4 thoughts on “Much Needed Perspective On Slavery”

  1. The 1619 Project is the crap that the education elites are trying to force down student’s throats ( K-12 ! )

    In many respects, the 1619 Project exemplifies why Americans have come to distrust elite institutions. When The New York Times launched this self-described “reframing” of America’s founding, distinguished scholars from across the political spectrum identified egregious errors of historical fact and interpretation in this work.

    The problems were numerous and noticed immediately. By misrepresenting evidence, the 1619 Project’s lead organizer Nikole Hannah-Jones falsely depicted the American Revolution as a pro-slavery cause. A second 1619 Project essay by Matthew Desmond misinterpreted the economic dimensions of slavery as part of an attempt to indict American capitalism for the author’s own ideological reasons. In the process, he flubbed basic math and inadvertently tried to resuscitate the discredited “King Cotton” thesis of economic development that the Confederacy enlisted to its cause in 1861.

    A simple correction to these and other errors by the Times could have salvaged the project’s remaining components, and perhaps even spawned a constructive scholarly dialogue. Instead, Hannah-Jones attacked and smeared her scholarly critics. The newspaper stood behind her and, perhaps more alarming, so did most of the academic profession.

    Beyond the subject-matter experts who identified the original errors, the university system began to shower Hannah-Jones with rewards and emoluments for her allegedly “groundbreaking” work. She went on a promotional tour across college campuses at rates that often exceeded $40,000 for speeches lasting an hour or less. In 2021, Hannah-Jones attempted to convert her journalistic fame into a faculty position at the University of North Carolina, despite lacking a terminal degree or any academic research publications. After turning down the offer amid controversy over her demand to start the job with full tenure, she accepted a similar tenured position at Howard University.

    Let’s be thankful that there were some critics who were not intimated and called a spade a spade.

  2. Amen! Well said. And note that the millions of slaves from Africa into the Middle East and Ottoman Empire have no descendants. N. American slavery is nearly unique in leading to families and to growing populations. And their descendants are the richest most successful black people on the planet, multiples richer than the average African.

    1. Great points, J. Sobran. While Republicans’ support has eroded since last year, I continue to believe that young black men still are beginning to understand the lie their crowd has been sold for many decades. The remote history of slavery ought not drive them away from the American idea and into the hands of Marxists.

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