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The 1619 Project

Really? Those 20 slaves did it, not the millions of others that came in the Transatlantic slave trade for decades before and after?

I don't see how someone could possibly believe something that ridiculous.

Those 20 slaves led to it.

"At first, Virginia plantation owners filled their labor shortage by relying heavily on white indentured servants. Given the very high mortality rates in Virginia, purchasing indentured servants was more cost-effective, since slaves and servants often died within a few years of their arrival. Thus it was only in the second half of the 1600s that, “as life expectancy rose, the slave became a better buy than the servant.” As a result, the working population in late-17th Century Virginia was quite diverse, including white indentured servants, black and Native American slaves, and free whites who had completed their term of service. Outnumbered, plantation owners grew increasingly fearful of threats to their political control. In particular, there was the danger of a cooperative insurrection across racial lines.

The solution was to divide and conquer. Through new laws passed by the Virginia assembly, plantation owners consciously encouraged racial hatred between blacks and poor whites. First, the distinction between freedom and enslavement was specified in explicitly racial, rather than religious, terms. The Virginia assembly established in 1667 that converting to Christianity did not change the condition of blacks and Native Americans in bondage. Previously, some black and native people who could prove that they had been baptized had successfully sued for freedom. Second, the assembly created social distinctions between white servants and black slaves. In 1680, the Virginia assembly passed new legislation preventing “any negroe or other slave” from raising a hand to any white person, a measure that put servants on a par with their masters in their impunity for abuse of enslaved people, and stripped enslaved people of any right of self-defense. In 1691, laws punishing intermarriage between whites and blacks were put in place. Finally, in 1705, the assembly decided that, while white servants could own property, all property owned by slaves was to be seized and sold, with profits “applied to the use of the [white] poor.” Thus the white poor materially benefited from additional oppressions put upon black slaves.


In this way, the legal construction of racism helped diffuse the threat of insurrection. Poor white people would now see themselves as allied with those far wealthier than themselves, and would define themselves by race rather than by class."

Link
 
Those 20 slaves led to it.

"At first, Virginia plantation owners filled their labor shortage by relying heavily on white indentured servants. Given the very high mortality rates in Virginia, purchasing indentured servants was more cost-effective, since slaves and servants often died within a few years of their arrival. Thus it was only in the second half of the 1600s that, “as life expectancy rose, the slave became a better buy than the servant.” As a result, the working population in late-17th Century Virginia was quite diverse, including white indentured servants, black and Native American slaves, and free whites who had completed their term of service. Outnumbered, plantation owners grew increasingly fearful of threats to their political control. In particular, there was the danger of a cooperative insurrection across racial lines.

The solution was to divide and conquer. Through new laws passed by the Virginia assembly, plantation owners consciously encouraged racial hatred between blacks and poor whites. First, the distinction between freedom and enslavement was specified in explicitly racial, rather than religious, terms. The Virginia assembly established in 1667 that converting to Christianity did not change the condition of blacks and Native Americans in bondage. Previously, some black and native people who could prove that they had been baptized had successfully sued for freedom. Second, the assembly created social distinctions between white servants and black slaves. In 1680, the Virginia assembly passed new legislation preventing “any negroe or other slave” from raising a hand to any white person, a measure that put servants on a par with their masters in their impunity for abuse of enslaved people, and stripped enslaved people of any right of self-defense. In 1691, laws punishing intermarriage between whites and blacks were put in place. Finally, in 1705, the assembly decided that, while white servants could own property, all property owned by slaves was to be seized and sold, with profits “applied to the use of the [white] poor.” Thus the white poor materially benefited from additional oppressions put upon black slaves.


In this way, the legal construction of racism helped diffuse the threat of insurrection. Poor white people would now see themselves as allied with those far wealthier than themselves, and would define themselves by race rather than by class."

Link

Led to what exactly?

Given the Transatlantic slave trade, which always pretty much involved capturing Black people for use as labor in the new world, had been around for at least 120 years before then. Capturing Africans for use as labor also pre-dates the Transatlantic slave trade too.

I assume you understand that things that happen after something else in time couldn't possibly have led to them?
 
To give your quote context.

