7 ms·

That's interesting. Which historical fact from the 1619 Project do you dispute?

camelite 6y ago
The fact-checker the Times hired zeroed in[1] on this claim (though there were others of import): >At one point, she sent me this assertion: “One critical reason that the colonists declared their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery in the colonies, which had produced tremendous wealth. At the time there were growing calls to abolish slavery throughout the British Empire, which would have badly damaged the economies of colonies in both North and South.” >I vigorously disputed the claim. Although slavery was certainly an issue in the American Revolution, the protection of slavery was not one of the main reasons the 13 Colonies went to war. [1] https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-project-new-york-times-mistake-122248 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-proje...
bumby 6y ago
(It's odd to me that your post simply requesting clarification is being downvoted) I'm not the OP and just starting to dig into the 1619 project so take this with a grain of salt. There's a few parts that seem to extrapolate too far, or view everything from a pre-determined lens of race to chose their narrative. One example is the claim that the U.S.'s lack of universal healthcare is the result of racism. The project goes on to detail how the Freedman's Bureau (which provided healthcare to former slaves) was prematurely closed, making the case it was because "legislators argued that free assistance of any kind would breed dependence and that when it came to black infirmity, hard labor was a better salve than white medicine." I'm sure there were legislators that took that view, but other sources point out the organization was only intended to last for one year after the Civil War. When an extension was proposed, the main objections were that it was too expensive and would infringe on States rights. (Unironically, some of the same arguments used today). Race is certainly part of the fabric of the nation's history and colors many of the problems faced, but I'm not sure race can be used as the root cause of every malaise as the project seems to allude.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  Yep I think the project suffers from their own focus on racism has made them as biased as their competition. It's one thing to point out the influence and connections to racism/slavery/people of color on American history and society but it's incorrect to include it at the top of the food chain as the primary motivator of everything down through American history. That's just a naive and lazy argument. I love when people point out the hypocrisy of those who want to sweep such topics under the rug, but to consider them as the primary reason this country exists and why we are the way we are is ludicrous.
rayiner 6y ago
The 1619 project has walked back the central claim of the lead essay: https://quillette.com/2020/09/19/down-the-1619-projects-memory-hole/ https://quillette.com/2020/09/19/down-the-1619-projects-memo... The original version of the lead essay said: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/magazine/we-respond-to-the-historians-who-critiqued-the-1619-project.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/magazine/we-respond-to-th... > one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery The current version adds two key words that totally change the meaning: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/black-history-american-democracy.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/blac... > one of the primary reasons some of the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery. These two statements are totally different. “One of the primary things the Democrats want is to defund the police” is obviously not true. “One of the primary things some of the Democrats want is to defund the police” is obviously true, but means something totally different. The 1619 Project’s hit piece on capitalism was so bad that Jacobin had to step in with a correction piece: https://jacobinmag.com/2019/08/how-slavery-shaped-american-capitalism https://jacobinmag.com/2019/08/how-slavery-shaped-american-c... > Desmond begins his article by drawing on the Harvard historian Sven Beckert who argues that “it was on the back of cotton, and thus on the backs of slaves, that the U.S. economy ascended in the world.” Yet Desmond neglects to mention that this claim has been widely rejected by specialists in the economic history of slavery. The Jacobin piece even discusses better arguments the NYT could have made, such as slavery being a reason for the US’s particularly strong protection of private property. That’s debatable, but at least it’s within the realm of the mainstream thought among historians.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  The central claim of the lead essay seems to be that "[The US's] founding ideals were false when they were written". Perhaps you mean "a" central claim?
  - rayiner 6y ago
    Maybe the “central novel claim” of the essay. All schoolchildren know Jefferson was being a hypocrite in declaring “all men are created equal” while owning other people. That was taught to us when I was in school in Virginia, a curriculum that otherwise venerated Jefferson. The idea that the founders were primarily motivated to break from Britain to protect slavery is what attracted so much attention, because it was novel. Unfortunately, it was novel because most historians don’t think that’s true. There is a real story here: people don’t appreciate the scope of things that were affected and influenced by the institution of slavery. But the New York Times went far beyond that in its bombastic claims: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/magazine/1619-project-livestream.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/magazine/1619-project-liv... > The goal of the project is to deepen understanding of American history (and the American present) by proposing a new point of origin for our national story. In the days and weeks to come, we will publish essays demonstrating that nearly everything that has made America exceptional grew out of slavery. Deepening the understanding of American history is good. But claiming that “nearly everything that has made America exceptional grew out of slavery” is demagoguery. America didn’t rebuild Europe after WWII because of slavery. It didn’t become the most successful immigrant country in the world because of slavery. Silicon Valley, the moon landing, and our raft of Nobel Laureates didn’t grow out of slavery.
DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
The claim that got them the most in trouble with historians was this: > one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery Gordon Wood responded, > "I don't know of any colonist who said that they wanted independence in order to preserve their slaves." Gordon Wood is known as the expert on colonial pamphlets and ideology more generally during the Revolutionary era, so him saying this carries a lot of weight. Gordon Wood and a bunch of other very well known historians wrote to the NY Times to ask for corrections. The editor of the magazine, Jake Silverstein, published their letter next to his rebuttal, in which he argued that defending slavery was indeed a cause of the revolution.[1] What he didn't say was that the NY Time's own fact checker had objected to the claim. That only came out later.[2] The embarrassment of that revelation finally caused the NY Times to slightly weaken - but not entirely drop - its claim about the revolution. The claim about the revolution caused the most controversy, because it has huge consequences for how one interprets American history, but it was hardly the only false or highly questionable claim. A few others: * The US has worse labor protections than Brazil because of the US' history of slavery (Brazil was the largest slave nation in modern history, and abolished slavery well after the US did). * Presenting New Orleans as the financial capital of the antebellum US (NY city alone had nearly as much banking capital as the entire South, and far more than New Orleans). * Claiming that double-entry bookkeeping was invented on Southern plantations (that would be a surprise to Luca Pacioli, the 15th-Century Florentine mathematician who wrote a treatise on double-entry bookkeeping). Just fundamentally, I would tell anyone who doesn't already know the history well not to try to learn it from the 1619 Project, because you really can't trust any of the factual claims in the project. People would be much better served by reading more standard historical works (including some of the very accessible works written by critics of the 1619 Project that deal with slavery - James Oakes and James McPherson come to mind). 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/magazine/we-respond-to-the-historians-who-critiqued-the-1619-project.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/magazine/we-respond-to-th... 2. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-project-new-york-times-mistake-122248 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-proje...

