What’s Wrong With The 1619 Project?
In August of 2019, the New York Times published The 1619 Project. Its goal is to redefine the American experiment as rooted not in liberty but in slavery. In this video, Wilfred Reilly, Associate Professor of Political Science at Kentucky State University, responds to The 1619 Project’s major claims.
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Script:
Have you heard of The 1619 Project? It was published by the New York Times in August of 2019. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2020.
Its thesis: The United States was founded in 1619, when the first slave was brought to North America.
Wait—that brings up some questions…
What happened to 1776? To July 4th? The Declaration of Independence? George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison?
According to The 1619 Project, the Founding Fathers pushed for all that “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” stuff to protect their slave holdings. Independence from England? That was just a smoke screen.
To them, everything that’s wrong with America is tied to her “original sin” of slavery: from segregation to traffic jams (yes—traffic jams!). For The 1619 Project authors, racism is not a part of the American experience; it is the American experience.
Is this true? Let’s look at three of the project’s major claims:
1. Preserving slavery was the real cause of the American Revolution.
If you asked the Founders why they no longer wanted to be a British colony, they would have given you a long list of reasons: Taxation without representation, conflicts over debts from the French and Indian War, and the Stamp Act would be just a few.
Probably most important was the burning desire to be free—to chart their own destiny as a sovereign nation. Protecting slavery? Slavery was not under threat from the British. In fact, Britain didn’t free the slaves in its overseas colonies until 1833—57 years later, after the Declaration of Independence.
Yes, the subject of slavery was hotly debated at the Constitutional Convention, but that was after the war was won.
2. Slavery made America rich.
Slavery made some Americans rich—true enough. Eli Yale, for example, made a fortune in the slave trade. He donated money and land for the university that is named after him. But the institution of slavery didn’t make America rich. In fact, the slave system badly slowed the economic development of half the country.
As economist Thomas Sowell points out, in 1860, just one year before the Civil War began, the South had only one-sixth as many factories as the North. Almost 90% of the country’s skilled, well-paid laborers and professionals were based in the North. Banking, railroads, manufacturing—all were concentrated in the North. The South was an economic backwater.
And the cost of abolishing slavery was enormous—not merely in terms of dollars (Lincoln borrowed billions to pay for it), but also in terms of human life: 360,000 Union soldiers died in order to free 4 million slaves. That works out to about one soldier in blue for every ten slaves freed. It’s hard to look at that butcher’s bill and conclude that the nation turned a profit from slavery.
And many things have happened since 1865. In the almost 200 years since the Civil War, the population of the country has grown almost 900% and our national GDP has increased 12,000%. Slavery did not make America rich.
3. Racism is an unchangeable part of America.
This argument is more philosophical than scholarly, but it undergirds the entire 1619 Project. It’s also pernicious because it suggests that the United States is an inherently racist country that can’t overcome its flaws. Yet that’s exactly what it’s done.
Today, America is the most successful multi-racial country in history, the only white majority country to elect a black President—twice. Of course, progress has not always been smooth. There have been terrible setbacks. But to compare American attitudes about race today to America a hundred years ago, let alone to 1619, is absurd.
For the complete script visit https://www.prageru.com/video/whats-wrong-with-the-1619-project
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Isn’t it ironic that the Liberals who push the 1619 project… are in fact the same people who benefited from slavery 💀
The pure IRONY of it all 🤡
So since Yale profited from slavery, then should the University that bears his name change it? That’s what the Leftists would demand.
America Is A Country Everyone Wants To Come To!!!
Typical B.S. from those who claim that they, not white people, were the founders of the USA.
Look at that Youtube/Wikipedia disclimer about the 2020 election under this video.
Not to mention that in 1619, much of modern international politics did not exist. Europe's longest war was only a year in (twenty-nine years till Westphalia), and even such important events like the voyage of the Mayflower and the Battle of White Mountain were still a year away.
There are better African-American histories than the 1619 project, such as the writings of John Hope Franklin. But I disagree with conservative attempts to ban this book from course curriculums or libraries. The 1619 Project has value as a supplementary history. While they were wrong to say slavery was the main cause of the American Revolution, it was nevertheless a factor among southern slaveowners. And while it is not the case that racism is unchangeable in America, it is true that past racist policies still have their effects today. As for the assertion that slavery made America rich — yes and no. Large cotton plantations in the south depleted the soils and spurred movement westward. On the other hand, the cotton plantations were linked to the American textile industry and trade with England.
Major sidenote but do yall see his beard??????
