I can't believe people are still going on about the 1619 Project but the only thing that united its many essays was the argument that Black history, rooted in slavery, is intrinsic to US history. There were like two sentences in the intro essay that generated huge debate....
because they overstated the case. There was one essay on slavery and capitalism (by a non-historian, fwiw). That's a subject that is indeed much debated within scholarly circles and no one is pulling punches.
If you don't sometimes decline to tweet something you believe correct because you just don't want to deal with the inevitable responses *in this particular context* than you will not understand why some scholars might not want to wade in, in print, on slavery & capitalism.
But if you're someone condensed everything to "The 1619 Project" you are not saying anything besides "I disagree that slavery and its legacy were fundamental to American history" and I think that is an indefensible position.
*someone who condenses
Also literally every hot area of interest gets criticized–sometimes rightly!–for being too influential–what's gender doing in foreign relations?? Why this cultural turn?? What is this "New" political history?? And then they get tweaked & assimilated into the mainstream consensus.

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More from @pashulman

23 Mar
For the past 150 years, the filibuster was routinely used on anything touching civil rights. But go back to the beginning and look at today's claims that the filibuster (a word that, of course, did not yet exist until the mid-19th century) was somehow intrinsic to the Senate:
The people who were actually there at the beginning, even before the Constitution, knew empowering the minority to delay, disrupt, and effectively veto the majority was a recipe for disaster. From Robert Byrd's lectures on the history of the Senate: ImageImage
Lo and behold, THE VERY FIRST SENATE that sat in 1789 had rules to prevent unlimited debate! Image
Read 16 tweets
19 Mar
I mean, sure. But more importantly, is there *any* threshold for someone to be able to genuinely and sincerely apologize for past mistakes, especially as a teenager–and yes, that includes saying racist things–and be able to be accepted back into society?
The problem with "never tweet" is that it reveals the problem is just producing evidence of immaturity that all of us go through at some point but many–hopefully most–grow out of.
You probably said things you wish you hadn't as a teenager. I sure did. But should the consequences really be worse only because there's Twitter now?
Read 4 tweets
7 Mar
I thought this episode was extra-silly but people are taking it more and more seriously. But it's still silly.

Books are taken out of print ALL THE DAMN TIME. Thankfully, we have libraries that collect them so they are still available to everyone.
I think the most remarkable thing about this whole debate is not conservative grandstanders and media reading from still-to-be-published Seuss books while studious ignoring the ones being taken out of print. Or the conflation of copyright owner choices with public censorship.
It's the absence of libraries in these discussions. Public libraries, academic libraries–these books are not locked up. They are still there. And if you're afraid about your libraries losing books, fund them better.
Read 16 tweets
18 Jan
I don't know what I did to deserve this today
Is it worth critiquing? It reads like a bad high school civics report.
Correction–it reads like a bad middle school civics textbook from 1955.
Read 12 tweets
18 Jan
This is basically an elementary school project that would cost millions and millions of dollars
I'll spare you the whole text but it's about as embarrassing and juvenile as you'd expect whitehouse.gov/presidential-a…
Also the suggestion that the NEH and NEA should take $14 million each from their paltry $167 million budgets to build statues instead of supporting genuine arts and scholarship is damning.
Read 7 tweets
1 Dec 20
Richest country in the history of the world can’t keep its capital city subway running on weekends
Infrastructure week has become a joke but the reality is we’ve squandered a decade of historically cheap financing because free market ideologues in the Republican party don’t believe in public goods or that government can help people.
Fwiw, I love the DC Metro. I always have. I love the architecture, the convenience, the easy access to downtown from the MD and VA suburbs, the overall cleanliness (really!), the environmental benefit over driving, & the reliability (overheated summer tracks notwithstanding).
Read 7 tweets

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