1619 vs. 1776

[lpetrich]

In 2019, the New York Times published its "1619 Project", about the ugly legacy of slavery in a nation whose national mythology features "freedom" very prominently. I say "mythology" because in an absolute sense, different freedoms conflict, so it's hard to make freedom an absolute ideal.

The 1619 Project - The New York Times

In August of 1619, a ship appeared on this horizon, near Point Comfort, a coastal port in the English colony of Virginia. It carried more than 20 enslaved Africans, who were sold to the colonists. No aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by the years of slavery that followed. In the 400th anniversary of this fateful moment, it is finally time to tell our story truthfully.

The 1619 Project

The 1619 Project is an ongoing initiative from The New York Times Magazine that began in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.

Why We Published The 1619 Project - The New York Times

An Update to The 1619 Project - The New York Times - on the issue of whether some colonists wanted independence because they wanted to hold on to their slaves.

Right-wingers howled about how unpatriotic it supposedly was, and the Trump Administration worked on its alternative, the 1776 Commission.

 

[lpetrich]

Its report: The-Presidents-Advisory-1776-Commission-Final-Report.pdf

It states

The most common charge levelled against the founders, and hence against our country itself, is that they were hypocrites who didn’t believe in their stated principles, and therefore the country they built rests on a lie. This charge is untrue, and has done enormous damage, especially in recent years, with a devastating effect on our civic unity and social fabric.

Then continues with how many people in many parts of the world have practiced slavery. But that's a bad defense, because it implies that the US is not a uniquely virtuous nation. It also denies the oodles of evidence of slavery corrupting the nation's politics.

Then linking Progressivism to Fascism and Communism.

Trump’s ‘1776 report’ defends America’s founding on the basis of slavery and blasts progressivism. - The New York Times

Ibram X. Kendi on Twitter: "I finished reading the 1776 Commission ..." / Twitter

I finished reading the 1776 Commission Report. It claims America is “the most just and glorious country in all of human history”--the nation's great founding truth. But anti-Americans are disregarding this great patriotic truth, the report argues. But it does not take long to read this report as the last great lie from a Trump administration of great lies.

This report makes it seems as if slaveholding founding fathers were abolitionists; that Americans were the early beacon of the global abolitionist movement; that the demise of slavery in the United States was inevitable; that those espousing identity politics today resemble proslavery theorists like John C. Calhoun; that since the civil rights movement, Black people have been given “privileges” and “preferential treatment” in nearly every sector of society, which is news to Black people. If we have commonly been given preferential treatment, then why do Black people remain on the lower and dying end of nearly every racial disparity? Whenever they answer this question, they express racist ideas of Black inferiority while claiming they are “not racist.”

The report claims identity politics “values people by characteristics like race, sex, and sexual orientation,” when actually identity politics points out that people are devalued in American society because of characteristics like race, sex, and sexual orientation. Why else would Black people say #Blacklivesmatter? Why else would women say #MeToo? These are expressions of valuing us in a society devaluing what keeps happening to us.

Finally, the report calls for “restoring patriotic education that teaches the truth about America. That doesn’t mean ignoring the faults in our past, but rather viewing our history clearly and wholly, with reverence and love.” Does this mean that the descendants of enslaved people and the descendants of slaveholders should view their ancestors’ enslavement and slaveholding clearly and wholly with reverence and love? Can anything be more shameful? I think not. But that's the point. We're supposed to revere and love the founding fathers no matter what just as Trump wants us to revere and love him no matter what. Trump supporters call their fealty, freedom. We call their fealty, tyranny. The 1776 Commission Report is calling forth our fealty to tyranny. But we will resist, like we resisted the proslavery founding fathers and their ideological descendants who wrote this report.

 

[lpetrich]

The 1776 Report was released on this year's Martin Luther King Day, and some people have claimed that this was deliberate.

In any case, I'm sure that MLK would have wholeheartedly endorsed the 1619 Project and dismissed the 1776 Report as a whitewash. He'd be rather insulted at how he was quoted in it to make it seem like he was on the side of the 1776 Commission.

 

[repoman]

Poor People's March MLK? Endorse the narrow scope of the 1619 Project? Hmm.

Note, not a fan of the 1776 Project.

 

[blastula]

The White House page that released the egregiously ideological 1776 Commission report says "1776 Commission—comprised of some of America’s most distinguished scholars and historians." LOL. I looked up the 16 names in the report, and there's about 3 or 4 (very conservative) scholars and the rest are all conservative politicians and activists, including fucking Charlie Kirk!

