why the 1619 Project is such a white supremacist’s nightmare

[SNOWFLAKE]

Will post the following in two parts because of it's length.
Hopefully will be read with an open mind.

Cousins.
by Lucian K. Truscott IV
"You are looking at a photograph of me and my cousin Shannon Lanier. It’s a photograph that illustrates why the 1619 Project is such a white supremacist’s nightmare, teaching that racism and slavery played a major role in the founding of this nation. It’s a photograph of the truth exposed, at least in part, by critical race theory, an academic discipline that teaches the same thing. It is not only a photograph, it is a fact. It is history staring you in the face, history in flesh and blood, history that cannot be rewritten, cannot be buried, cannot be denied, because we are alive to tell it.
That’s Thomas Jefferson’s grave we’re standing on. We are 6th great grandsons of Thomas Jefferson, the nation’s third president long idolized as a founding father of the United States. Shannon is descended from Jefferson’s 36 year relationship – if relations between an enslaved person and a slave owner can be called that – with Sally Hemings, who is his 6th great grandmother. I am descended from Jefferson’s relationship with his wife Martha, who is my 6th great grandmother. Shannon’s great grandmother was enslaved by my 6th great grandfather. We are tied together not only by blood but by the stain of slavery on our family and our country. We are cousins, and we are also blood brothers. We carry in our souls the legacy of the slavery that brought our great grandparents together. We are descendants of slavery. It lives within us.
In that way, we are like tens of millions of other Americans who also carry the legacy of slavery within them, as descendants of slaves and slave owners. It’s a legacy that has long been put away and hidden, living only in the shadows. Shannon and I helped bring it into the light 22 years ago when I invited several dozen of my cousins in the Sally Hemings family to be my guests at the annual family reunion of the white descendants of Jefferson who belong to the Monticello Association. We attended the annual cocktail party on the west lawn of Monticello. We mixed together as we wandered freely through both the public and private spaces of Jefferson’s house. We gave interviews to dozens and dozens of members of the media who were there from all over the world to cover the first time that descendants of a slave had been invited to a social occasion at the home of the man who owned their ancestor – in this case, Sally Hemings.
It was quite a scene. My white cousins in the Monticello Association were not happy. Their cousins from the Sally Hemings side of the family had never been invited to the family reunion before. In fact, the descendants of Sally Hemings were not members of the family association, which identifies itself as descendants of Jefferson. Over the next few years, the Monticello Association would consider whether to invite our cousins to join our membership.
In 2002, the members of the Monticello Association voted against admitting our Hemings cousins as members. The vote was 96 to 6. Five of those voting yes were Truscotts – me and my brother and three sisters.

 

[SNOWFLAKE]

