Weaponizing the Sin of Slavery

After peaking in 2008, exit polls in the last two Presidential elections have shown a significant decline in African American support for the Democrat candidate. We believe there is an effort now in play to reverse that trend by intentionally creating a deep racial divide in the country. Re-writing the history of slavery is part and parcel to that agenda.

Slavery existed throughout the world for thousands of years. Included in that history is slavery’s presence in America’s past. The world and America have long since evolved beyond this barbaric practice. No person living in America today has ever personally experienced slavery. Nor have their parents or grandparents. It is not a direct part of anyone’s daily life. Yet, when you read or listen to much of today’s political dialogue and media narrative you get the impression that the full force of racial attitudes formerly associated with slavery are still prevalent. Through no subtle means, the term “oppression” has become a euphemism for slavery in the modern vernacular. Its use is intended to sow racial hatred by cultivating the idea that “white America” still holds a demeaning view of people of color. The NY Times is now trying to institutionalize this goal of renewed racial enmity in our culture under the guise of recounting “history”. Young black and white Americans, most of whom were born into an evolved culture of greatly diminished racism compared to that of their ancestors, are the target. To accomplish their sinister objective, the Times essays recount events connected to American slavery in what they refer to as a “reframed” perspective.

Understanding our history is vital. But when describing specific events, decisions, or practices of the past, it is crucial to include in that description the surrounding context of the time. It is completely illogical to pass judgement on events of the past by evaluating them against present day standards of morality, politics, science or technology. These elements of our society are constantly evolving, and different decisions/choices would be made today if presented with these same century-old circumstances. To truly understand history, you must orient yourself squarely within the context in which it unfolded. To do otherwise is baseless, unscientific and historically inaccurate. This is the primary sin of the “Project 1619” essays published in the NY Times¹. Their contextually impoverished conclusions and judgments are being used as weapons to instill racial divisiveness where it hadn’t existed in a generation for many young Americans. 

Two of the of these NY Times essays illustrate well the tone and agenda of the series:

• In one essay, the author presents historical accounts of doctors citing what they believed were physiological differences between the black and white races. The essay then goes on to proclaim all these purported differences were myths conjured up to “prove” the superiority of the white race. While it is true that the outlandish examples referred to in the essay are in fact disproved myths, the author goes on to assert in a highly critical manner that doctors and healthcare facilities today still adhere to the “myth” of physiological differences between the races. Absent the proper context, the essay clearly creates the impression that any professional diagnosis or treatment plan influenced by a patient’s race is just as ignorant and racially biased as it was in the 1800’s. It completely ignores the modern-day health benefits of applying scientifically compiled statistics regarding the vulnerability of different racial/cultural groups to various diseases. For example, Asian-Americans have higher rates of liver and stomach cancers and African Americans have higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, and lung cancer – to say nothing of purely genetic diseases like sickle cell anemia. If early detection and better treatment can result from health care providers using these health statistics, does it matter whether the underlying reason for the difference is physiological or environmental? And is it racist to notice and act on these differences? Of course not.
• In another essay, the claim is made that black music is the underlying basis of the hit songs and musical careers of many white artists. Thus, white artists have unjustly profited financially by using black music without ever compensating the original artists. The goal of the essay is to create a sense of unfairness, accuse a broad swath of musicians of cheating, and foment anger. In every endeavor, people are influenced by the previous work of others in the same field. It’s how we evolve and improve ourselves. To claim that every instance of this is somehow a violation or unfair appropriation of another person’s creativity is an argument for stagnation, not evolution. Yes, there does exist a legal framework for copyright protection and due credit for an “original work” or invention, but that applies only to very specific cases. Those cases must include a complete and exhaustive description of every aspect of the work. The copyright framework was never meant to be applied broadly to general areas of style like Impressionist art, Cajun cooking, or Victorian architecture. In the case of this essay, the enduring appreciation and reverence among musicians for Blues style melodies has been replaced with a malevolent accusation that white musicians using this style have defrauded African Americans.

This series also appears designed to support the case for slavery reparations. A main theme throughout the all of the essays is that much of the wealth and prosperity in our country today was generated directly or indirectly by slaves. The clear implication is that some amount of that wealth is “owed” not only to actual descendants of slaves, but to all black Americans because they are suffering from present day discrimination rooted in the legacy of slavery. Absent from the calculus underlying this unpaid debt to African Americans is consideration of what part of that debt was “paid” by the tremendous loss of life in the Civil War. Over 500,000 Americans died in the Civil War, far more than in any other war in US history. Half of that human toll, a quarter million people, gave their lives to put an end to slavery and reunite the south with the north. The NY Times authors do not regard this historical fact as relevant to their calculus or justification for current day “reparations” for slavery. This raises the obvious question of what possible penance for the sin of slavery could be offered today that comes even remotely close to the human sacrifice in the Civil War.