Your context where Hannah Jones had nothing to do with the 1619 project or my context where she is the creator? And you picked a quote that demonstrate my and Hannahs assertion that 1619 project IS NOT history and is instead about shaping peoples minds in the "present". Like Ive said, all of neo-marxism, critical theory and specifically critical race theory is not an examination of our society but instead the same neo marxist agenda of shaping society. An "origin story". Thats a literary technique, not history. CRT is all about parables, stories, MYTHS
 
Led to what exactly?

Given the Transatlantic slave trade, which always pretty much involved capturing Black people for use as labor in the new world, had been around for at least 120 years before then. Capturing Africans for use as labor also pre-dates the Transatlantic slave trade too.

I assume you understand that things that happen after something else in time couldn't possibly have led to them?

It led, as I pointed out before, to "The legal construction of racism."
 
Your context where Hannah Jones had nothing to do with the 1619 project or my context where she is the creator? And you picked a quote that demonstrate my and Hannahs assertion that 1619 project IS NOT history and is instead about shaping peoples minds in the "present". Like Ive said, all of neo-marxism, critical theory and specifically critical race theory is not an examination of our society but instead the same neo marxist agenda of shaping society. An "origin story". Thats a literary technique, not history. CRT is all about parables, stories, MYTHS

The present "as well as the past."

For instance, its easy to draw a line from the voting restrictions of the Jim Crow era to the voting restrictions Republicans are creating today. Its easy to draw a line from the 1898 white riot of Wilmington NC to the insurrection on 1/6. Understanding our past helps us understand our world today.
 
It led, as I pointed out before, to "The legal construction of racism."
So there was no "legal construction of racism" involved with capturing Africans and enslaving them before 1619?

But when some Africans were captured off a Portuguese slave ship en route to Mexico and brought to Virginia...boom...there was suddenly a "legal construction of racism"?
 
The present "as well as the past."

For instance, its easy to draw a line from the voting restrictions of the Jim Crow era to the voting restrictions Republicans are creating today. Its easy to draw a line from the 1898 white riot of Wilmington NC to the insurrection on 1/6. Understanding our past helps us understand our world today.

Nonsense. Requiring ID doesnt prevent black people from voting more than whites. Just as Standardized testing isnt discrimination against blacks. They simply dont score as well on average. Just as whites dont score as high as Asians. CRT simply labels ANY racial disparity of minorities as racism. Thats what they do.
 
Those 20 slaves led to it.

"At first, Virginia plantation owners filled their labor shortage by relying heavily on white indentured servants. Given the very high mortality rates in Virginia, purchasing indentured servants was more cost-effective, since slaves and servants often died within a few years of their arrival. Thus it was only in the second half of the 1600s that, “as life expectancy rose, the slave became a better buy than the servant.” As a result, the working population in late-17th Century Virginia was quite diverse, including white indentured servants, black and Native American slaves, and free whites who had completed their term of service. Outnumbered, plantation owners grew increasingly fearful of threats to their political control. In particular, there was the danger of a cooperative insurrection across racial lines.

The solution was to divide and conquer. Through new laws passed by the Virginia assembly, plantation owners consciously encouraged racial hatred between blacks and poor whites. First, the distinction between freedom and enslavement was specified in explicitly racial, rather than religious, terms. The Virginia assembly established in 1667 that converting to Christianity did not change the condition of blacks and Native Americans in bondage. Previously, some black and native people who could prove that they had been baptized had successfully sued for freedom. Second, the assembly created social distinctions between white servants and black slaves. In 1680, the Virginia assembly passed new legislation preventing “any negroe or other slave” from raising a hand to any white person, a measure that put servants on a par with their masters in their impunity for abuse of enslaved people, and stripped enslaved people of any right of self-defense. In 1691, laws punishing intermarriage between whites and blacks were put in place. Finally, in 1705, the assembly decided that, while white servants could own property, all property owned by slaves was to be seized and sold, with profits “applied to the use of the [white] poor.” Thus the white poor materially benefited from additional oppressions put upon black slaves.


In this way, the legal construction of racism helped diffuse the threat of insurrection. Poor white people would now see themselves as allied with those far wealthier than themselves, and would define themselves by race rather than by class."

Link
Thanks for proving people with info to help them understand the premise and actions behind the promotion of racism and its direct like to the obsession the wealthy had, and the wealthy political controllers engaged to protect their position of political dominance and every form of repression, oppression and the programmed divide and conquer.

