THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2020
...that the Times played the same old games?: In print editions, The 1619 Project made its debut on Sunday, August 18, 2019.
The project debuted in a special edition of The New York Times Sunday Magazine. The materials had appeared online four days before.
According to the leading authority on the project, that special edition of the magazine contained ten essays, a photo essay, and a collection of poems and fiction by an additional 16 writers.
An introductory essay was written by Jake Silverstein, the magazine's editor. What if we were to tell you that the essay started like this?
SILVERSTEIN (8/18/19): 1619. It is not a year that most Americans know as a notable date in our country’s history. Those who do are at most a tiny fraction of those who can tell you that 1776 is the year of our nation’s birth. What if, however, we were to tell you that this fact, which is taught in our schools and unanimously celebrated every Fourth of July, is wrong, and that the country’s true birth date, the moment that its defining contradictions first came into the world, was in late August of 1619?
So began the attempt, by a bunch of upper-end journalists, "to tell our [nation's] story truthfully,” apparently for the first time. No one else had done that!
So began Silverstein's essay. We'd have to say it was already time to call in the logicians.
In that passage, Silverstein seems to make an ardent claim. He seems to say that a very familiar assertion—the claim that "1776 is the year of our nation’s birth"—can now be seen to be "wrong."
He seems to say that the nation's "true birth date" was actually August 1619! He seems to make that ardent claim, but a careful reader might say that he actually doesn't.
Subscribers, let's be fair! Silverstein doesn't exactly say that the familiar old fact is wrong. He merely asks a question:
What would happen, or what we would think, if he were to tell us it's wrong?
In this pointlessly roundabout way, Silverstein started to set the historical record straight. We think of the way Judy and Mickey and the rest of the kids decided to put on a show in the silly old Judy-and-Mickey movie, Babes in Arms.
The kids at the New York Times had decided to put on a show. But where would the logicians come in? The logicians would come in here:
Silverstein never exactly said such a thing—but to many, he may have seemed to say that 1776 isn't the nation's "true birth date."
Logicians might have warned us rubes to beware of such words as "real" and "true."
Silverstein's ardent language has created many pointless debates about when the nation's true founding really occurred. Logicians might have stated the obvious:
There's more than one way to imagine or discuss a nation's history. It's silly to get into pointless disputes about when the "real" birth occurred.
Silverstein was ardent that day, though in a fuzzy manner. He hadn't said that 1619 was the true birth date. He'd merely given that impression.
If Mickey and Judy were staging a show, they were off to a fuzzy start. And how odd! If you read Silverstein's introductory essay today, this is the way it now starts:
SILVERSTEIN (12/20/19): 1619 is not a year that most Americans know as a notable date in our country’s history. Those who do are at most a tiny fraction of those who can tell you that 1776 is the year of our nation’s birth. What if, however, we were to tell you that the moment that the country’s defining contradictions first came into the world was in late August of 1619?
Today, Silverstein imagines himself telling us something much more limited.
Today, he imagines himself telling us that "the moment that the country’s defining contradictions first came into the world was in late August of 1619." He no longer imagines himself telling us that a certain extremely familiar factual claim is "wrong."
Today, Silverstein almost seems to be saying that 1776 actually is "the year of our nation’s birth!" Of course, because he's retained his highly ornate "what if we were to tell you" construction, he doesn't actually say that either!
At any rate, the song-and-dance about the "true birth date" is mercifully no longer present. Silverstein has simplified his original opening statement.
After the 1619 project appeared, Silverstein's apparent opening claim—the apparent claim that 1776 isn't the nation's "true birth date"—stirred up a lot of opposition.
As of today, that apparent claim is gone. As to when and why that passage was dropped, we have no idea.
That said, the original passage seemed to make a very large, rather ardent claim, and it stirred a large fuss. The new passage is vastly harder to argue with.
Almost everyone would agree—the presence of slavery formed one part of a massive "contradiction" which dogged our nation's history. It isn't hard to agree with that claim. The claim is almost blindingly obvious.
Of course, since very few people would disagree with that claim, it's hard to see how The Project is "finally telling our story truthfully," the grandiose claim the Times seemed to be making when this hodgepodge emerged. So it goes when the kids get excited and decide to put on a big show.
