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Misplaced Blame: Using 1619 For Propaganda in 2020
Townhall.com ^ | March 1, 2020 | Marvin Olasky

Posted on 03/01/2020 6:22:40 AM PST by Kaslin

This year's Oscar festivities included a commercial for the biggest historical gambit of the past year, the “1619 Project” of The New York Times. Princeton historian Allen Guelzo says it “is not history; it is conspiracy theory. The 1619 Project is not history; it is ignorance,” and you can see by Guelzo’s use of semicolons that he’s an academic who normally doesn’t scream.

Guelzo and many other scholars are complaining about the 1619 Project, named after the tragic year slaves from Africa first arrived in Virginia. The project teaches that America’s 18th-century founders fought a revolution “to ensure that slavery would continue.” The project, in its own words, shows slavery was part of “the brutality of American capitalism … low-road capitalism … winner-take-all capitalism … racist capitalism.”

As if there’s not only enough hate-America teaching in public schools, some educators are jumping on this crooked-wheel bandwagon. Chicago Public Schools announced that each of its high schools will receive 200-400 copies of the Times’ glossy 1619 Project publication, whereby students will learn that America relishes not only modernity and democracy but also “barbarism … cruelty … totalitarianism.”

Some backstory on the use of such loaded terms in a newspaper that once used understated prose: The Times has figured out a way to have both the appearance of moral principle and the accretion of financial principal. While its editors and writers rage, rage against the Trump machine, the newspaper’s decisive move further to the political left has won it many new readers and millions of dollars. The Times had already lost most of its conservative subscribers, so it alienated few as it picked up numerous Trump-haters.

Last month prominent historians James McPherson, Gordon Wood, Sean Wilentz, Victoria Bynum, and James Oakes charged that the 1619 Project reflects “a displacement of historical understanding by ideology.” The NYT turned down their request for corrections. These and other liberal or moderate historians recognize the evil of slavery but stand against attempts to minimize not only its horror but its continuing effects.

Allen Guelzo’s 2012 book “Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War & Reconstruction” is a thoughtful account of the war and its aftermath, so I value his judgment: “The 1619 Project is not history: it is polemic, born in the imaginations of those whose primary target is capitalism itself and who hope to tarnish capitalism by associating it with slavery.”

Guelzo said the NYT effort views “slavery not as a blemish that the Founders grudgingly tolerated with the understanding that it must soon evaporate, but as the prize that the Constitution went out of its way to secure and protect. The Times presents slavery not as a regrettable chapter in the distant past, but as the living, breathing pattern upon which all American social life is based, world without end.”

That’s no exaggeration. The 1619 Project is a case study in how, to a hammer, everything looks like a nail: “Why doesn’t the United States have universal health care? The answer begins with policies enacted after the Civil War. … Slavery gave America a fear of black people and a taste for violent punishment. Both still define our prison system. … The sugar that saturates the American diet has a barbaric history as the ‘white gold’ that fueled slavery. … What does a traffic jam in Atlanta have to do with segregation? Quite a lot.”

So, given the many reasons we are disunited concerning health insurance, is the biggest one white fear that “free and healthy African-Americans would upend the racial hierarchy”? Yes, we need criminal justice reform, but is the main problem that “a presumption of danger and criminality still follows black people everywhere”?

Since my own Ph.D. is in American studies and I’ve written half a dozen American history books, I feel able to weigh in on this. Seems to me we’re seeing an NYT attempt to squeegee not only the present but the past as well, and drip what remains down the captive throats of teenagers forced to study a bigoted high-school curriculum.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: 1619; 1619project; americanhistory; conspiracy; godsgravesglyphs; history; newyorkslimes
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1 posted on 03/01/2020 6:22:40 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Why doesn’t Africa have universal health care?

Their prey is escaping before their very eyes as whites contracept themselves out of existence - and taxation. Unlike former African colonies, where some whites remained because they were so heavily invested in the land or industries, plenty of American whites targeted by the gibsmedats are quite willing to fade away without a peep - while spending everything they have in this lifetime (leaving nothing for the vultures).


2 posted on 03/01/2020 6:53:33 AM PST by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: Kaslin
Not a bad article, but why did he ruin it by writing, "Since my own Ph.D. is in American studies". Doesn't he realize that any degree ending in "studies" just oozes with liberalism? Yes, even if it is America studies. American History ok, studies is for lightweights.
3 posted on 03/01/2020 6:54:26 AM PST by RubinBoomer (Please be nice. I am new here. I'm open to doing things the FR way, just need to know.)
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To: Kaslin

4 posted on 03/01/2020 6:56:07 AM PST by Chode (Send bachelors and come heavily armed.)
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To: Kaslin

“free and healthy African-Americans would upend the racial hierarchy”

Based on stats, anyone else coming to this country would end up above blacks on the nonsensical “racial hierarchy”; who would they blame then?