I have a very strong memory of a confrontation I had with one of the employees at Monticello, a docent who led visitors on tours of the house. He approached me at the reunion red-faced and stopped within a foot of me and said, “You have ruined the whole thing.”
“What have I ruined?” I asked him. “How?”
“You don’t know what you’ve done. You have brought disgrace on a great man. It’s never going to be the same after this.”
The next morning, I appeared with Michelle Cooley, one of my Hemings cousins, on the Today Show. Shannon and Michelle and I gave interviews to television crews from places like Bangkok and Paris and Moscow. And that afternoon, the death threats started. They came by email and by phone at first. Later, they would come in the mail to my home in Los Angeles, more than a hundred them.
One I remember very, very well because somehow this man had gotten my phone number, and he called me in the middle of the night. He threatened me, told me he knew where I was staying in Charlottesville and where I lived in California. When his threats had finally sputtered to a stop, I asked him why, and it led to a conversation that lasted about five minutes. He called me a traitor to my race and several other things involving the “N-word.” I asked him why he felt so strongly the way he did. He told me I was trying to change the way things had always been, that Black people were inferior, that they didn’t deserve to be treated the same way as whites. I asked him if he thought Black people should have the right to vote. He said, of course not. They weren’t real Americans. He said something like, “you don’t know it yet, but one day we’ll get things back to the way they used to be, before n-----s had rights and everything went to hell in this country.”
Today on its front page, the New York Times informs us that the state of Texas is entertaining “a flurry” of laws that would “reframe Texas history lessons and play down references to slavery and anti-Mexican discrimination that are part of the state’s founding.” The states of Idaho, Louisiana, New Hampshire, and Tennessee are all considering bills that would ban teaching about slavery and segregation and ban using the 1619 Project in state school curriculums. One Texas bill would “promote patriotic education” by omitting the introduction of slavery when Texas achieved independence from Mexico in 1836. Another bill would ban exhibits at the Alamo that show major figures in the Texas Revolution were slave owners. Another bill would constrain teachers from discussing how racism determined the legal system in Texas. The bills do not address how to teach about the Texas state constitution which legalized slavery the day it was passed, but “playing down” references to slavery isn’t going to help.
Earlier this week, the University of North Carolina refused tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones, last year’s recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for commentary for her role in creating the 1619 Project. She had been hired by the university’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media to be Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism, a position which in the past had come with tenure. Stories in the Times, The Hill, the Charlotte Observer and elsewhere attributed the refusal of tenure to “a backlash among conservatives” on the UNC Board of Governors. Ms Hannah-Jones accepted a five year contract as a professor with an “option” for tenure review on completion of the contract.

 

[SNOWFLAKE]

Guess I had to post this in three parts, so to continue:

This kind of stuff has been going on for a long time and it’s not stopping. But it is folly. They can pass all the laws they want, but they’re not going to erase the fact that slaves built Monticello, slaves built the United States Capitol, slaves built the White House, and slaves built practically every capitol building in every southern state, not to mention most of the county courthouses throughout the south. They can ban the 1619 Project from public schools, but they cannot hide from what it says about slavery being a part of the founding of this country.
Look at Shannon Lanier. He knows who he is. No law in Texas or Tennessee or Louisiana or anywhere else can change the fact that when tourists visit Monticello today, they are taken through the room where Shannon’s 6th great grandmother lived and where she gave birth to Madison Hemings, Shannon’s 5th great grandfather, and they are told about Thomas Jefferson’s other children with Sally Hemings, and they are shown the furniture that Sally’s brother John built that Thomas Jefferson designed, and they are told about the lives of Jefferson’s slaves and how they made his life as one of the “founders” possible.
History is alive in us. It flows through Shannon’s and my veins. It is in the DNA of my children and Shannon’s children. History lives in who we are and how we live our lives. They can tell all the lies they want, and they can ban all the books and teaching materials they want, but they can’t ban us. We are the legacy of our nation’s tainted past in flesh and blood, and we are evidence that racism and white supremacy and slavery may be in our past, but we are the future."

 

[NWRatCon]

The truth is a powerful thing.

The 1619 project

 

[MaryP]

Guess I had to post this in three parts, so to continue:

This kind of stuff has been going on for a long time and it’s not stopping. But it is folly. They can pass all the laws they want, but they’re not going to erase the fact that slaves built Monticello, slaves built the United States Capitol, slaves built the White House, and slaves built practically every capitol building in every southern state, not to mention most of the county courthouses throughout the south. They can ban the 1619 Project from public schools, but they cannot hide from what it says about slavery being a part of the founding of this country.
Look at Shannon Lanier. He knows who he is. No law in Texas or Tennessee or Louisiana or anywhere else can change the fact that when tourists visit Monticello today, they are taken through the room where Shannon’s 6th great grandmother lived and where she gave birth to Madison Hemings, Shannon’s 5th great grandfather, and they are told about Thomas Jefferson’s other children with Sally Hemings, and they are shown the furniture that Sally’s brother John built that Thomas Jefferson designed, and they are told about the lives of Jefferson’s slaves and how they made his life as one of the “founders” possible.
History is alive in us. It flows through Shannon’s and my veins. It is in the DNA of my children and Shannon’s children. History lives in who we are and how we live our lives. They can tell all the lies they want, and they can ban all the books and teaching materials they want, but they can’t ban us. We are the legacy of our nation’s tainted past in flesh and blood, and we are evidence that racism and white supremacy and slavery may be in our past, but we are the future."
View attachment 67339942

Holy Hell, Snowflake! Thanks for this. Powerful stuff.