Silverstein has amended the first paragraph of his original work. As a general matter, there's nothing wrong with doing something like that.
In this case, the change to the original text has slid by without an appended statement of correction or clarification. But so it has gone as Silverstein and Nikole Hannah-Jones have corrected and "clarified" their original ardent work in fuzzy, fudged and disingenuous ways, often insisting that they've done no such thing.
Consider Hannah-Jones, the founder of the project and the author of its introductory essay. In her original text, she ardently claimed this:
HANNAH-JONES (8/18/19): Conveniently left out of our founding mythology is the fact that 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 colonists decided to declare independence because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery! That "fact" had been "conveniently left out of our founding mythology," the ardent founder of the project declared.
But is that an actual fact? Did the colonists declare independence to protect the institution of slavery? Was that "one of the primary reasons" for their decision?
Major historians disputed the claim. In the end, Hannah-Jones and The Project decided to relent, or at least to give that appearance.
Hannah-Jones inserted a tiny "correction" into her text, while leaving a much longer set of disputed background claims intact. Silverstein authored a slippery "Editor's Note" which vastly downplayed the nature of the issue and the size of the correction.
In this way, the journalists motored ahead. "Finally," someone was "telling our story truthfully!"
More absurd was Hannah-Jones' recent decision to eliminate a whole set of tweets in which she'd repeatedly said that 1619 represented the "true founding" of the nation.
The decision to delete these tweets followed more recent claims by Hannah-Jones, in which she insisted that no one had ever said such a thing.
When Judy and Mickey would put on a show, the show would always go well. In this case, the gang at the Times moved with remarkable speed to put a vast project into effect, saying, with substantial ardor, that "it is finally time to tell our [nation's] story truthfully."
Mommy and Daddy had been lying about our story! As they've done so many times about so many other issues, the boys and girls at the New York Times decided to tell us the truth.
No one had tried to do it before. While they were at it, they even decided to create a school curriculum, a matter we'll turn to tomorrow.
The hubris lying behind this project is wide and deep and vast. The children decided to tell us the truth; No one had done it before!
Once they started telling the truth, they seemed to make a lot of mistakes. As usual, they've played a set of slippery games in coming to terms with that fact.
Our nation's brutal racial history lies at the heart of our national story. There's nothing new about that statement. Everyone knows that fact.
That said, a bunch of enormously "privileged" babes in arms decided to give the nation a show. We aren't big fans of their work. More on that tomorrow.
Tomorrow: Recalling Frederick Douglass, on the eastern shore
To read more about this dreck: The history of the project's bungling takes us down a series of long, winding roads. So too with its slippery, disingenuous reactions to criticism.
If you want to read more about this meshugas, we'll recommend that you click the links at Bret Stephens' recent column. You might also review Sarah Ellison's report in the Washington Post about the project's controversies.
We'll especially recommend this detailed thread by The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf, one of the nation's most careful journalists. One problem—he repeatedly links to Hannah-Jones' tweets, and those tweets have now been disappeared.
As always, a basic point prevails:
Creating confusion is amazingly easy. Critiquing confusion is hard.
Let's look at the numbers. Republican-led Florida moves up a notch today to 9th highest Covid mortality for the United States. They will be number one soon.
ReplyDeleteRepublican in Florida's mortality rate is worse than almost every other country in the world. In terms of first world countries, only Belgium is worse.
The mortality rate in America is worse than Mexico, England, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Finland, France, Netherlands, Ireland, the list goes on. Our mortality rate is about 5 times that of Russia. About to 7 times that of Germany.
Unfortunately, or feckless leader dropped the ball. We are not the worst in the world but we are in the top 1% of the worst countries.
So many have died. So many are dying and so many are going to die.
Trumpanzees didn't even take masks and test seriously.
"Republican in Florida's mortality rate is worse than almost every other country in the world. In terms of first world countries, only Belgium is worse. "
Delete(They passed Spain and will pass Belgium soon as they as a state and we as a country move to the very top of the list of mortality, ignorance and death thanks to Trump and his Trumpanzees.)
