The criticism of the #1619Project by these historians is part of a larger criticism in response to the tidal wave of revisionist racial history over the last five decades. 1/
This revisionist history has largely been written by women, by historians of color, by younger historians, by antiracist white historians. We have rejected the master narrative that has in fact been the master’s narrative. 2/
Their critiques of revisionist historians do not often hit the mainstream light, perhaps because revisionist history does not often hit the mainstream light as it did beautifully in the #1619Project. 3/
Instead, their critiques are made behind closed doors—often without us knowing—as these master narrative historians try to limit our access to graduate history programs and tenure-track history jobs. 4/
They “blindly” critique us when reviewing our essays for history journals, our books for university presses, our records for tenure and promotion, our applications for fellowships, and our books for awards. 5/
Personally, I feel eternally grateful for the pathways, institutionally and conceptually, built by the generations of revisionist historians who came before me, especially those historians who are retiring these days with battle scars and lasting legacies. 6/
The master narrative historians have blocked us when they could inside the academy, but we’ve also increasingly bypassed them and landed outside of the academy in places they can’t control: from op-ed pages to trade presses to public lecture forums. 7/
Akin to the incredibly accessible #1619Project, we’ve gone with our revisionist history straight to the American people as the masters have privately seethed at our advances over the years, as they have not been able to stop our revising of America’s racial history. 8/
For them, the #1619Project is indicative of the intellectual debate at hand over the narrative of America’s racial past, a debate they are increasingly losing. But I do not think we should just debate in print, or on social media. I think we should debate in person. 9/
I’m tired of their criticism of our revisionist history, of the #1619Project. We need to bring back the debate stage in American intellectual discourse. I’d be willing to publicly debate anyone of these historians. --
