A Critique of the 1619 Project

I come bearing a gift.

In no way would I say the project is useless, but teaching this before one has a solid foundation in US history would be a disservice.  

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/opinion/nyt-16…

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The 1619 Project is completely useless revisionist history concocted by a woefully disingenuous author that more than a dozen Pulitzer prize winners have spoken in protest against. It is garbage, and anyone who believes it is either flat out unintelligent or at least poorly read. To anyone who wants to learn about less known but historically important subjects as this claims to be, I would recommend reading The Red Decade by Eugene Lyons to cover something vastly under taught in the US.

"If you don't have any enemies in life you have never stood up for anything" - Winston Churchill | "It's a testament to the sheer belligerence of the profession that people would rather argue about the 'risk-adjusted returns' of using inferior tooth cleaning methods." - kellycriterion
 

My younger brother attends one of the top NE boarding schools, and in his US history class, his first or second reading was the factually inaccurate essay from the 1619 project (before it was revised, too, apparently). He said it was actually a very good essay, but that he would have liked it a lot more if it wasn't factually inaccurate. Still, he said his teacher was a PHD with published research – who evidently didn't see it as imprudent to give her class with an essay with several historical fallacies (or at least, exaggerations). 

I don't know if all of the classes at the school include that reading, but if I learned one thing, it's that liberal teachers at liberal institutions are *not afraid* to include this revisionist history in their curriculums.

The recently-written NYT OP-ed critiquing the article did a solid job of summing everything up – in essence, the ambition of the project (which was a nice idea – Black people are very much overlooked in US history) went too far, as it got to the point where true history was ignored. The comments section of the article, too, also has some interesting perspectives. 

 

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