Florida has a high percentage of retirees. Did any of you idiots consider that?
DeleteBeing a retiree doesn't make you more likely to catch covid. It makes you more likely to get very sick and perhaps die from it. If Florida had taken precautions, the elderly population wouldn't have given them such a high death rate.
DeleteRepublican led Florida's mortality rate is two or three times greater than most of the states that have the oldest populations (Maine, West Virginia, Vermont). Only Delaware and Pennsylvania are remotely close to Florida's enormous and climbing death rate.
Delete16,000 Florida deaths
Delete34,000 NY Deaths (fewer elderly)
Same (large) population (20 Million), but one has a good governor the other has a Democrat governor who killed the elderly.
At least half of New York's "deaths" were closer to murders by their governor.
DeleteFlorida also has about twice the cases of New York at 770,000. Yet New York has twice the deaths.
DeleteDon't elect Democrats.
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DeleteYes, dear Bob, 1619 is nothing but racist liberal-hitlerian propaganda, we get it. It's obvious to anyone with a functioning brain.
ReplyDeleteAnd now, what about all the information about your Rapist-Mafioso candidate's family racket being suppressed and disappeared by your liberal establishment, dear Bob?
Right from Orwell's 1984: down to the memory hole. Are you proud to be part of it, dear Outer Party Member Bob?
ma0 ma0 late today. bad troll!
DeleteAnother troll fail from the dickless virgin.
DeleteFirst to establish my bona fides or is it boner fides for 4:11, I bone and disown many women so I suppose I fulfill the new liberal requirements to post a comment. Glad that Me Too bullshit is over and my prowess is back in fashion.
DeleteNow for my observation. Mao is correct and Biden is a rapist mafioso criminal.
can i watch.
DeleteMao,
DeleteGet your shit together. The next time one of your Establishment bosses (5:43) has to clean up your dookies, you're going to find yourself off the payroll.
We have to elect Biden even if he is a rapist mafioso criminal. It's better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian.
DeleteIe. It's better to have a competent mafioso rapist president than it is to have a totally incompetent wannabe mafioso, rapist president with no balls and the world's biggest daddy complex.
Sorry that's just the way it is man. You have to live with the guy's huge fuck up.
"So began the attempt, by a bunch of upper-end journalists, "to tell our [nation's] story truthfully,” apparently for the first time. No one else had done that!"
ReplyDeleteNowhere in the paragraph quoted by Silverstein does he claim that he is telling our nation's story truthfully for the first time. That is Somerby's addition. A straw man that he argues against, but that Silverstein never asserted.
I don't read the NY Times because it is behind a paywall. But if Silverstein does make such an assertion elsewhere in text, Somerby should have quoted that part, not the part he did, where Silverstein says that the facts of the beginning of slavery, which he calls "the moment that the country’s defining contradictions first came into the world", are not as well known as the date July 4, 1776. That is a much more limited claim than the one Somerby expands to.
This is dishonesty on Somerby's part. When someone goes out of their way to engage in such dishonesty, you have to wonder about his motives. There is malice here. Where does it come from? Why does Somerby react so negatively to an attempt by black people to share the parts of our shared history that are important to them? So negatively that he manufactures an argument that is surely a deflection from his real objections to this project.
It is possible that Somerby doesn't understand his own negative response and has fastened on a more neutral one that rests on factual claims, not racial feelings. It is also possible that his opposition to this project, his attempts to undermine reader faith in what is said in it, arises from conscious hostility toward black history. Only Somerby knows which is true for him.
But it is very obvious that he is not playing fair when he pretends to an objective critique of the 1619 Project. I think readers should read it and form their own opinions without being predisposed to spurious criticism by the likes of Somerby.
When it suits Somerby's purposes, black writers become "high-end journalists". Convenient.
ReplyDeleteWhat exactly are you claiming?
DeleteI am claiming that you cannot treat writers as second-class citizens in journalism world and then elevate them to "high-end" just because it suits your purposes.
