So my goal is to explain what resonated with me in the introduction to the Times’ 1619 Project (which I intend to continue to read/reflect upon in a few upcoming blog posts).
Here, again, is what I quoted yesterday:
It 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.
Though some people aim for accuracy when they discuss U.S. historical events, there is nonetheless a sweeping and pervasive fairy tale that is bandied about more casually, one that makes me think of drawings I made in school as a child, usually every November, of Pilgrims standing beside a big rock and a large ship. For the most part, the stories we tell about the history of the United States are incomplete, if not completely fallacious. The term fairy tale comes to mind. Sure, just like in Cinderella, there may be a few pieces that have some historical basis. There were people called Pilgrims. There were ships. (There used to be kings, princes, and daughters who had hard lives after their fathers died.) But the rest? A bit doubtful, with a lot left out.
Mainstream culture produces a story in which slavery, if mentioned, is treated as a minor side note, when it was actually defining. Make that present tense— all of the systems related to it can be traced to fault lines in our society, the heartbreaking loss of potential, the inhumanity that at times is eerily second nature.
Yet this quote also highlights the need to celebrate and acknowledge the contributions of Black Americans— a brave and uncomfortable task in the face of the horrors of American slavery (which, I would argue, should be clearly delineated from any other use of the word slavery because it relied so fully on a deeply dehumanizing construction of racial identity as well as an entrenched economic/political system devoid of morality).
I know I felt that the biographies of Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells gave me a more complete understanding of American history. To learn U.S. history without delving at length into the impact of American slavery or contributions of Black Americans… which happens far too often… is to study fairy tales in lieu of engaging with genuine history.
One word in the quote stands out–“we.” A point of deep contention that has bubbled up repeatedly over the centuries is this: Who is meant by “we” in this country—who gets to be included? Who has been excluded, and who gets to do the excluding?
And then there is the question of cultural identity—if we more fully understand our history, will we gain insight into who we are as a people?
reader. writer. 