accurate to say that they shared similar goals, and/or that suffragettes and abolitionists (for instance) often collaborated or were one in the same, but to assert that black rights struggles paved the way for every other rights struggle is saying too much.

                              Teal can defend her own arguments, but it would seem to me that if someone is arguing for the legacy of black people in America since before the nation's founding (all the way back to 1619), referring back to manumission laws preceding the Constitution is relevant, especially when plenty of state laws and charters carried over and were still in effect well after Independence. Could the US Constitution have superseded or obsoleted such laws? I don't know. It seems to me that the framers of the Constitution were heavily in support of State rights, and did what they could to prevent federal government from superseding those rights.


                              As an aside, why are you putting the quoted posts below your reply? It makes it harder to see who you're replying to when you do that. Also, it's unnecessary to postscript with your name, as we can all see your name on the top-left of your post.
                              Last edited by Adrift; 08-22-2019, 11:16 AM.

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                              • #45
                                Originally posted by Sam View Post
                                The theme of Hannah-Jones' essay is that black Americans, through their massive contributions to American economy, structure, wealth, and democracy, have earned full purchase in all of these things but have systematically, and often cruelly, been denied -- denied not only their due but even an equal share. Still today, we find politicians, businesses, and other citizens denying black Americans access to democracy, fair representation, business opportunities. The wounds aren't old and black Americans aren't the ones rubbing peoples' faces in an injustice.
                                Nonsense Sam, I don't see anyone preventing blacks from doing anything. And I have no idea what you mean by equal share. The vast majority of this country's wealth and power was the result of the industrial revolution. And most of that generated in the north long after slavery.
                                Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

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