DeleteAnd if Somerby is referring to someone else other than those creating the 1619 Project, then he should say who he means. Of course, he will not do that, because he never takes responsibility for anything he implies. It is a joke that he calls Hannah-Jones sneaky when he himself is the master of it. Somerby should say who he is accusing, not refer to nebulous "high-end journalists" when what he perhaps means is NY Times Editors suffering from white guilt or "woke" journalists engaging in identity politics, or some such. Hannah-Jones has every right to write about the history of African Americans in our country, without being called a "high-end journalist" in a pejorative sentence. And if other liberals at the NY Times think it is time for its readers to become more woke too, does that make them "high-end" (which in Somerby speak means rich plutocrats who don't actually care about black people but find it useful to be trendy).
Where did Somerby refer to her as a "high-end journalist"?
Delete@3:32 excessively literal or forgetful are you?
Delete“So began the attempt, by a bunch of upper-end journalists, "to tell our [nation's] story truthfully,” apparently for the first time. No one else had done that!”
Oh. Misuse of quotation marks on your part.
Delete"He seems to say that the nation's "true birth date" was actually August 1619! He seems to make that ardent claim, but a careful reader might say that he actually doesn't."
ReplyDeleteSilverstein is pointing out that the nation's birth date FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS is not 1776 but 1619, when slavery was instituted on our shores. Recall that black people did not gain the freedoms of our constitution until much later. It can be argued that the guarantees afford by our constitution were not theirs, explicitly, as a matter of law in 1776. In fact, nothing changed for them on that date.
I don't know whether Silverstein or any of the other authors make that point, but it should be obvious to anyone reading Silverstein's words, what he means by them.
But Somerby's got to play his word games. Ask yourself, what is Somerby arguing in service of?
"But is that an actual fact? Did the colonists declare independence to protect the institution of slavery? Was that "one of the primary reasons" for their decision?
ReplyDeleteMajor historians disputed the claim. In the end, Hannah-Jones and The Project decided to relent, or at least to give that appearance."
Somerby doesn't tell his readers that there are a subset of historians called Southern revisionists who ardently argued that Slavery should be viewed from a Southern perspective, that it wasn't so bad, that the Civil War was a war of Northern aggression, that slavery was good for the nation and for slaves, and so on.
Just because someone argues something doesn't make it right. Of course these black authors are getting push back. If they didn't, we wouldn't have a problem with race in this country.
It was nice of them to revise some of their stronger words, but whether they were coerced into it by their editors, or did so on the merits of any argument, remains opaque to us and to Somerby. He called their revisions sneaky because they didn't announce them. Would you, if you were told to appease views that you didn't agree with?
Has Somerby lost common sense just because race is involved?
“But is that an actual fact? Did the colonists declare independence to protect the institution of slavery? Was that "one of the primary reasons" for their decision?”
ReplyDeleteThis is essentially what Somerby’s post boils down to:
Hannah-Jones made a claim.
Some historians disputed it.
—signed TDH.
Somerby makes no attempt to evaluate the claims of either side. He is content merely to be a stenographer and note the dispute.
There is an intriguing assertion, left unexplored by Somerby, made by Danielle Allen, a prominent African American classicist and political theorist at Harvard, quoted in the Ellison story in the Post, concerning Hannah-Jones’ statement about the motivations of the colonists:
“If it instead said, ‘some colonists’ or ‘one of the primary reasons motivating influential factions among the colonists’ it would be correct,” she wrote.
I don’t believe this has ever been taught in our public schools. It was new to me.
But of course saying it out loud causes conservatives to rush to their fainting couches and denounce liberals like Hannah-Jones and the NYT for hating America.
Isn’t that conservative reaction at least worthy of some critical examination by Somerby? Or does he agree with it, as he seems to?
But, but, but...critiquing confusion is hard!
Delete“But is that an actual fact? Did the colonists declare independence to protect the institution of slavery? Was that "one of the primary reasons" for their decision?”
ReplyDeleteRecall that Somerby has said that Brian Williams’ mockery of Al Gore’s suit-coat buttons caused all those deaths in Iraq, so one would think he would be willing to understand and acknowledge the short-hand Hannah-Jones is using here.