 

[NWRatCon]

I hope you don't mind my sharing this, but my family has a personal journey we are planning for next spring. We are planning a trip following the migration path of another family of ancestors. (We spent the spring and summers of 2018 and 2019 doing the California Trail.) This one, however, traces a different family line - this one goes from Bedford, Virginia, through Limestone, Alabama, to Yazoo, Mississippi, to La Grange, Texas.

It is in many respects, a journey of expiation. You see, it follows the route that that particular family line took in establishing plantations throughout the South, and their efforts to further the slave trade along the way. They were not just slave owners, but we have now discovered that 3 generations of them were active in the business of slave breeding. We are working on a project to try to identify as many of the slave families that were associated with those plantations as we can. Like the Truscotts, we see the unearthing of the truth of that past as a process of making the family history whole. Other branches of the family made similar migrations, but for the opposite reason - they were abolitionists who left Virginia and the Carolinas to establish homesteads in territories that were divided along the slavery line - and fought against the establishment of slavery in those territories. Both sides of that family history need to be acknowledged and understood, because it is, quite literally, the history of America.

 

[MaryP]

We are working on a project to try to identify as many of the slave families that were associated with those plantations as we can

Sounds challenging! Have you done the dna thing yet? I believe it was helpful in confirming the Hemings' claims.

You may have some new cousins in store! Get an extra box of Christmas cards!

 

[NWRatCon]

Sounds challenging! Have you done the dna thing yet? I believe it was helpful in confirming the Hemings' claims.

You may have some new cousins in store! Get an extra box of Christmas cards!

We have done "the DNA thing" and found numerous cousins. According to my DNA map, I am ~1%+/- "Cameroon and Bantu peoples". That indicates a linkage many, many generations back, and it is so small as to be untraceable by current methodologies. It would be interesting to be able to do so, but I'm frankly more interested in the social than blood relations. All of it is so far back in my family lineage that it is more academic than actual, but I have found it profound to find records that identify specific family members. One of the most profound was an oral history provided by one of the freed slaves from the Texas plantation. I love having that personal connection to history. I have a sword carried by one of my wife's forebears during the Civil War hanging over the mantle.

 

[MaryP]

We have done "the DNA thing" and found numerous cousins. According to my DNA map, I am ~1%+/- "Cameroon and Bantu peoples". That indicates a linkage many, many generations back, and it is so small as to be untraceable by current methodologies. It would be interesting to be able to do so, but I'm frankly more interested in the social than blood relations. All of it is so far back in my family lineage that it is more academic than actual, but I have found it profound to find records that identify specific family members. One of the most profound was an oral history provided by one of the freed slaves from the Texas plantation. I love having that personal connection to history. I have a sword carried by one of my wife's forebears during the Civil War hanging over the mantle.

Good luck tracing him forward and making a connection!

 

[SNOWFLAKE]

I hope you don't mind my sharing this

Not I, in fact I wish more people would share their stories, but there are those who will avoid this thread because they don't want to know your story or know about the cousins in the OP.

 

[SNOWFLAKE]

quite literally, the history of America.

something a certain demographic of the US do not want taught.

 

[NWRatCon]

There is a certain character, really a flaw, that requires the denigrating of others to feel superiority. We know this phenomenon well. We recently suffered through the elevation of that mindset. My hope is that its public exposure will lead to its eradication from the national psyche.