That's why we don't need Political Parties today.... People either vote for or against something, period. Parties are Lobbyist Organizations.

We see the above commentary describes exactly what, why and how Republicanism has bonded itself to such divide and conquer madness until it has become the Party of Divide, Attack and Conquer for the sake of Plutocrats who want a Plutocratic Controlled Autocracy to replace American Democracy.... its the very same thing the Southern Confederacy wanted !! Wealthy to complete control all aspects of society, and use and promote and keep racist divisiveness as the tool it was created to be.... for the benefit of the wealthy.
 
Yeah. She only has a masters degree and has never taught before. Absurd that they even considered offering her a tenured position. Shows how far they are bowing down to worship at the Critical Race alter.

Like any new religion that sweeps through a population, common sense and prior standards are shelved for demonstrative faith. Sometimes its 15 minutes of mad adoration (Greta the autistic green savior) other times its more lasting. Apparently this religion will take more time to burn out and the worshippers regain at least a thimble of rationality and common sense.

But shameful behavior is the order of the day... so like a Roman citizen at the fall of their civilization, I can do no more than chronicle the events of our destruction.
 
Like any new religion that sweeps through a population, common sense and prior standards are shelved for demonstrative faith. Sometimes its 15 minutes of mad adoration (Greta the autistic green savior) other times its more lasting. Apparently this religion will take more time to burn out and the worshippers regain at least a thimble of rationality and common sense.

But shameful behavior is the order of the day... so like a Roman citizen at the fall of their civilization, I can do no more than chronicle the events of our destruction.
Sounds like more fragility.
 
None the less the 1619 project is little more than a leftist / woke revision of US history, and has pretty much discredited.
It's only the Public School Indoctrination system which is using it as a basis for curricula, and that because it fits their desired political narrative. :rolleyes:
they are frankly doing their students a disservice, exactly the same sort of disservice they did by keeping the schools shut, when the science has been clear for quite some time there was little to no risk.
I bet you think of slaves as sitting singing songs all day. Well, they were worked 16 or more hours a day and whipped if they slowed down. The masters could rape their women and often did as lighter skinned slaves sold for more. The buying and selling of slaves was an industry in itself. Lighter skinned slaves were at a premium. Read some economic history of the South at that time.
 
You really can't help yourself can you? Guess not, so please find a mirror to rant to, bye bye.
:ROFLMAO:...now this would be BOTH deflection and surrender on your part.

Still can't defend your ignorant White-grievance arguments, huh?

You lied, got caught, and you've been running from accountability ever since.

Uneducated, ignorant white-grievance people are so easy to defang.

You people are all so freaking fragile, it's ALMOST funny.
 
:ROFLMAO:...now this would be BOTH deflection and surrender on your part.

Still can't defend your ignorant White-grievance arguments, huh?

You lied, got caught, and you've been running from accountability ever since.

Uneducated, ignorant white-grievance people are so easy to defang.

You people are all so freaking fragile, it's ALMOST funny.

I can discuss and defend any of my arguments, but what I can't do is teach mathematics to a rock or relieve you of your delusions. Still, teaching the rock would at least be more entertaining.
 
I can discuss and defend any of my arguments,
:ROFLMAO:....No.

If you cold defend your argument, you'd have done so by now. That much is clear.

What you "can do", however, is Dodge, Deflect and Dissemble when challenged to back up your empty-headed talking points.

but what I can't do is teach mathematics to a rock
:ROFLMAO:...quite clearly, Max, you couldn't teach math, period. At all. Is that what you meant to say here?

I think so.

Of course, there is not "math" required to address the questions/challenges I've presented to you.

You won't address them, because you can't address them HONESTLY. If you did, you're general ignorance about CRT would be made clear to all. And your ego can't afford that, obviously.

or relieve you of your delusions.
A Delusion is a fixed, false believe, Max.

In your case, I've got you pegged pretty accurately, I think.

You STILL will not address my questions/challenges

Your problem here is that I'm right, and you know it. But again, that's your problem, not mine.

Still, teaching the rock would at least be more entertaining.
As entertaining as watching an uneducated white-grievance type PRETEND to understand an intellectual/academic theory about which he's never actually read?

That's doubtful, my ideologically imprisoned friend.
 
I bet you think of slaves as sitting singing songs all day.