The Declaration of Independence coincides in time with the rise of parliamentary efforts to end the slave trade in Great Britain. British fortunes were based on revenue from plantations in the colonies, and many wealthy Britains invested in the Triangle trade, of which slaves were one leg. The triangle trade was taught in school but I'm not sure whether it registered with students that preserving this might be a goal of independence. Again, the glossing of slavery as "economic interests" conceals slavery's impact on our history.
ReplyDeleteThe US depended on the slave trade for its economic survival:
"By the end of the sixteenth century, English traders were actively participating in the transatlantic slave trade. With the establishment of several permanent American colonies during the first decades of the seventeenth century, the institution of slavery became part and parcel to these colonies' economic success. The tobacco, sugar, and, eventually, cotton that fed a growing consumer society in Europe demanded large labor forces to plant, grow, harvest, and process them."
Kelly reviews the infrastructure developed to justify and protect the slave trade:
https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstream/handle/1805/7879/Antislavery.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Kelly, Jason M. "Anti-slavery movement, Britain." The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest. Ness, Immanuel (ed). Blackwell Publishing, 2009. Blackwell Reference Online.
In American textbooks, this is usually glossed as: the British were interfering in the economics of the colonies so the colonists dumped tea in the bay.
When you view the history of the American Revolution this way, the civil war follows organically. Our national history makes more sense with Hannah-Jones' revision.
"To read more about this dreck: The history of the project's bungling takes us down a series of long, winding roads. So too with its slippery, disingenuous reactions to criticism.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to read more about this meshugas, "
Why does Somerby switch to Yiddish to more severely chastise the writers of the 1619 Project?
We know from his own admission that he is Irish Catholic. I doubt he heard much Yiddish in Baltimore either. Dreck refers to excrement. Nice, Somerby! Somerby is so upset about the content of the 1619 Project that English just won't do. He needs to reach into the vocabulary of an immigrant underclass to find words dirty enough to describe Hannah-Jones's work. Ugly on several levels, Somerby.
What is wrong with this asshole? If it weren't for the big words, today's essay could have been written by Donald Trump, and old Fred Trump would surely have approved of it. Hannah-Jones is a privileged babe-in-arms, not a hard-working African American scholar attempting to bring African American history into the historical mainstream. Why would anyone without a racial motivation object to such an effort? Somerby doesn't say, but we have all met enough racists to imagine his reasons.
It isn't good-old-boy Somerby saying mean things about Hannah-Jones, it is those damn Jews. Way to deflect!
DeleteSomerby likes to say "We don't know whether [insert bizarre claim here] is true or not. Anything is possible."
ReplyDeleteThe creation of thinking that entirely ignores evidence in favor of withholding judgment, even about the most obvious or least likely assertions, undermines critical thinking and makes people vulnerable to conspiracy theories and political smears.
At Cannonfire, Joseph Cannon says:
"Through sheer repetition, that absurd idea has taken hold. According to YouGov, thirteen percent of Biden supporters are "not sure" whether the claim is true or false -- and five percent think that the charge is valid. In other words, nearly one out of five Democrats considers this evidence-free assertion to be within the realm of the possible. That's how deep the brainwashing has run."
I won't repeat the charge that he is discussing, except to say that it is a smear against Biden. Conservatives are able to advance such smears to the extent that Democrats believe it is a good thing to keep an open mind, to accept that "anything is possible" as Somerby keeps repeating, even when something is absurd on its face.
Somerby couches such statements in an atmosphere of pseudo-philosophical inquiry, making it seem like a virtue to refuse certainty on anything. But that is wrong. Ridiculous statements need to be opposed, lies corrected, or else conservatives will remain able to spread their filth because a percentage of Democrats refuse to take a stand opposing their concocted smears.
This is another way in which Somerby advances the right-wing political agenda here. Anything is not possible. It is not possible that Q-Anon is right about its beliefs. It is not possible that Tom Hanks abuses children. It is not possible that Joe Biden is corrupt and abetted Hunter's career in illegal ways. How do we know? Because of the preponderance of evidence and because anything is not possible when there is evidence to the contrary. The refusal to accept evidence is fundamentally anti-science and part of the reason the right has lost its way. And so has Somerby.