5 posted on 03/01/2020 6:59:15 AM PST by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: Kaslin

The only thing special about 1619 is that it’s a prime number.


6 posted on 03/01/2020 7:04:42 AM PST by reg45 (Barack 0bama: Gone but not forgiven.)
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To: Kaslin

Slaves had free health care.


7 posted on 03/01/2020 7:10:00 AM PST by reg45 (Barack 0bama: Gone but not forgiven.)
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To: kearnyirish2

The dems and their commie buddies need a race war. They’ll do their best to foment it.

If people of all races ever just stopped and thought about how good they have it here, individually, as citizens and human beings, the democrat party would cease to exist, and the commies would have to go elsewhere to spread their manure.

Hence, keep blacks hating whites hating hispanics hating asians hating indians hating men hating women hating gays hating straights hating [ insert group du jour ]....

Their game is so transparent, yet we keep playing it.


8 posted on 03/01/2020 7:11:02 AM PST by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
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To: NFHale

I believe they are finding less players, and for one reason: Blacks are watching other groups replace them in daily life here. They know better when the elites claim open borders are a positive thing.


9 posted on 03/01/2020 7:12:52 AM PST by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: kearnyirish2

The author wrote “The Tragedy of American Compassion”. In the old days if you had no place to seep you had to chop wood for a couple of hours. Today there is no wood to chop as standards have risen and leaving the slackers behind. Is there enough grunt work out there that requires just a body? I think so but there’s profit in guilt.


10 posted on 03/01/2020 7:17:22 AM PST by DIRTYSECRET (urope. Why do they put up with this.)
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To: Kaslin

They are right about sugar, but all the rest is propaganda. I’ve been saying for 20 years that the ultimate goal of Leftists is to associate capitalism with racism until no one dares defend capitalism for fear of being branded a racist.


11 posted on 03/01/2020 7:19:12 AM PST by A_perfect_lady (The greatest wealth is to live content with little. -Plato)
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To: kearnyirish2
plenty of American whites targeted by the gibsmedats are quite willing to fade away without a peep - while spending everything they have in this lifetime (leaving nothing for the vultures).

Going Galt.

12 posted on 03/01/2020 7:21:19 AM PST by A_perfect_lady (The greatest wealth is to live content with little. -Plato)
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To: DIRTYSECRET

I’m sorry; I’m not sure I follow...


13 posted on 03/01/2020 7:22:55 AM PST by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: A_perfect_lady

On a massive scale.

Another FReeper pointed out an incident on a CA highway during the Black Lies Matter protests; a group of blacks, mixed with some white libs, was blocking traffic - and Hispanic and Asian commuters were yelling at them to get out of the way (they had to get to work). Working white taxpayers had completely removed themselves from the equation; the urban malcontents had no power over them at all.

The same situation exists to some degree or other in northeastern cities; the problematic populations are removed from the income-generating areas, and if they manage to stray into them, more and more workers can simply telecommute. Just as Hurricane Sandy was a good dry run for prepping in NJ for natural disasters, the small Black Lies Matter protests here were great ways for companies in the urban areas to prepare for feral unrest.


14 posted on 03/01/2020 7:31:52 AM PST by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: kearnyirish2

“...I believe they are finding less players,...”

True, but if you can control education, you can brainwash entire generations into “the Party Line”.

That’s what the Left is doing. But they want it without having to fire a shot...


15 posted on 03/01/2020 7:35:34 AM PST by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
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To: NFHale

They do control the message, but “white guilt” is as dead as the white birthrate; their targets are disappearing before their very eyes.


16 posted on 03/01/2020 7:39:51 AM PST by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: NFHale

A couple of years ago a Simba named Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley set out to kill cops in retribution for Michael Brown and Eric Garner; he ended up killing two cops - one Asian, one Hispanic. More and more, the black urban underclass is completely removed from the daily lives of whites. They’ll either have their own leaders/government workers, or they’ll deal with those from the “replacement American” populations (Hispanics, Asians). Otherwise, they have to travel farther and farther for targets of opportunity.


17 posted on 03/01/2020 7:44:48 AM PST by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: A_perfect_lady

While we weren’t looking they managed to get this dreadful piece of anti-American propaganda into over 3,000 schools.


18 posted on 03/01/2020 8:02:10 AM PST by gibsonguy
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To: Kaslin

A bigger view of Slavery and it’s actual roots that preceded any presence of Europeans or others

Not what we have been or Blacks have been told at all

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/im-saddened-white-mans-emasculation-raymond-ibrahim/

And before you click, Yes, he is African and Black


19 posted on 03/01/2020 8:25:12 AM PST by 100American (Knowledge is knowing how, Wisdom is knowing when)
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To: Kaslin

When the slavery issue comes up here’s a posting which offers the facts;
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3818053/posts


20 posted on 03/01/2020 9:30:11 AM PST by mosesdapoet (mosesdapoet aka L.J.Keslin posting here for the record hoping somebody might read and pass around)
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