‘1619 PROJECT’ FOUNDER HAS A TANTRUM AFTER NYT PUBLISHES CRITICAL COLUMN:
The Post did not report whether or not Hannah-Jones said she was “tortured by” lying about something else, however. Hannah-Jones and the 1619 Project had claimed that America’s true founding came in 1619, with the arrival of the first slaves (who actually arrived far earlier), rather than in 1776, with the Declaration of Independence. Last month, however, both Hannah-Jones and the Project apparently deep-sixed this claim, deleting the language from the website. Hannah-Jones even went on television and lied, claiming she had never made such a claim.
In fact, scholars have demanded the Pulitzer Prize board revoke Hannah-Jones’ Pulitzer Prize over these lies.
Bret Stephens’ column called out these lies, arguing that “the 1619 Project has failed.” While Stephens praised Hannah-Jones and defended her against some critics, he pointed out that the founder’s “monocausality” — an insistence on reinterpreting American history through the lens of slavery and its legacy alone — led her to make massive mistakes that destroy her own project. He even noted the fact that rioters painted “1619” on a toppled statue of George Washington.
Rather than engaging civilly with this important criticism, Hannah-Jones accused her employers of racism. Her tweet thread is even worse than the Post reported.
“In 1894, the NYT called Ida B. Wells a ‘slanderous and nasty-minded mulattress’ for daring to tell the truth about lynching. 100 years later she earned the Pulitzer Prize. These efforts to discredit my work simply put me in a long tradition of [black women] who failed to know their places,” Hannah-Jones tweeted.
Evergreen: “Gossipy, catty, insular, cliquey, stressful, immature, cowardly, moody, underhanded, spiteful—the New York Times gives new meaning to the term ‘hostile workplace.’ What has been said of the press—that it wields power without any sense of responsibility—is also a fair enough description of the young adult. And it is to high school, I think, that the New York Times is most aptly compared. The coverage of the [Jill] Abramson firing reads at times like the plot of an episode of Saved By the Bell minus the sex: Someone always has a crazy idea, everyone’s feelings are always hurt, apologies and reconciliations are made and quickly sundered, confrontations are the subject of intense planning and preparation, and authority figures are youth-oriented, well-intentioned, bumbling, and inept.”