Sure but it was right about the British Empire being the morally superior side in the American Revolution.
Frederick Douglass, said the American constitution was base around slavery, you can either lie about that or keep choosing to read a singular line from his speech
When historically ignorant woke progressive leftist cultist start writing history, and that travesty of opinion over fact gets shoved down the nation's throat by mainstream media and liberal pundits, truth, patriotism, and national community suffers. Eroding all that holds us together.
The pig goes "Oink". The cow goes "Moo". The black supremacist goes "Me Me Me MEMEMEMEME!!!!". They desperately try to redefine all of history to make themselves the center of everything.
What ISN'T wrong with it?
I notice that YouTube added a Wikipedia link below the Prager video with its version of the history of the 2020 presidential elections. Not only does the 2020 elections have nothing to do with the 1619 Project, but the whole story, and it is a story, is based on New York Times and CNN news stories, like they’re unbiased or even truthful, which Wikipedia references.
What's wrong with the 1619 project? The exact same thing that's wrong with PragerU's "Was the Civil War About Slavery?" video, and the "expert" fool they highlighted in that video would surely defend the 1619 project, too.
Why is there a context thing on this video for the 2020 election?
1619 is what you get when hysterical illiterates, motivated by an idiotic political ideology, try to rewrite history while ignoring every shred of evidence than has ever existed.
Prager U is a white supremacist think tank that out sources work to blacks who are willing to sell out and non-blacks who are happy to pick up the white Supremist agenda. It’s 100% anti-black race schism to illuminate and or omit black Americans from history because of fragile white feelings.🚫🧢
Fact over fiction.
Other than the Anti-American political left in modern America…
There once was another political group in America once who had a false version of history, fake holidays and a revisionist fake version of America.
They were called the Confederacy.
The political left in modern America is simply a rethought, new version of the Confederacy.
They call themselves "Woke Liberals".
I call them what they are,
Rabid Racists.
Ever wonder why prageru only has minority speakers in their videos of racial debate?
It’s a lie!!
Woke is a carcinogen that needs to be cut out.
Everything
Wikipedia's response to the truth about 1619 is to remind us that Biden was elected in 2020.
black men and women should be up in arms and about the human trafficking that is happening on our southern boarders… and thanks to our president… a 4x deported criminal… back in the the US… again… shot and killed 5 people… including and 9 yr old…where are the men and women of color shouting for boarder control
not to mention… that other black men in Tripoli and Montezuma sold other mad men and women into slavery that were shipped across the ocean to the US… thus … way back when… the newly formed marines… said with with naval ships… to the halls of Montezuma and the shores of Tripoli … to try and stem the flow of human trafficking
Jefferson wrote in the declaration a list of complaints against the king. One of the complaints was that the king brought slavery to the colonies. The other delegates decided to remove it.
Everything
They want it to be so lets give em what they want. I mean a country founded on racism. 😂
everything
I thoroughly believe that the current discourses on racism are brought up in an attempt by neo marxists to destabilize and incite a communist revolution. BLM is an openly marxist organization and critical race theory is derived from post modernism, marxism, (particularly Gramsci's cultural type) and its goals are to not change the systems operating principles as traditional civil rights did, but to dismantle and destroy it all together. Critical race theory literature says this quite openly.
IF America WERE a fundamentally racist country, then how the hell does cancel culture destroy those Americans, who have been labeled as "racists"? Also, how does this topic warrant a Wikipedia rationalization on the 2020 election?
It tells sone truth
To intentionally misquote very slightly former Sen. Biden: "He's very well spoken."
What’s wrong—-everything.
Easy to sell the, "Project" to a willing audience…
Have you heard of the 1947 project? Not surprising.
Those darn racist founding fathers causing all those traffic jams! Why I outta!
Slavery did make more African Tribal Chiefs very rich as well. Since the European's did not get off their ship's due to the deadly tropical Diseases which they had no immunity to fight Off. That would mean that they most have purchased them from someone else. And that must have been From other African's. So, they had already been captured, shackled, marched down to the docks, auctioned off and Loaded upon the ships by NOT the Europeans
What bull shit.
“Decent white people” even your racism is showing. At the end of the day the root of racism is a large group of poor Americans living in generations of welfare and government care both black & white refusing to change by bettering themselves. There is no incentive to change by rising up in education, employment and status as the government provides for all their needs. Sort of the mentality of why should I fix the hole in the roof it’s not raining today. Until we muster the courage to put welfare and government care on a tract to oblivion we will always have those at both ends having disdain for the other.