 

[SNOWFLAKE]

There is a certain character, really a flaw, that requires the denigrating of others to feel superiority. We know this phenomenon well. We recently suffered through the elevation of that mindset. My hope is that its public exposure will lead to its eradication from the national psyche.

no as long as they enough of their own kind to hang with

 

[CaughtInThe]

We're all related through human blood.

 

[SNOWFLAKE]

Holy Hell, Snowflake! Thanks for this. Powerful stuff.

Thanks for the kind words, alas, there is a certain group of people who will not participate on this thread, or if they do, will try to change the subject

 

[NWRatCon]

We're all related through human blood.

Well... there is some evidence to the contrary. I'M fairly confident that some posters here don't share 99% of our human genetics.

 

[KLATTU]

1619 project.ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

 

[SNOWFLAKE]

1619 project.ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

I know it was a long read, so I fully expected some wouldn't have the attention span to get through it

 

[Atreus21]

The truth is a powerful thing.

The 1619 project

Which apparently required a subscription to see.

 

[NWRatCon]

Which apparently required a subscription to see.

Oh, I thought you it was open, now. I'm sorry. I usually not when something is subscription.

 

[LostinThought]

As a revision of history, the 1619 project gets many aspects of it's own record keeping wrong. Much like the practice of CRT, there are plenty of issues to be shared between the two.

 

[reflechissez]

As a revision of history, the 1619 project gets many aspects of it's own record keeping wrong. Much like the practice of CRT, there are plenty of issues to be shared between the two.

Show your work.

 

[maxparrish]

Will post the following in two parts because of it's length.
Hopefully will be read with an open mind.

Cousins.
by Lucian K. Truscott IV
"You are looking at a photograph of me and my cousin Shannon Lanier. It’s a photograph that illustrates why the 1619 Project is such a white supremacist’s nightmare, teaching that racism and slavery played a major role in the founding of this nation. It’s a photograph of the truth exposed, at least in part, by critical race theory, an academic discipline that teaches the same thing. It is not only a photograph, it is a fact. It is history staring you in the face, history in flesh and blood, history that cannot be rewritten, cannot be buried, cannot be denied, because we are alive to tell it. ...

Dear Lucian;

Lucian, you poor old fool. Like so many race crusaders of the past 1/2 century, you just can't let it go, can you? No matter that the civil rights laws have carved a whole new cultural landscape, that Bull Connors and the KKK have passed into that ancient misty history of civil rights workers and burned churches - all before most were born. Like some old WWII fossil who gets huffy righteous over 'the japs', and rail against dead unpaid war debt and ungrateful "frenchys" your own more recent senior memories of encountering the last vestige's of ancestor worship have become a giant hobgoblin, and the events of some 20 years ago still makes you angry...so angry that it compels you to histrionics about the value of a new idiot history like 1619 and feed your righteous fantasy's about those "bad people" the "secret white supremists" that are still lurking under the bed (in dire need of 're-education', right?).

Of course, the descendants of Jefferson on the Hemmings side did what any smart person would do if they can't associate with "white supremists" (and if true, why would they?) - they started there own association that welcomes all sides of the Jefferson family. Problem solved, LONG before the recent cult-fad of woke history popped up with 1619 hooey.

So please old sport, put aside your dated grudges and stale pot banging. Hemmings (a very near white woman) probably produced Jefferson children. Certainly these hemming descendants thought so, regardless of the color of their skin:



But the point is that white or black, they couldn't be believed by the society of their time because it was scandalous to sleep with unmarried women, the help no less. People who wish their ancestors to be larger than life heroes won't accept any "stain", white or black in color, of bastard children.

So get a move on, get over it and enjoy the larger group that now offers the association with all. Twenty years of grudges over denial of your cousins rubbing elbows with some self-appointed snobs isn't healthy.