From The Rude Pundit (10/20):
ReplyDelete"The sex scandals didn't kill Bill Clinton's campaign in 1992 because the country was tumbling into recession at the end of HW Bush's term. The birther racism didn't lay much of a glove on Barack Obama in 2008 because the country was on the edge of financial ruin and was in two wars that we wanted the fuck out of, among other shit. Now we're teetering on a depression, the federal government is actively making the pandemic worse and flat out murdering Americans, poverty and hunger are rising, domestic political violence is becoming more likely, and shit's just gone mad. Do you really think anyone but Trump's saddest and stupidest voters (and assorted, self-anointed purity lefties) honestly gives a single rat turd about whether or not Hunter Biden got a job because his dad was Vice President? "
From Political Wire:
ReplyDelete"President Trump this week fired his biggest broadside yet against the federal bureaucracy by issuing an executive order that would remove job security from an estimated tens of thousands of civil servants and dramatically remake the government,” the Washington Post reports.
“The directive, issued late Wednesday, strips long-held civil service protections from employees whose work involves policymaking, allowing them to be dismissed with little cause or recourse, much like the political appointees who come and go with each administration.”
Also from Political Wire:
ReplyDelete"President Trump’s campaign used stock footage from Russia and Slovenia in a digital ad intended to convince voters that America is bouncing back from the coronavirus pandemic, CNBC reports."
I want to testify on how I got cured from Herpes. I have been living with this disease for the past 11 months, i have done all i can to cure this disease but all my efforts proved abortive until i met an old friend of mine who told me about a herbal doctor called Dr Oniha, she told me that Dr Oniha have cure for all kinds of diseases, though i never believed in it because my believe was that there is no cure for Herpes disease. But I decided to give it a try when I contacted Dr Oniha, he told me he has a cure for herpes that he cured with herbal medicine. I order for the herbal medicine, which Dr Oniha sent to me through a courier service which i make use of and now behold the herpes is gone and i now have my life back,if you are out there living with this disease i will like you to also contact Dr Oniha and get this disease cured out of your body. I am a living testimony of Dr Oniha herbal cure. Thanks once again Dr Oniha for you are God sent. contact Dr oniha through his contact information.
ReplyDeleteEmail:drjohnsonlovespellcaster997@gmail.com
Whatsapp number: +2347057052206
Thanks to Doctor Razor for the Great miraculous work he did in my life with his herbal remedy. I have been living with this virus and I have shared with my partners my situation because they deserve to have a choice of whether they want to change being with me or not. I unfortunately did not have a choice in this matter leaving me vulnerable and now faced with this virus for the rest of my life or until a cure was discovered.I refused to take the Medical drugs my PCD have told me to take, I surrendered to my fate, because I was careless. Late on at night, Feb 13 2017, I came across Doctor Razor herbal medicine. I browsed about the authenticity of This Doctor, I got to see several Testimonies regarding his works from people he had helped with his medicine. i reached out to him and told him my problems, after we spoke he promised to help me out. I started using his herbal medicine which he sent to me Via the Courier Delivery, and asked me to take the herbal medicine for 18 days. which i did. I am delighted to let you all know that I Got cured of Herpes Virus, after the Medical Doctor had confirmed this with the test results, when I went for a medical check up after completing the Herbal Dosage Of 18 days. Doctor Razor's Website : https://herbalistrazorherb.wixsite.com/drrazorherbalhome or Reach out to Doctor razor via email : drrazorherbalhome@gmail.com WhatsApp +2349065420442
ReplyDeleteThe great Dr.Mark everyone has been talking about on the internet has also helped me with his love spell last week Wednesday he restored my broken relationship and brought my ex back to me. I have been with a broken heart for the past 6months after my boyfriend broke up with me but after i have read online about Dr.Mark love spell i was really pleased to contact him for the chance that i have got to get my ex back, after Dr.Mark has cast the spell for me my boyfriend came back to me after 48 hours which is last week Friday. With so much joy in my heart I want to appreciate Dr.Mark for his great help he rendered to me. incase you need his help you can also
ReplyDeletecontact him via his email address Blessedlovetemple@gmail.com