The fact-checker the Times hired zeroed in[1] on this claim (though there were others of import): >At one point, she sent me this assertion: “One critical reason that the colonists declared their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery in the colonies, which had produced tremendous wealth. At the time there were growing calls to abolish slavery throughout the British Empire, which would have badly damaged the economies of colonies in both North and South.” >I vigorously disputed the claim. Although slavery was certainly an issue in the American Revolution, the protection of slavery was not one of the main reasons the 13 Colonies went to war. [1] https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-project-new-york-times-mistake-122248 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-proje...

bumby 6y ago

(It's odd to me that your post simply requesting clarification is being downvoted) I'm not the OP and just starting to dig into the 1619 project so take this with a grain of salt. There's a few parts that seem to extrapolate too far, or view everything from a pre-determined lens of race to chose their narrative. One example is the claim that the U.S.'s lack of universal healthcare is the result of racism. The project goes on to detail how the Freedman's Bureau (which provided healthcare to former slaves) was prematurely closed, making the case it was because "legislators argued that free assistance of any kind would breed dependence and that when it came to black infirmity, hard labor was a better salve than white medicine." I'm sure there were legislators that took that view, but other sources point out the organization was only intended to last for one year after the Civil War. When an extension was proposed, the main objections were that it was too expensive and would infringe on States rights. (Unironically, some of the same arguments used today). Race is certainly part of the fabric of the nation's history and colors many of the problems faced, but I'm not sure race can be used as the root cause of every malaise as the project seems to allude.

stjohnswarts 6y ago
Yep I think the project suffers from their own focus on racism has made them as biased as their competition. It's one thing to point out the influence and connections to racism/slavery/people of color on American history and society but it's incorrect to include it at the top of the food chain as the primary motivator of everything down through American history. That's just a naive and lazy argument. I love when people point out the hypocrisy of those who want to sweep such topics under the rug, but to consider them as the primary reason this country exists and why we are the way we are is ludicrous.