Max Parrish

 

[MaryP]

Dear Lucian;

Lucian, you poor old fool. Like so many race crusaders of the past 1/2 century, you just can't let it go, can you? No matter that the civil rights laws have carved a whole new cultural landscape, that Bull Connors and the KKK have passed into that ancient misty history of civil rights workers and burned churches - all before most were born. Like some old WWII fossil who gets huffy righteous over 'the japs', and rail against dead unpaid war debt and ungrateful "frenchys" your own more recent senior memories of encountering the last vestige's of ancestor worship have become a giant hobgoblin, and the events of some 20 years ago still makes you angry...so angry that it compels you to histrionics about the value of a new idiot history like 1619 and feed your righteous fantasy's about those "bad people" the "secret white supremists" that are still lurking under the bed (in dire need of 're-education', right?).

Of course, the descendants of Jefferson on the Hemmings side did what any smart person would do if they can't associate with "white supremists" (and if true, why would they?) - they started there own association that welcomes all sides of the Jefferson family. Problem solved, LONG before the recent cult-fad of woke history popped up with 1619 hooey.

So please old sport, put aside your dated grudges and stale pot banging. Hemmings (a very near white woman) probably produced Jefferson children. Certainly these hemming descendants thought so, regardless of the color of their skin:

View attachment 67340105

But the point is that white or black, they couldn't be believed by the society of their time because it was scandalous to sleep with unmarried women, the help no less. People who wish their ancestors to be larger than life heroes won't accept any "stain", white or black in color, of bastard children.

So get a move on, get over it and enjoy the larger group that now offers the association with all. Twenty years of grudges over denial of your cousins rubbing elbows with some self-appointed snobs isn't healthy.

Max Parrish

I think what Lucian was getting at is that as of twenty years ago, racism was still very real among those " important" people in society. It's not time to ignore it when those lucky enough to have been born part of the privileged system are still slamming the door on blacks (though as your picture shows, many Hemings are white as I am). It really shocked me that people would still react that way.

I looked up the Monticello Association and it's last post, in 2003, was still denying the Hemings descendants as family, even after a careful investigation by a committee of historians and a geneticist who reviewed all the available primary sources and genetic testing. The Monticello Commission, which is a separate organization that runs Monticello, includes the story of the Hemings family now in its tours of Monticello, relying on the documented evidence. Not so the racist snobs who comprise the Monticello Association. This is the systematic attitude embedded in our culture, Max.

When I went down south on vacay, what I noticed (and no, I didn't go with race on my mind) was that all the employees were black EXCEPT for the white person at the front desk. Everyone who brought my coffee and paper in the morning, everyone who hailed our cabs and loaded our suitcases, swept the courtyard, was black. Same when I stayed in Charleston. The servants are still black and those in charge are white. The tour of the plantation I visited, the guide bragged how descendants of their slaves were still living and working for them, as we drove by their row of tiny cabins smaller than a roadside 50's motel unit, where he pointed out one descendant had raised 13 children. Bragging about it. I seriously don't know how they even fit in there all at once.

It's not time to shut up and get over it. Not yet.

 

[MaryP]

But the point is that white or black, they couldn't be believed by the society of their time because it was scandalous to sleep with unmarried women, the help no less. People who wish their ancestors to be larger than life heroes won't accept any "stain", white or black in color, of bastard children.

No, it wasn't because they were born on the wrong side of the sheets. It was because they were born to a slave. Sally's two daughters moved away, lived their lives passing as white. Her two sons were freed by Jefferson at age 21, and he had to get the legislature to pass an exception so they wouldn't have to move out of state. One moved to Ohio eventually and was a successful farmer. People remarked that both boys were the spitting image of Jefferson. Everyone around Monticello and those who knew Jefferson knew they were Jefferson's kids. Sally was never officially freed because she would have had to move out of state. She was unofficially freed, at Jefferson's request, after his death and stayed in the community with her sons. But she was limited by the fact that she didn't have legal papers declaring her free; she needed to stay in the town where people knew her and recognized her " freedom."

It wasn't being bastards that put the Monticello crowd's noses out of joint. It was because Sally Hemings was a slave.