In recent history, the politics of racism has set up Democrats as the champions of the oppressed and Republicans as the oppressors. Interestingly, the historical truth at the time of the Civil War is exactly the opposite. The NY Times essay authors conspicuously fail to point this out. Before and after the Civil War, it was Democrat politicians, not Republicans, who did everything in their power to keep slavery intact. Immediately after the Civil War, President Lincoln (a Republican) installed union troops in the southern capitals to safeguard the newly earned freedom of African Americans. Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, wanted to pull those troops out and prematurely end the Reconstruction plan crafted by Lincoln. It was Congressional Democrats who then opposed the 13th amendment that ended slavery. Every single Republican Senator and Republican House member voted to pass the 13^th amendment. However, more than half of Senate Democrats and nearly 3/4ths of House Democrats voted against the amendment, making plain their desire to keep slavery intact. Southern Democrat Governors and Mayors, not Republicans, presided over and implemented the discriminatory Jim Crowe Laws of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Of course, Democrats of today would argue they have evolved beyond their racist past and into a force for racial progress. The 1619 essays support that view. At the same time, Democrats characterize Republicans as having “devolved” into a group of racist despots.

There is little mystery, at least to us, why these essays are being published now. By 2008, the country had arrived at a point where racially motivated protests, activism, and riots had become much fewer and further between than they were in 1960’s. Relations between everyday Americans of varied race were easing and normalizing. America had evolved for the good, and the potential for accelerating this evolution even further emerged in the person of Barack Obama. Many people crossed ideological lines and voted for Obama in 2008 for just this reason. Obama received the largest ever majority of black votes. The possibilities for momentous racial healing and advancement of a mixed-race culture were enormous. Most unfortunately, Obama did not capitalize on his unique opportunity. In fact, we contend he reversed the progress in racial rapport that had been achieved and made things much worse. His completely unnecessary “war” on the nation’s police departments and the failure of his economic policies rebounded negatively on African Americans. Race riots became more common (Ferguson, Baltimore, New York), black unemployment rose, racial protests increased with the rebirth of ANTIFA, and activist groups like “Black Lives Matter” were born. Not all African Americans supported this kind of activism, which was likely a factor in the 5% drop in black voter support for Obama in the 2012 election. As the situation worsened, exacerbated by a liberal media hungry for ugly but compelling racial headlines, the 2016 election saw an even further 7% drop in black voter support for the Democrat candidate (Hillary Clinton).

If this downward trend in black support for the Democrat Presidential candidate continues for the 2020 election and all else remains the same, it becomes mathematically very difficult for a Democrat to win. To rectify this, the path being taken by the Democrat party (with enthusiastic help from the media) is to drive a deep wedge between African Americans and everyone else. This is being accomplished on two fronts:

1. One is by stoking racial hatred with a revisionist view of history that highlights the worst elements of our past, casting blame broadly on early white settlers and the country’s white founders. That same antiquated racial behavior is then projected onto today’s white conservative leaders and citizens. The NY Times directly feeds this narrative with their “Project 1619” essays.
2. The second front is economic. The front-running Democrat candidates claim that capitalism as practiced by corporations and the wealthy will forever prevent minority groups from achieving success. Capitalism must therefore be destroyed and replaced with Socialism.

This strategy of “attack” by the 2020 candidates is not only destructive in nature, but also a far cry from the “Hope and Change” theme that proved victorious for them in 2008.

It remains to be seen whether media propaganda pieces like the 1619 Project will convince the intended audience that our nation is hopelessly divided and intractably racist. The greatest danger is that those who have not read deeply of our country’s history may take the message of the 1619 Project at face value without proper historical context. Equally concerning would be if readers accepted its contention that blatant prejudice and seething resentment still permeate and define the vast compass of the USA.

We do not think that this will be the general effect. We believe that most sensible readers, regardless of their racial heritage, will see the divisive slant embedded in the 1619 project. The project does not “reframe” history as much as mutate it into an ongoing hateful saga of persecution of black Americans by white Americans.  By angering black voters and shaming white voters, progressives hope to drive voter’s decisions, not by examination of policy, but as retribution for social injustice.

¹ The NY Times choose the year 1619 for the overall title of this series of essays because that is the year they assign to the beginning of slavery in this country. Like numerous other elements in this collection, the accuracy of this claim is debatable. Slavery in America did not begin with Africans, but with Native Americans. Spanish explorers/settlers began enslaving Native Americans and selling them abroad more than 100 years prior to 1619. When Africans were first brought to America they were enslaved by British subjects in a British colony. Slavery by the British had been practiced for well over 1,000 years and the Brits had been capturing and trading Africans as slaves long before 1619. It would be more than 150 years after 1619 that America became an independent country from England and charted its own path.