rayiner 6y ago

The 1619 project has walked back the central claim of the lead essay: https://quillette.com/2020/09/19/down-the-1619-projects-memory-hole/ https://quillette.com/2020/09/19/down-the-1619-projects-memo... The original version of the lead essay said: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/magazine/we-respond-to-the-historians-who-critiqued-the-1619-project.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/magazine/we-respond-to-th... > one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery The current version adds two key words that totally change the meaning: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/black-history-american-democracy.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/blac... > one of the primary reasons some of the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery. These two statements are totally different. “One of the primary things the Democrats want is to defund the police” is obviously not true. “One of the primary things some of the Democrats want is to defund the police” is obviously true, but means something totally different. The 1619 Project’s hit piece on capitalism was so bad that Jacobin had to step in with a correction piece: https://jacobinmag.com/2019/08/how-slavery-shaped-american-capitalism https://jacobinmag.com/2019/08/how-slavery-shaped-american-c... > Desmond begins his article by drawing on the Harvard historian Sven Beckert who argues that “it was on the back of cotton, and thus on the backs of slaves, that the U.S. economy ascended in the world.” Yet Desmond neglects to mention that this claim has been widely rejected by specialists in the economic history of slavery. The Jacobin piece even discusses better arguments the NYT could have made, such as slavery being a reason for the US’s particularly strong protection of private property. That’s debatable, but at least it’s within the realm of the mainstream thought among historians.

joshuamorton 6y ago
The central claim of the lead essay seems to be that "[The US's] founding ideals were false when they were written". Perhaps you mean "a" central claim?
- rayiner 6y ago
  Maybe the “central novel claim” of the essay. All schoolchildren know Jefferson was being a hypocrite in declaring “all men are created equal” while owning other people. That was taught to us when I was in school in Virginia, a curriculum that otherwise venerated Jefferson. The idea that the founders were primarily motivated to break from Britain to protect slavery is what attracted so much attention, because it was novel. Unfortunately, it was novel because most historians don’t think that’s true. There is a real story here: people don’t appreciate the scope of things that were affected and influenced by the institution of slavery. But the New York Times went far beyond that in its bombastic claims: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/magazine/1619-project-livestream.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/magazine/1619-project-liv... > The goal of the project is to deepen understanding of American history (and the American present) by proposing a new point of origin for our national story. In the days and weeks to come, we will publish essays demonstrating that nearly everything that has made America exceptional grew out of slavery. Deepening the understanding of American history is good. But claiming that “nearly everything that has made America exceptional grew out of slavery” is demagoguery. America didn’t rebuild Europe after WWII because of slavery. It didn’t become the most successful immigrant country in the world because of slavery. Silicon Valley, the moon landing, and our raft of Nobel Laureates didn’t grow out of slavery.

DiogenesKynikos 6y ago

The claim that got them the most in trouble with historians was this: > one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery Gordon Wood responded, > "I don't know of any colonist who said that they wanted independence in order to preserve their slaves." Gordon Wood is known as the expert on colonial pamphlets and ideology more generally during the Revolutionary era, so him saying this carries a lot of weight. Gordon Wood and a bunch of other very well known historians wrote to the NY Times to ask for corrections. The editor of the magazine, Jake Silverstein, published their letter next to his rebuttal, in which he argued that defending slavery was indeed a cause of the revolution.[1] What he didn't say was that the NY Time's own fact checker had objected to the claim. That only came out later.[2] The embarrassment of that revelation finally caused the NY Times to slightly weaken - but not entirely drop - its claim about the revolution. The claim about the revolution caused the most controversy, because it has huge consequences for how one interprets American history, but it was hardly the only false or highly questionable claim. A few others: * The US has worse labor protections than Brazil because of the US' history of slavery (Brazil was the largest slave nation in modern history, and abolished slavery well after the US did). * Presenting New Orleans as the financial capital of the antebellum US (NY city alone had nearly as much banking capital as the entire South, and far more than New Orleans). * Claiming that double-entry bookkeeping was invented on Southern plantations (that would be a surprise to Luca Pacioli, the 15th-Century Florentine mathematician who wrote a treatise on double-entry bookkeeping). Just fundamentally, I would tell anyone who doesn't already know the history well not to try to learn it from the 1619 Project, because you really can't trust any of the factual claims in the project. People would be much better served by reading more standard historical works (including some of the very accessible works written by critics of the 1619 Project that deal with slavery - James Oakes and James McPherson come to mind). 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/magazine/we-respond-to-the-historians-who-critiqued-the-1619-project.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/magazine/we-respond-to-th... 2. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-project-new-york-times-mistake-122248 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-proje...