There is nothing wrong with a nation grappling with its legacy of slavery and reminding its populace every so often of that dark legacy. I have no problem with the #1619project in principle. I have read some of the articles, not all and I do have some reservations.
#1 the idea that America was created in 1619 reeks too much of an ‘Original Sin’ doctrine. It is ironic that those educating us on slavery would adopt a punitive doctrine that was used to perpetuate slavery in the first place. This should be unpacked.
#2 Even if one were okay with the ‘original sin’ paradigm, the fact that we know slavery is a sin is a feature of the West. This project could not have been taken up in Saudi Arabia or China. The very acknowledgment of the institution as a sin presupposes a pursuit of salvation.
#3 I mentioned this in another post but if certain punitive treatments of human beings are unjust — and this is certainly the view of many doing criminal justice reform work — then we had better make sure that the way we address our past is not done punitively.
#3a It’s especially worth thinking about this in light of Dr. Dubois’s writings in ‘Souls of Black Folks.’ His criticism of the Freedman’s Bureau was that it failed “to begin the establishment of good-will” between blacks and whites.
#3b DuBois specifically lamented an atmosphere where “suspicion and cruelty were rife” and stated that such an environment “foredoomed [the project of] social regeneration to failure.”
#4 Any unpacking of racism and slavery in this country is incomplete without the discussion of white people’s mistreatment *of their own* people. Baldwin unpacked this a bit in his essay ‘The Fire Next time,’ where he discussed the lack of “sensuality” in white American culture.
#4a This is in part related to the Puritanical streams of thought animating American life as well as aspects of the Protestant work ethic which produced both wealth and an unhealthy obsession with work and punitive treatment of crime.
#4b As Baldwin put it, white people would no longer be animated by “the negro problem” if they started to love themselves because then the problem would no longer need to exist.
I have found this to be one of his most profoundest insights which almost no one understands.
I have found this to be one of his most profoundest insights which almost no one understands.
