Our understanding of history is not one of solidified verity. Ranging from newly uncovered artifacts to groundbreaking historical analysis, it is not rare for historians, anthropologists, sociologists and the like to announce new findings that reframe how we view history. Perhaps the most common methodology used for reframation is the re-contextualization of already known knowledge. The 1619 Project from the New York Times is one such example, with Nikole Hannah-Jones and her team trying to reshape how one views the United States through a lens of racism towards Black Americans at the center of our national perspective. Within a series of articles, readers are asked to understand the factors of discrimination that founded our nation. The project has been a flashpoint of conflict and disagreement, with criticisms being leveled towards the Project since its publication. This rhetorical analysis will attempt to scrutinize the criticisms made towards this work within a variety of formats, while also comparing the authors and examining the validity of the claims made.
We begin with I Helped Fact-Check the 1619 Project. The Times Ignored Me, a Politico Magazine article written by Leslie M. Harris, a Professor of History at Northwestern University. Within the article, we are introduced to Professor Harris’ role as a fact checker for the 1619 Project. She immediately took pause to Nikole Hannah-Jones (director of the 1619 Project) stating that the nation was founded in 1619 and not 1776, holding concerns that “critics would use the overstated claim to discredit the entire undertaking [of the project]” (Harris). Although generally supportive of the Project’s awareness to place a spotlight on discrimination in the United States, Professor Harris goes on to argue that the 1619 Project “ignores and distorts the role of African Americans and race in our history” (Harris). With much of her feedback to the Project ignored, Harris opted to publish her thoughts with this article out of frustration.
Professor Harris’ audience for this piece are mostly those interested with the 1619 Project. The author’s tone is informative, while also being vindictive and critical towards the 1619 Project and the team that had ignored her. Harris sees value in the Project, but is largely disappointed that the team had failed to address the various problems she had originally posed. Quotes such as “Despite my advice, the Times published the incorrect statement about the American Revolution anyway…” (Harris) showcase Harris’ general discontent with what was published. Professor Harris’ purpose is to address the fact that her problems with the Project were ignored, while elaborating what her main qualms were. This piece is an Op-Ed within an online format, located within the magazine department of Politico. The subtitle of the piece, “The paper’s series on slavery made avoidable mistakes. But the attacks from its critics are much more dangerous” (Harris) This shows how she fears potential backlash to the errors found within the 1619 Project, with conservatives potentially using it to their advantage.
Criticism would continue to pile up months after Professor Harris’ piece, with a handful of changes being made to the Project in response. One of these changes is addressed by an article written by Phillip W. Magness, a senior research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research and a long time critic of the 1619 Project. Known chiefly for the book 1619: A Critique, Magness has fostered a strong right wing audience, mostly those that hold contempt towards the 1619 Project’s attempt to reframe history. Opting to publish Down the 1619 Project’s Memory Hole on Quillette (a right-wing libertarian website), Magness claims that there is a worthwhile goal in having an “intellectual exchange about the history of slavery in the United States and its lingering harms to our social fabric” (Magness), but disagrees with the “ideological advocacy” (Magness), of the Project’s team. He places focus on how the Project originally argued for the year 1619 to be America’s “true founding” (Magness), with Nikole Hannah-Jones and her staff doubling down on the claim months after the Project’s publishing. He then claims that this rhetoric suddenly disappeared from the Project, with editors quietly changing the argument without publicly addressing their readers.
With Magness’ audience, it is likely that the article is largely made for those with negative opinions on the Project, with Magness’ writings acting as a way to reaffirm their beliefs (especially due to the nicheness of the site). Magness’ tone is both antagonistic and accusatory, with his choice to compare the Times “selectively editing inconvenient passages out of old newspaper reports” to “George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984” (Magness). Such shows his dislike of the utilization of quiet edits by the Times, comparing such to an inhuman and negative connotation.
Magness goes on to argue that the 1619 Project’s attempt to reframe the founding of the nation from 1776 to 1619 was an “implicit repudiation of the American revolution and its underlying principles” (Magness), which is a total refutation of what the 1619 Project previously attempted to argue. Through his antagonistic tone, Magness attempts to show the potential negative sides of the 1619 Project, fostering an audience that has a largely negative view on the Project as a whole (outside of his already formed fans through his book). The genre of the piece is a unique blend of blog and article, with writers on Quillette utilizing their published articles like their own daisy chain of blog publications. The medium is on an online website / blog. Some may see Magness as having a bias, as the selling of his book (which survives based upon a negative viewing of the 1619 Project) could be directly correlated with sewing dissent against the Project to begin with. Although well written and based upon facts, his writings should be read with the pretense of Magness’ economic interest in the matter.
The point raised by Magness in his article is furthered by Bret Stephens, a Pulitzer prize winning conservative journalist working as an opinion columnist for the New York Times. Known for being staunchly neoconservative within a largely liberal/progressive opinions section, Stephens is often sought out by a minority of right-leaning readers that read the Times. Within his opinion piece The 1619 Chronicles published in October 2020, he finds fault with the Project’s attempt to focus upon 1619 alongside Magness. Although seeing value in the “ambition to reframe America’s conversation about race…” (Magness), he argues that it is illogical to affirm 1619 as America’s founding date. He goes on to argue the importance of 1776 both culturally and historically, taking issue throughout the rest of the article with the supposed lack of complexity and nuance of the 1619 Project, especially when compared to our current understanding of history.