 

[Patooka]

Poor People's March MLK? Endorse the narrow scope of the 1619 Project? Hmm.

Note, not a fan of the 1776 Project.

What the fuck does that mean?

The White House page that released the 1776 Commission report says "1776 Commission—comprised of some of America’s most distinguished scholars and historians." LOL. I looked up the 16 names in the report, and there's about 3 or 4 (very conservative) scholars and the rest are all conservative politicians and activists, including fucking Charlie Kirk!

Charlie Kirk is a Scholar? What's his degree in?

 

[SimpleDon]

Poor People's March MLK? Endorse the narrow scope of the 1619 Project? Hmm.

Note, not a fan of the 1776 Project.

What the fuck does that mean?

The White House page that released the 1776 Commission report says "1776 Commission—comprised of some of America’s most distinguished scholars and historians." LOL. I looked up the 16 names in the report, and there's about 3 or 4 (very conservative) scholars and the rest are all conservative politicians and activists, including fucking Charlie Kirk!

Charlie Kirk is a Scholar? What's his degree in?

His education is listed as Wheeling High School.

 

[Patooka]

What the fuck does that mean?



Charlie Kirk is a Scholar? What's his degree in?

His education is listed as Wheeling High School.

Oh I know. Both him and Tim Pool try to cast themselves as high thinking intellectuals and their style of arguing is basically talk fast and play tit for tat.

 

[Gospel]

What the fuck does that mean?



Charlie Kirk is a Scholar? What's his degree in?

His education is listed as Wheeling High School.

Oh I know. Both him and Tim Pool try to cast themselves as high thinking intellectuals and their style of arguing is basically talk fast and play tit for tat.

I thought that was already ®'d by Ben Shapiro.

 

[Patooka]

Oh I know. Both him and Tim Pool try to cast themselves as high thinking intellectuals and their style of arguing is basically talk fast and play tit for tat.

I thought that was already ®'d by Ben Shapiro.

Guess who they both admire.

 

[SimpleDon]

These two reports are sufficient to define the conservative/liberal divide in the US.

Both put entirely too much value on our shared history as determining what we have to do today. The identity politics of the left versus the overblown conspiracy theories and other lies of the right.

Yes, the liberal 1619 is better researched and better written. Yes, the conservative 1776 reads like Stephen Miller's high school sophomore term paper. Yes, 1619 is largely fact and 1776 is largely fancy.

We are fucked. We have many problems, both short term, Covid-19 and the economy, and long term, climate change, income inequality, and social justice. Neither of these two essays rehashing history with the aim of justifying today's biases is going to help us solve any of these.

 

[repoman]

These two reports are sufficient to define the conservative/liberal divide in the US.

Both put entirely too much value on our shared history as determining what we have to do today. The identity politics of the left versus the overblown conspiracy theories and other lies of the right.

Yes, the liberal 1619 is better researched and better written. Yes, the conservative 1776 reads like Stephen Miller's high school sophomore term paper. Yes, 1619 is largely fact and 1776 is largely fancy.

We are fucked. We have many problems, both short term, Covid-19 and the economy, and long term, climate change, income inequality, and social justice. Neither of these two essays rehashing history with the aim of justifying today's biases is going to help us solve any of these.

That is why the group of leftists I think are on the mark are the anti-woke, class first leftists

 

[repoman]

These two reports are sufficient to define the conservative/liberal divide in the US.

Both put entirely too much value on our shared history as determining what we have to do today. The identity politics of the left versus the overblown conspiracy theories and other lies of the right.

Yes, the liberal 1619 is better researched and better written. Yes, the conservative 1776 reads like Stephen Miller's high school sophomore term paper. Yes, 1619 is largely fact and 1776 is largely fancy.

We are fucked. We have many problems, both short term, Covid-19 and the economy, and long term, climate change, income inequality, and social justice. Neither of these two essays rehashing history with the aim of justifying today's biases is going to help us solve any of these.

Note: I think that it fair game and required to go hard after the massive con man Trump for all financial chicanery he has done especially in New York state. But political retribution is not an answer.

