The 1619 Project (in the New York Times Magazine)

[David Lockmiller]

The Atlantic is publishing a long article about the 1619 Project controversy. The following are two important consecutive paragraphs from the article.

"The Fight Over the 1619 Project Is Not About the Facts"
The Atlantic DECEMBER 23, 2019
By Adam Serwer, Staff writer at The Atlantic

Hannah-Jones hasn’t budged from her conviction that slavery helped fuel the Revolution. “I do still back up that claim,” she told me last week—before Silverstein’s rebuttal was published—although she says she phrased it too strongly in her essay, in a way that might mislead readers into thinking that support for slavery was universal. “I think someone reading that would assume that this was the case: all 13 colonies and most people involved. And I accept that criticism, for sure.” She said that as the 1619 Project is expanded into a history curriculum and published in book form, the text will be changed to make sure claims are properly contextualized.

On this question, the critics of the 1619 Project are on firm ground. Although some southern slave owners likely were fighting the British to preserve slavery, as Silverstein writes in his rebuttal, the Revolution was kindled in New England, where prewar anti-slavery sentiment was strongest. Early patriots like James Otis, John Adams, and Thomas Paine were opposed to slavery, and the Revolution helped fuel abolitionism in the North.

For me, The Atlantic article has a very strange title: "The Fight Over the 1619 Project Is Not About the Facts." Only "facts" can lead to accurate conclusions. The 1619 Project controversy with highly-respected Civil War historians is "About the Facts."

By definition, by distorting the facts, one distorts the truth. And, many times individuals will distort the facts in order to achieve their "desired" conclusion. A false syllogism is a good example of this falsification process. In court, opposing counsel present the "facts" to the Court and the impartial Court separates the "wheat from the chaff" in order to decide the truth.

In this important historical case, opposing counsel on one side includes Professor James M. McPherson, who received the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for History for Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. The opposing counsel is the author of The 1619 Project, Times Magazine writer and MacArthur Foundation fellow Nikole Hannah-Jones.

At trial, the "Five Historians" legal counsel made the following requests of the opposing party that specific corrections be made to the asserted history and the full disclosure be made of the process through which the historical materials were and continue to be assembled, checked and authenticated.

"We ask that The Times, according to its own high standards of accuracy and truth, issue prominent corrections of all the errors and distortions presented in The 1619 Project. We also ask for the removal of these mistakes from any materials destined for use in schools, as well as in all further publications, including books bearing the name of The New York Times. We ask finally that The Times reveal fully the process through which the historical materials were and continue to be assembled, checked and authenticated."

As a juror in the the "court of public opinion," I would consider these end-result requests of the "Five Historians" counsel to be both legitimate and necessary. And, as a juror, I see no good reason for the New York Times to object to "reveal[ing] fully the process through which the historical materials were and continue to be assembled, checked and authenticated."

Please note that the author of the 1619 Project has only accepted criticism about the Revolutionary War basis. Her erroneous published statements regarding President Abraham Lincoln remain as is . . . for the time being.

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(12-24-2019 08:14 AM)Gene C Wrote:  "The project is intended to offer a new version of American history in which slavery and white supremacy become the dominant organizing themes. The Times has announced ambitious plans to make the project available to schools in the form of curriculums and related instructional material."

These editors seem to be to full of themselves, their own self importance and virtues, They find supposed failures or shortcomings in others to elevate their own self worth and value. They don't understand the past, so they can't possibly understand the present.

When you start out trying to prove or justify a false premise, you end up with false conclusions.

I agree. As you say, the author started from the historical conclusions that she wanted and then distorted the relevant historical facts to support her "false conclusions."