You make up arguments and attribute them to others because you have nothing to respond to what the poster actually stated. One can be critical of and condemn slavery without buying into the silly 1619 parable.
 
:ROFLMAO:...now this would be BOTH deflection and surrender on your part.

Still can't defend your ignorant White-grievance arguments, huh?

You lied, got caught, and you've been running from accountability ever since.

Uneducated, ignorant white-grievance people are so easy to defang.

You people are all so freaking fragile, it's ALMOST funny.

First sentence of the Wikipedia page on critical Theory DIRECTLY refutes your assertion and supports mine and Max's assertion.

Critical theory​

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Critical theory (also capitalized as Critical Theory)[1] is a Marxist approach to social philosophy that focuses on reflective assessment and critique of society and culture in order to reveal and challenge power structures."
 
Like any new religion that sweeps through a population, common sense and prior standards are shelved for demonstrative faith. Sometimes its 15 minutes of mad adoration (Greta the autistic green savior) other times its more lasting. Apparently this religion will take more time to burn out and the worshippers regain at least a thimble of rationality and common sense.

But shameful behavior is the order of the day... so like a Roman citizen at the fall of their civilization, I can do no more than chronicle the events of our destruction.

Very dramatic, but over wrought. Its difficult to put the truth back in the bottle. It is true that conservatives have been successful in convincing most Americans Thar the Civil War wasn't about slavery. Its been a long effort - over 150 years. But its crumbling, as are many other myths steeped in white supremacy.
 
I’m not criticizing your post. I’m describing the behavior of others in this thread. This is like a 19 page thread now. There have been a lot of issues discussed, including economic points.

Those critical of the 1619 Project are not generally taking the position “slavery wasn’t so bad”, they are taking the position that the 1619 Project and its fanboys are placing excessive emphasis on those aspects of slavery and events that advance their modern day agenda. Hence they might, for example, take a relatively insignificant 1619 voyage in which 20 odd slaves arrived in the new world (in the context of 12 million African slaves being sent to the new world) and not only name their whole project after it but describe it as “the true founding of America” though of course the USA did not even exist for another 150+ years.

The 1619 project and its fanboys here do not seem to be interested in historical context. They only seem interested in cherrypicking out those bits of history that make the USA look as evil and racist as possible.
Slavery, Jim Crow and discrimination is evil and racist. We need to just acknowledge that
 
This essay hits the nail on the head

Why Conservatives Want to Cancel the 1619 Project

"The prevailing conservative view is that America’s racial and economic inequalities are driven by differences in effort and ability. The work of Hannah-Jones and others suggests instead that present-day inequalities have been shaped by deliberate political and policy choices. What appears to be an argument about reexamining history is also an argument about ideology—a defense of the legitimacy of the existing social order against an account of its historical origins that suggests different policy choices could produce a more equitable society.

...And conservatives who don’t want to address America’s deep racial disparities are attempting to suppress any reading of history that suggests contemporary inequalities are the product of deliberate choices. To that end, conservative opponents of what they derisively refer to as “wokeism” are engaged in a campaign to stigmatize such arguments, and where they can, use the state to purge them from the educational system. State legislatures are outlawing the teaching of “critical race theory” which in this context as my colleague Adam Harris reports, is ultimately a shorthand for “anything resembling an examination of America’s history with race.” The Trump administration threatened to investigate institutions of higher education that discussed systemic racism, and conservative state governments are interfering with state institutions of higher education.


...The historical record shows that efforts to use the power of the state to settle an argument usually fail, although they can be successful for a time. The irony is that these awakenings about the truths of American history are the result of people attempting to warp the facts into a narrative that reassures them of their essential virtue, and subsequent generations discovering that what they were taught was but a bedtime story. These attempts to use the state to suppress ugly realities about the past are merely setting the stage for the next awakening."
 
Those 20 slaves led to it.

"At first, Virginia plantation owners filled their labor shortage by relying heavily on white indentured servants. Given the very high mortality rates in Virginia, purchasing indentured servants was more cost-effective, since slaves and servants often died within a few years of their arrival. Thus it was only in the second half of the 1600s that, “as life expectancy rose, the slave became a better buy than the servant.” As a result, the working population in late-17th Century Virginia was quite diverse, including white indentured servants, black and Native American slaves, and free whites who had completed their term of service. Outnumbered, plantation owners grew increasingly fearful of threats to their political control. In particular, there was the danger of a cooperative insurrection across racial lines.
...
Link

A narrative crippled by its moral presentism (written by the expert on Taxes at Brookings, not an American historian - no kidding).

