The thought of agreeing with Newt Gingrich about anything is one I find disagreeable. For that matter, the sorry state of conservatism in these dark days is such that I'm disturbed whenever any of its current, usually self-appointed, spokesmen or women begin to hector us.
But being an honest and honorable sort, generally speaking, I find there is something wrong with what is being described as "The 1619 Project" delivered unto us by the New York Times and others.
What I find wrong with it isn't necessarily what the appropriately named Newt and other such pundits of the right find wrong with it, however.
One thing I find wrong with it is the language which appears, like all else on the Internet, unbidden in response to our clicks. The Project, we're told, "aims to reframe the country's history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are."
The wording strikes me as curious. First, there is the juxtaposition of the words "our true founding" and "the story we tell ourselves about who we are." The first phrase purports to refer to something that is true. The second phrase refers to something which would generally be perceived as something which isn't true or at least not wholly true--a story which we, for reasons undescribed, tell ourselves.
The second phrase is more attuned to what I've encountered when reading more modern works of history. They have an apologetic tone to them. The authors seem to feel hesitant and even somewhat ashamed when they come to conclusions, and take pains to let the reader know that they're very aware of the fact that nothing, really, can be known or concluded about the past or indeed about anything, because we and our sources are all culturally, socially, and in any case universally so bent and twisted and turned that we are incapable of knowing what is true, there being no way to judge our truth as being superior to anyone else's. I suspect you know the drill.
The first phrase, though, actually says that, in fact, our true founding was in 1619, and not at any other time. It's a very bold, clear, absolute statement. It is so absolute that it invites a challenge.
Putting any particular challenge aside for the moment, I can't help but wonder if the author or authors of this blurb wish to pay homage to the culture of uncertainty which infuses so much of our intellectual musings these day, but also want to make a point which might be thought far too certain, but for surpassingly good reason; i.e., to open our eyes to what the United States really is, and so change the story we tell ourselves presumably for the better.
Since so many of us have lately taken to making other broad, absolute statements regarding our nation--that it is Christian, that it is not one that should welcome people of a particular kind but instead should keep them out, that at least according to one local politician has in it cities which should remain as "white" as possible--one can sympathize with efforts to show otherwise. But absolute statements of any kind are dangerous and making them does a disservice to us all when those statements are made in a public forum and have political purposes.
Is it even possible to establish that a nation was founded at a particular time? Well, one can probably establish, to a reasonable degree of certainty (how I love this legal phrase) that the nation known as the United States exists or existed at time X and didn't exist at time Y. One can also say with the same degree of certainty that it didn't exist in 1619, and didn't exist 100 years later.
So, clearly whatever the authors are saying, or at least wish to say, is that "our true founding" is something different from the establishment of the existence of the nation called the United States. But what, then, is it? How were "we" founded in 1619?
"We" apparently were founded when 20 or so enslaved Africans arrived in what is now Virginia in 1619. This seems to be perceived by the Projectors (as it were) as the beginnings of slavery--where? Well, it would have to be somewhere where slavery had not already begun and been in existence, presumably. But slavery of Africans and of indigenous peoples had been in effect in the Americas for quite some time. The Africans brought to Virginia in 1619 were removed from a Portuguese slave ship. The Portuguese and the Spanish had been enslaving Africans and bringing them to their colonies in South America, the Caribbean, and Mexico and Central America for a great many years. Since the Spanish held sway over parts of what is now the United States for years before 1619, it is very likely that slaves had been in use in parts of what is now Florida and Louisiana before "our true founding."
If this is true (there's that word again), though, and slavery had in fact existed in what is now the United States before 1619, does the slavery that was in existence before 1619 somehow mean less, in terms of "our founding" than the slavery which came into existence in Virginia in 1619, albeit only 20 or so slaves were purchased at that time? Why?
I'm inclined to speculate that the slavery which existed before the arrival of those taken from the Portuguese by an English privateer (pirate, I would say) is not important to the Projectors because, well, that was Portuguese and Spanish slavery. What's really important, so important as to be the basis of "our true founding" is the slavery that was fostered by specifically the English and, later, English colonists and citizens of the United States who were of English or British descent. Anglos, I suppose they may be called. For the purposes of the Projectors, they were the real slaveholders as far as "our true founding" is concerned. They are, in other words, responsible for "our" slavery, our slave nation.
That would seem to be the point, and I think it a political one. Who would care about Spanish and Portuguese slavery at this Project, or its legacy and influence? The point does not seem to be that slavery is awful, and slaveholders contemptible, in any circumstances. "Our" slavery is what's important. "Our" tainted legacy is to be emphasized. Not that of others.
The influence of slavery on the United States is unquestionably profound. It would be foolish to think otherwise, perhaps even delusional. It's a horrible legacy. To define that legacy, to describe that influence on the United States now, is perfectly legitimate, and even necessary and essential to an understanding of our nation.
But I think it foolish to claim that "our true founding" took place at a particular time when a particular event took place. We should know better by now to attribute great and complicated nations, cultures and societies, and even more simple things, to a single cause. The 1619 Project undermines itself by making such a claim.
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