For some years I have felt that I have been living in a country occupied by a hostile enemy determined to erase every vestige of our country’s history and heritage. The people who influence our culture and politics, the academics, the news and entertainment media, and so many others, seem to be motivated by a simmering hatred of America and its people. This feeling has abated somewhat, with the election of President Donald Trump, who seems to be leading a sort of resistance against the Occupiers, but the Occupiers are not about to give up their power and they have been orchestrating a furious counter-revolution against President Trump, and the people who elected him.
After trying and failing to discredit and delegitimize President Trump by peddling false stories of Russian collusion, the editors of the NewYork Times have decided to discredit and delegitimize the entire United States of America with the 1619 Project, an audacious attempt to reframe our nation’s history by tying it to slavery.
The 1619 Project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.
Now, there is nothing at all wrong, in itself, with examining the history of slavery in the United States. Slavery has played a major role in American history, with an impact that can be felt to this day, more than one hundred fifty years after the institution was abolished. The New York Times, however, seems to be going farther than merely providing a historical survey. Judging from their decision to count the year slavery was introduced into what would become the United States and some of the excerpts they provide from the essays that will make up the 1619 Project, the editors of the New York Times, seem to be trying to link America incontrovertibly with slavery. The history of America is a history of slavery and the one thing that makes America exceptional among the nations of the world is slavery.
The premise of the 1619 Project is false. The essays and articles that will make up the 1619 Project may or may not be factually correct. I have no way to judge without reading them, but the central premise of the project is false. Slavery has been a major theme in American history, but the history of the United States cannot be solely defined by slavery and the United States is not exceptional because of slavery. America does have a unique and exceptional relationship with slavery, but this relationship does not exist because slavery is somehow unique to America or that slavery in America was worse than in other times and places. Slavery has existed in every culture since before recorded history. The transatlantic slave trade was in operation for almost a century before that fist slave ship appeared off the coast of Virginia. What makes America’s relationship with slavery unique and exceptional is that slavery contradicts America’s founding ideals in a way that is not true of most countries. Most nations were founded by warlords who conquered and enslaved entire populations. Think of William the Conquerer, Clovis, Charlemagne, Qin Shi Huang, and many others. In contrast, the United States of America was founded by some of the greatest and most enlightened men who have ever lived, men who could write the immortal words,
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
These were the words by which our country was founded upon. These were the words that the Abolitionists used to demand the end of slavery. These were the words that Martin Luther King used to demand justice and equality for his people. No nation that was founded upon these words could ever be comfortable with slavery. The very fact that slavery and segregation were completely contrary to America’s founding ideals meant that these institutions could not endure in America. America’s true founding was in 1776, not 1619. America is a nation based on freedom, not slavery. The 1619 Project is fake history, propaganda, designed to mislead rather than inform the New York Times’s readers.
Why are they doing this? A nation conceived in tyranny and dedicated to the institutions of slavery and segregation is a detestable nation. One cannot feel pride in being a citizen of such a country, only shame. One cannot love such a country, only despise it. Such a country is not worth defending. Its institutions are not worth preserving. Its borders ought not to be protected. In fact, the quicker such a nation is consigned to the dustbin of history, the better. This is what the left thinks about America. This is what they want their fellow Americans to think about America.
This viewpoint, that America is a detestable nation founded on slavery and racism is already predominant in academia and among our supposed elite. The editors of the New York Times have decided that it is time to educate the deplorables about the true history of the nation they want to make great again. They need to realize that if America has ever been exceptional, it has not been exceptional in greatness but in iniquity. Other media outlets will follow the lead of the New York Times. It is, after all, the nation’s premier newspaper. Schools will teach this distorted history if they are not already. The New York Times has already provided a curriculum for use in the classroom. The hope is that the 1619 Project will become the consensus view of American history.
Can a nation survive when its citizens are taught to despise it? We may find out unless we work hard to teach the true history of American freedom.
David's Commonplace Book 