With the article being published in a paper with a liberal/progressive audience, Stephens is attempting to reach out to both his core audience and others invested in the happenings of the 1619 Project. The tone feels passionate, with Stephens using this article to show his affection towards traditional American history. He places focus upon the importance of the Declaration of Independence and its ideals throughout the piece, using it to contrast with the arguments made from the 1619 Project team. His primary argument also consistently veers towards patriotism (another topic Stephens is passionate for), with such lines as “It’s 244 years of effort by Americans — sometimes halting, but often heroic — to live up to our greatest ideal” (Stephens) in response to using 1776 as the nation’s founding date over 1619. His purpose is to argue against a handful of controversial statements made by the 1619 Project, notably stating that the authors are “not in a position to adjudicate historical disputes” (Stephens). He in essence is arguing the lack of research and complexity that should be present within the Project, which has led to many of the proclaimed problematic statements. This article is an op-ed, with it being published digitally on the NYT’s website.
In contrast to the relative brevity of the past three articles, Richard K. Vedder in Four Centuries of Black Economic Progress in America: Ideological Posturing versus Empirical Realities touches upon the economic and social history of Black Americans with the passage of time. Vedder, a libertarian and conservative senior fellow at The Independent Institute, provides us with two primary perspectives on the state of Black America. The first is the one held by the 1619 Project, in which “widespread discrimination and rejection of blacks by the dominant white culture has brought continuing, maybe even increasing, misery and despair to the black population” (Vedder). He alternatively argues that it is not widespread discrimination that currently holds Black Americans back, but the unintended consequences of runaway social programs. Where the past articles veer away from the debate of where the damage to Black America has stemmed from (or, in the case of the Harris article, has explicitly supported the opinion held by the 1619 Project in this regard), Vedder attacks this main tenet of the 1619 Project head on.
His audience is likely fellow academics like him with a focus on public policy, as the journal with his published paper (The Independent Review: A Journal of Political Economy) discusses public policy, political science and the economy. With the 1619 Project being a major talking point for academics, it is likely that he is also speaking to an audience keenly aware of the Project, likely with already formed beliefs on the topic. Vedder’s tone is calm throughout the paper, with him mostly observing historical events relating to black Americans from the 1800s onward. Unlike the other three articles, Vedder feels individually detached from his writing, which comes with how scholarly articles are often written in an impersonal manner. It is not until near the end of the article that we are provided some form of comprehensive synthesis of what Vedder believes. Vedder’s purpose is likely to attempt to help spark more discussion on how to help Black Americans today, using economics (something he is deeply acquainted with), discrimination and the 1619 Project as platforms to do so. The genre is a scholarly article, with it being published in a quarterly published academic journal.
It should be noted that although the paper does indeed provide ample evidence to support the economic stagnation and governmental dependency of Black Americans in recent decades, it fails to address several social questions in turn; the question of redlining and its consequences and police brutality (which are each provided their own dedicated section within the 1619 Project) in particular are avoided, which are important to address in a topic such as this.
The 1619 Project sets out to perform the invaluable task of providing more attention to the qualms of people of color within the United States. All four authors seem to note such, viewing there to be a need to have an extensive and nuanced discussion on Black Americans in history. The first three authors (Harris, Magnus and Stephens) seem to agree that the 1619 Project fails in this need of extensiveness and nuance to certain degrees, with all three having independent (and at times overlapping) critiques for the piece. Harris is concerned about these claimed problems as she worries it will cause conservatives to throw out all the talking points of the 1619 Project, and in turn utilize it to fuel their own political ambitions (this would come to fruition with the 1776 Project under President Trump, to limited levels of success). Magness is more hostile towards the piece, with many of his critiques (including those not in his article) focusing upon branding the 1619 Project as partially nefarious and overly partisan. Stephens, being an opinion writer of the New York Times himself, refrains from being hostile towards his coworkers. He explicitly states at the end his insecureness with publishing his opinion piece to begin with, uncomfortable with putting down his coworkers. He mostly speaks towards the values and successful history of the United States as counterpoints, seeing the 1619 Project as unjustly cutting away the successful values and history that has carried the country to this today. To him, nuance is key; it is vital to address the horrors of slavery and discrimination as the 1619 Project does among other atrocities, while also addressing the ideals of liberty and the historical good that the nation has done over the centuries. Vedder is most unique in that his primary goal is not to discuss the 1619 Project — in fact, the 1619 Project is only barely mentioned as a passing comment within the beginning of the paper. Instead, he observes a core tenet of the 1619 Project (systematic discrimination) and attempts to weave an alternative to it. In all four of these articles, we are exposed to different criticisms towards parts of the 1619 Project. What is valuable to understand however is that all four of these authors understand the specter that slavery has laid upon the United States, with this knowledge continuously informing their opinions. It is this that ties together all of these authors, with all of them hoping for a more informed, nuanced and intelligent populace when it comes to this topic.
Works Cited
Harris, Leslie M. “I Helped Fact-Check the 1619 Project. the Times Ignored Me.” POLITICO, POLITICO, 25 June 2021, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-project-new-york-times-mistake-122248.
Magness, Phillip W. “Down the 1619 Project’s Memory Hole.” Quillette, Quillette, 26 Dec. 2020, https://quillette.com/2020/09/19/down-the-1619-projects-memory-hole/.
Stephens, Bret. “The 1619 Chronicles.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 10 Oct. 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/opinion/nyt-1619-project-criticisms.html.
Vedder, Richard K. “Four Centuries of Black Economic Progress in America: Ideological Posturing versus Empirical Realities.” Independent Review, vol. 26, no. 2, 2021.
