The 1619 Project and The First Amendment ~
Or abridging the Freedom of Speech or of the Press . . .
In any other nation of this earth, where the freedoms of the people are more restricted, The New York Times, its New York Times Magazine, its publishers, the authors of the “1619 Project” and any enablers thereof, would be jailed, possibly being sentenced to more heinous punishments upon judgement of guilt. The publication itself is an act of Sedition.
Sedition: [Noun] conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch.
The 1619 Project is a false retelling of America's History. It emphasizes the affect of a disgusting part of Human History that effects our entire population, but falsely implies that that history is only about thirteen percent of the population, a fact the Author and Publishers don’t want you to know.
"The 1619 Project
The 1619 Project is an ongoing initiative from The New York Times Magazine that began in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative." The New York Times Magazine.
A principle objection to the “1619 Project[‘s]” premise is the mathematical reality that 13 percent of anything cannot be a central factor of any equation. That Human Bondage has been improperly treated by educators and schools curriculum since the beginning of public education in the 1880’s is a given. But that cannot be the reason for a wholesale revision of 2021’s curriculum's.
Human Bondage, slavery, was in sixteen nineteen the standard operating procedure for the whole world. In those times there was no nation of this earth, not the uncivilized population of tribal peoples Africa, Asia, Southwest Asia, or North and South America. Nor were the civilized populations of Western Europe and their Colonial Territories exempted of them. Persons of every known race suffered the horrific trials and tribulations of this bondage. Inhuman mistreatment included but were not limited to: Castration of males or sterilization of females; Genital mutilations; Tattooed, prominently placed marks of possession or dominion; Forced Breeding, like cattle, to increase the wealth of the owner; and Primitive levels of Psychological Conditioning were used to coerce desired behaviors. Whipping and physical abuse were, truthfully, the least of the evils of sixteenth century bondage.
Nikole Sheri Hannah-Jones is an American investigative journalist known for her coverage of civil rights in the United States. An investigative journalist at The New York Times since 2015, she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for the “1619 Project” in early 2020. I do not challenge her Pulitzer, it is masterful writing, only its categorization is faulty, it should have been awarded for Interpretive Fiction. The First Amendment permits any speech or publication, no matter how odious, and the “1619 Project” is not odious. It tells a part of Colonial and American History that has not been emphasized in publication or teaching. But the directed and considered judgement of Colonial America, ruled by Britain under British Law for a 167 years, before America, a new born form of governance, a democracy, a Confederation and then a Democratic Republic, by 21st Century standards, that is odious.
Under British Colonial rule fewer than 15 percent of the “Owned” or “Bonded” population was Black, Indio or Hispanic, and 50 percent of the other “Bonded” population were Caucasian and lived in variant forms of bondage, Indentured Labor, Indentured Servitude [Time limited, usually 10 or 15 years.], or sold, by a controlling lord, parent or guardian into a Bonded Apprenticeship. These statistics are ignored by the “1619 Project.” Britain itself did not end Slavery until 1833, 44 years after the Constitution was enacted. Britain populated it’s colonies by deporting its citizens for crimes, some as slight as stealing bread or food, but a few were serious malefactors. It has been estimated that as much as 60 percent of the populations of Australia, New Zealand, and the American Colonies, including the Caribbean Islands and Canada, are descended of deported criminals.
Slavery in Britain and its colonies lasted until William Wilberforce, MP, Bristol, made an issue of the merchandising of Human Beings in 1807, after meeting with an educated freed Black man. He fought the Bondage Industry for 26 years, before he got the Slavery Abolition Act, (1833) passed, just months before his death. Britain still retained the other forms of Human Bondage into the 1930’s in its far flung colonies, 65 years after the ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, abolishing slavery and granting suffrage to black men.
In spite of the questionable allegations made by the “1619 Project,” following the period of adjustment after the Civil War, when 435,000 Caucasians and about 2,000 Black men died to end Human Bondage in America. In the period from 1875 to 1964 Black men and Black families were, in spite of all the difficulties that were thrust upon them, economically better off than many similarly situated Caucasian men and families. This would have been the case today if John Kennedy had not been assassinated by the Military-Industrial Complex, [He had begun planning a withdrawal from Southeast Asia.], causing the Democratic Socialist Plantation Manager Lyndon Baines Johnson to be made President.
Johnson, with single minded determination, empowered by his “Great Society’s Welfare Regulations,” destroyed the economic progress made by five generation of Blacks, in the process, destroying the Black Family by enabling a woman to make more from Welfare than from Honest Work, by having more children. That meant more money as long as there was no father/male income earner present. This established a dependence on the Government for all things necessary. The Democratic Socialists, including the Congressional Black Caucus, plantation managers and overseers all, have worked hard to retain this dependency. Then Trump came along, aided by Senator Tim Scott and others, he told the people,
“You don’t have to vote for them. You don’t have to vote for the oppressors anymore. You voted for them for fifty years, and they did nothing for you. I’ll help you; I keep the promises I make.”