This “project” is a propaganda project, created by the propaganda organ called the New York Times, whose motto is “All the news that undermines traditional American values and the possibility of coherent rational dialogue”.
1619 was the year the first slaves made it to America. Now, I have not and will not make any effort to study it in depth, but from Wikipedia, the stated intent is to “reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United States‘ national narrative.”
In other words, the whole history of the United States is to be retold from the perspective of people who played in actual fact very little role in it. Yes, slavery was important in the South, but not in the North, and not important after 1865.
The patent objective is to create the impression that America is uniquely evil in countenancing slavery, and to facilitate anti-white racism, which is easily explainable as unhealthy self loathing in the (mainly) whites pushing this.
This is a ridiculous lie, that should be risible for any educated person, but our problem is that far too many people–which certainly includes most college graduates– are not and never become educated.
A few facts. Again, I was reading National Geographic the other day, and they had an interesting graphic they must have assumed people like me would not look at. It was about locating wrecked slave ships.
Here is a link to the graphic referenced. Just scroll down a bit. I can’t make the image work. The paranoid part of me assumes they don’t want this graphic to get too much traction. It was needed for their story, which had its political purpose, but seen by too many dilutes their story of American Exceptionalism, as in our purportedly exceptional guilt for slavery: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/a-divers-hunt-for-lost-slave-ships-led-to-an-incredible-journey
A total of 307,000 enslaved Africans (who by the way were in the main captured and sold by other black Africans) were transported to the English and then American colonies.
But 764,000 were transported to Cuba. 695,000 were transported to Haiti. 935,000 were transported to Jamaica. 1.5 million to other islands. 1.2 million to Bahia in Brazil. 1.4 million to Southeast Brazil. 430,000 to Pernambuco.
Brazil was actually the last nation to ban slavery in the Western Hemisphere (parts of Africa only did so in the past 20 years or so, and slavery is still practiced in Nigeria, Libya, and elsewhere). Brazil did not ban slavery until 1888–over twenty years after the United States–and only after importing more than 4 million slaves, which is over TEN TIMES what we did.
And as this article points out, even when the Portuguese got there, the practice of slavery was endemic, with one tribe conquering and enslaving others.
And the Spanish and Portuguese both, in my understanding, enslaved first the INDIANS, the Native Americans, the people already there, which the English did not do.
The natives just died in large numbers, particularly from disease, which was what created the need for black slaves, as seen back then. This happened all over Latin America, including Mexico and Brazil.
Why is no one talking about all this? Where are the adults in the room? Where are the responsible people, trying to present a balanced, complete, and reasonable picture of the whole?
Why are so many people so fucking nuts who have Ph.D’s and should KNOW BETTER?
Immaturity. It’s a simple word, but it goes deep. Here is another phrase: because of their Counter-Individuational Politics. Because of their attachment to infantile rage and thinking.
And I will add too slavery in Ethiopia, whose Haile Selassie is held up at least by the Rastafarians–whose name derives from his formal title, and who are descendants of slaves brought over in the Transatlantic slave trade–seems to go back 3,500 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Ethiopia
It was under the pretense of abolishing slavery that the actual Fascists (remember: this group actually did exist) invaded Ethiopia:
Under the pretense of abolishing slavery (and a border incident), Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935. Italy ignored international condemnation and demands by the League of Nations to depart. During Italian rule, the occupation government issued two laws in October 1935 and in April 1936 which abolished slavery and, freed 420,000 Ethiopian slaves. After the Italians were expelled, Emperor Haile Selassie returned to power and quickly abolished the actual practice in 1942.[
Selassie himself reportedly owned slaves by the thousands, according to the article.
And I cannot find it right now–it seems to have been written out–but I recall the numbers when Mussolini invaded as roughly 12 million Ethiopians, of whom roughly 3 million were slaves, or roughly one in four. That’s a lot, and much higher as a percentage than it ever was in the United States, particularly if you factor in that there were zero slaves in the North from relatively early on.
I just look out there every day and see mental illness, indefensible claims, arrogance, presumption, and latent violence. I obviously have my own issues, but my personal history has made me intensely sensitive with regard to the hypocrisies and inconsistencies of others. I see what others don’t, because there was a time when doing so meant my survival, or at least it felt that way, and once developed you never lose those habits.