My fundamental issue: the project - which contains some good stuff! - includes numerous assertions that are obviously factually unsupportable, draws fringe-y conclusions from them, & then presents the whole thing as definitive w/o disclosing the dissent of leading scholars.
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Replying to @baseballcrank
What was weird for me is that what I found so valuable about the project was not the part that was dissented to by those historians. And I welcome highlighting certain debates - e.g. about the relation between capitalism and slavery.
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Replying to @jasonintrator @baseballcrank
I'm not sure how any project with this broad a scope could be uncontroversial, and I found the initial Hannah-Jones essay really powerful and am upset at its misrepresentation. It's a super important point that Black intellectuals urged realization of democratic ideals.
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Replying to @jasonintrator
And yet, Hannah-Jones attacks the core of Frederick Douglass' own theses about America & its Founding.
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Replying to @baseballcrank
I think various founders were more conflicted than she makes them out to be, but I also think Douglass was being rhetorical/aspirational.
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Replying to @jasonintrator @baseballcrank
Mostly I'm just excited to see people discuss this stuff seriously for a change.
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Replying to @jasonintrator
The problem is that the 1619 project will be sent to schools shorn of the debate that shows how many things it asserts that are, at best, fringe views conflicted by a multitude of evidence. The people - even the top scholars in these fields - dissenting don't have that megaphone.
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Replying to @baseballcrank
I think it's factually false that these are fringe views. I think there is some misrepresentation of what has been claimed, to make it seem more extreme. And it's not true that "the top scholars in the field" dissent.
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Replying to @jasonintrator @baseballcrank
There is legitimate dissent and some of the essays, eg Desmond's, raise provocative theses that engender important discussion - which version of capitalism should we embrace?
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Replying to @jasonintrator @baseballcrank
And speaking as someone who learned a factually false history of Reconstruction during public school, I think it's refreshing to see a different view get voiced. There will be pushback, and that's fine.
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We're reaching the point of diminishing returns here, so should probably call it a night. I agree that it's good to confront people with differing perspectives on history. My issue is simply with presenting things that range from contested to debunked without perspective.
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