Let's take a closer look:

First, note that the author acknowledges that the institution of slavery had its roots in economics, not race. And what she doesn't tell you is that the transition from various forms of unfree servitude to slavery was due to many other factors, including: "the British seizure from the Dutch of the slave trade after the commercial war of 1654-1656 and the Great Fire of London in 1666, which dried up the supply of indentured servants.".

Second, the author also avoids explaining that her 17th century sentimental portrayal of "diversity" wasn't durable for economic reasons: indentured servants were becoming scarce, Native Americans had much less resistance to European and African diseases and they could (and did) run away into the wilderness, while African slaves were best acclimated to the heat and humidity of the south and were far more resistant to old world tropical diseases.

Third, the laws that took decades to develop were not inspired by an specific racial ideology of white supremacy or "political control". They were an outgrowth of economic forces and a reflection of 17th and 18th century cultural values on social hierarchies. The slaves that first landed entered a world that had "no sharp definition regarding slavery or race. As Edmund S. Morgan and other historians have shown, slavery shaded imperceptibly into indentured servitude—a system of non-remunerated labor under which people could also be bought, sold, whipped, and separated from family, but which lacked the inheritable status of slavery. For most of the 17th century, indentured servitude was the leading form of labor in colonial Virginia and Maryland, and it continued to be so further to the north in Pennsylvania until after the American Revolution."

In this world, "When viewed next to indentured servitude, chattel slavery appears to have been, as put by historian Gordon Wood, “the most base and degraded status in a society of several degrees of unfreedom.” Another eminent historian, Bernard Bailyn, describes the lot of many indentured servants caught up in a Transatlantic strikingly similar to slavery:

“It was a brutal traffic [that] developed into an organized system with safe houses for confining victims until shipping could be arranged … Week after week, month after month, children, male and female, were snatched from the streets of London for shipment.

Four, slavery was socially similar to indentured servitude in Colonial Virginia. Some African slaves were indentured servants and gained their freedom. Some of them became landowners, and some of those black land owners also became slaveowners (another fact forgotten by the author).

But eventually to make up for the decline in indentured servitude and to maintain slavery, slave holders had to develop laws that eliminated Christianization as a route to freedom, laws that separated the races, laws that formalized slavery and made it clear that slaves, and a female slaves offspring, were the property of their owners.

Cont.
 
Cont...

Five, "As the great West Indian historian Eric Williams pointed out,

A racial twist has thereby been given to what is basically an economic phenomenon. Slavery was not born of racism: rather, racism was the consequence of slavery. Unfree labor in the New World was brown, white, black, and yellow; Catholic, Protestant and pagan.

What should have been noted by her is that "historians have searched in vain for any sort of racial justification for slavery in colonial Virginia. They have found neither that, nor even an original legal justification. To the extent that there was any ideological rationale for slavery it was first religious, not racial. By custom of both Christian and Muslim societies, slavery was reserved for infidels. Muslims enslaved Christians, and Christians enslaved Muslims, and both enslaved those they viewed to be pagans, including the sub-Saharan Africans. In other words, slavery’s longstanding existence and its religious sanction appears to have been all that was needed to set it afoot in the Chesapeake".

In short, the need to even justify slavery didn't start until the later half of the 1700s, it was just assumed as a given.

Conclusion

We get it. The author's purpose is to create a single narrative attributing all current racial social ills to imagined "white supremacy" ideology and to project her "bad people" motivations to a group of planters in the 1600s. We get that single-minded dogmatic racialism is the current religion, and an all-purpose tool for filtering the past through it. The problem is, serious scholars don't agree.

 
Probably because it is intended to be used in a US History course and not a World History course.
If teaching about slavery yet ignoring centuries of world slavery, is very biased and and painting a false history about slavery. 1619 isn't about factual history. It's about oppressed & oppressors, guilt and equity. In 1945 a massive world war came to a conclusion, we are now allies with those combatants. The world moves on. Not with slavery in the USA. It never will be laid to rest.
 
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