This is a bit of a tangent, but I think it is worth it:

At the end of WWII a wise decision was made to not be punitive against Japan and Hirohito and if this was not the case then this feature listed below would not have worked,

https://www.quora.com/Why-are-many-European-folk-songs-that-were-sung-in-Japan-now-more-famous-in-their-Japanese-versions-For-example-it-was-difficult-to-find-the-Swiss-version-of-O-Vreneli-but-the-Japanese-version-is-easily-found

After WWII, there was a うたごえ運動 'Let's-Sing-Peaceful-Songs Movement' in Japan. Its main subject was anti-war songs and many folk songs from the world (England, Scotland, Russia, Europe, America, Asia etc.) as well.

In my university days (almost 55 years ago), there were many cafes everybody can sing such songs together as long as we want.

If you are going to treat Trump voters worse than Occupied Japan, well then...

 

[Patooka]

These two reports are sufficient to define the conservative/liberal divide in the US.

Both put entirely too much value on our shared history as determining what we have to do today. The identity politics of the left versus the overblown conspiracy theories and other lies of the right.

Yes, the liberal 1619 is better researched and better written. Yes, the conservative 1776 reads like Stephen Miller's high school sophomore term paper. Yes, 1619 is largely fact and 1776 is largely fancy.

We are fucked. We have many problems, both short term, Covid-19 and the economy, and long term, climate change, income inequality, and social justice. Neither of these two essays rehashing history with the aim of justifying today's biases is going to help us solve any of these.

Note: I think that it fair game and required to go hard after the massive con man Trump for all financial chicanery he has done especially in New York state. But political retribution is not an answer.

This is a bit of a tangent, but I think it is worth it:

At the end of WWII a wise decision was made to not be punitive against Japan and Hirohito and if this was not the case then this feature listed below would not have worked,

https://www.quora.com/Why-are-many-European-folk-songs-that-were-sung-in-Japan-now-more-famous-in-their-Japanese-versions-For-example-it-was-difficult-to-find-the-Swiss-version-of-O-Vreneli-but-the-Japanese-version-is-easily-found

After WWII, there was a うたごえ運動 'Let's-Sing-Peaceful-Songs Movement' in Japan. Its main subject was anti-war songs and many folk songs from the world (England, Scotland, Russia, Europe, America, Asia etc.) as well.

In my university days (almost 55 years ago), there were many cafes everybody can sing such songs together as long as we want.

If you are going to treat Trump voters worse than Occupied Japan, well then...

This has got to be one of the greatest oversimplifications I've seen. Japan wanted peace and reconciliation. Name one Trumptard who still isn't on the warpath about election fraud. Name one Republicunt who could imagine working with a "Demonrat".

Incidentally, comparing wartime diplomacy with domestic politics is just fucking moronic.

 

[blastula]

A big chunk of Trump’s 1776 report appears lifted from an author’s prior work - POLITICO

Of course. Still, what a joke.

 

[Derec]

In 2019, the New York Times published its "1619 Project", about the ugly legacy of slavery in a nation whose national mythology features "freedom" very prominently. I say "mythology" because in an absolute sense, different freedoms conflict, so it's hard to make freedom an absolute ideal.

It was a stupid idea. The whole fetishization of slavery by the black community and the Far Left is really counterproductive.
It also leads to some mind-bogglingly idiotic things like NBA hundred-millionaires claiming they are "slaves".

 

[lpetrich]

From that article, "The report was meant to be the definitive conservative rendering of U.S. history. But historians have slammed it as sloppy and slanted."

President Donald Trump’s 1776 Commission was supposed to be the definitive “patriotic” rejoinder to the academic left for what conservatives view as a slanderous rendering of U.S. history. But the report released by the commission on Monday has been mocked by historians as slapdash and slanted. And a good chunk appears lifted or recycled from other publications.

That publication has no references.

Upon its publication, the report was criticized by historians for its lack of scholarship and factual accuracy. Though it claimed, for instance, that George Washington “freed all the slaves in his family estate” by the end of his life, Washington had only freed one slave upon his death, and requested that the rest of his slaves be freed after the death of his wife. Even upon Martha Washington’s death less than three years later, several slaves remained in bondage, transferred to her grandchildren.

Other historians disputed the report’s suggestions that Martin Luther King Jr. would have opposed affirmative action, pointing to his explicit support of programs that would grant preferential treatment to Black people.

Taxation No Tyranny - Samuel Johnson - his response to the North American colonists who grumbled about taxation without representation.

"We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?"

 

[Mumbles]

In 2019, the New York Times published its "1619 Project", about the ugly legacy of slavery in a nation whose national mythology features "freedom" very prominently. I say "mythology" because in an absolute sense, different freedoms conflict, so it's hard to make freedom an absolute ideal.

It was a stupid idea. The whole fetishization of slavery by the black community and the Far Left is really counterproductive.
It also leads to some mind-bogglingly idiotic things like NBA hundred-millionaires claiming they are "slaves".

Psst! PSST! Lebron James was denouncing team owners in the NFL - where he does not play his signature sport of basketball - and comparing them to the NBA team owners. By definition, he is stating that team owners where he plays do not think like slave owners! You got this one totally wrong!

I'm not going to discuss the use of "woke" anything by white conservatives until they actually define what on earth they mean by the word - "woke" originally meant "aware of white supremacy", which renders most of their usage into gibberish, much like "SJW" or "cancel culture".

As to the 1776 project, Biden has already announced he's going to scrap it today - which is good, given that among many other ridiculous assertions, it liken progressivism to fascism, and claim s that Affirmative action was denounced by MLK Jr. and is a successor to John Calhoun.

 

[lpetrich]

1776 report: Historians attack Trump commission’s account of nation’s past as ‘outright lies’ - The Washington Post

The report was intended to advance a version of U.S. history that would “restor[e] patriotic education” in schools. Historians largely condemned it, saying it was filled with errors and partisan politics.

“It’s a hack job. It’s not a work of history,” American Historical Association executive director James Grossman told The Washington Post. “It’s a work of contentious politics designed to stoke culture wars.”

... and most of those listed as authors lack any credentials as historians. While claiming to present a nonpartisan history, it compares progressivism to fascism and claims the civil rights movement devolved into “preferential” identity politics “not unlike those advanced by [slavery defender John C.] Calhoun and his followers.”

Then noting several historians' slams of the 1776 Report.

“I don’t know where to begin,” said public historian Alexis Coe. “This ‘report’ lacks citations or any indication books were consulted, which explains why it’s riddled in errors, distortions, and outright lies.”

Kali Nicole Gross, a history professor at Rutgers and Emory universities and the co-author of “A Black Women’s History of the United States,” said it was “dusty, dated” and “the usual dodge on the long-lasting, harmful impacts of settler-colonialism, enslavement, Jim Crow, the oppression of women, the plight of queer people … as the true threat to democracy.”

 

[lpetrich]

Trump’s 1776 Commission Critiques Liberalism in Report Derided by Historians - The New York Times

In his remarks at the National Archives announcing the commission’s formation, Mr. Trump said that “the left-wing rioting and mayhem are the direct result of decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools.”

Right-wing bullshit.

James Grossman, the executive director of the American Historical Association, said the report was not a work of history, but “cynical politics.”

“This report skillfully weaves together myths, distortions, deliberate silences, and both blatant and subtle misreading of evidence to create a narrative and an argument that few respectable professional historians, even across a wide interpretive spectrum, would consider plausible, never mind convincing,” he said.

“They’re using something they call history to stoke culture wars,” he said.

The report describes a nation dominated by unpatriotic left-wing extremists.

The biggest tell in the 1776 report is that it lists ‘Progressivism’ along with ‘Slavery’ and ‘Fascism’ in its list of ‘challenges to America’s principles,’” Thomas Sugrue, a historian at New York University, wrote on Twitter. “Time to rewrite my lectures to say that ending child labor and regulating meatpacking = Hitlerism.”

...
The report’s authors denounce the charge that the American founders were hypocrites who preached equality even as they codified slavery in the Constitution and held slaves themselves.

“This charge is untrue, and has done enormous damage, especially in recent years, with a devastating effect on our civic unity and social fabric,” they write. Men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, while they owned hundreds of enslaved people, abhorred slavery, the report contends.

Seth Masket on Twitter: "The White House 1776 Report seems to regard calling the Founders hypocritical about slavery as worse for the country than actual slavery. (links)" / Twitter

Seth Masket on Twitter: "Also, the report goes after early 20th century Progressivism for... interpreting the Constitution differently from those in the 19th century. I'm totally here for a critique of Progressives! But this is an odd one." / Twitter

Seth Masket on Twitter: "OMG! The Civil Rights Movement had such promise, but then gave into Calhounism! (link)" / Twitter

Seth Masket on Twitter: "If the entire 1776 Report was just the word "Actually" written in 36-point font, it would have both served the same purpose and been more accurate." / Twitter