52 Comments
User's avatar
Graham Cunningham's avatar

No this isn't about history.... and something I think is important to understand is that it isn't really about race either. The roots of this date from the 60s when the white middle class intelligentsia started to hate and despise their fellow whites along with the nation that was cosseting them in their privileged positions in universities and places like the NYT. Getting pious about 'racism' whether real or imaginary became a great way to feel virtuous and superior to their ordinary white peers. With this intelligentsia at their back it was only a matter of time before a whole lot of Nikole-Claudine-type black race-grifting would opportunistically emerge as a new phoney sainthood for these NYT-type whiteys to kneel down before.

Expand full comment
Clever Pseudonym's avatar

The emotional foundation of the New Left is White Guilt/White Saviorism, it's what replaced Christian sin in the hearts of our secular left clerisy, along w Black people replacing Jesus as the sacred victim who stands at the center of our moral universe. (Not to mention them also replacing the "proletariat" as the central actor of History, whose social ascent will mean Justice has been achieved at last.)

Expand full comment
DMC's avatar

I'd say Original Sin

Expand full comment
Ryan Gardner's avatar

Exactly this lady is just a result of "The Great Society" where single parent homes have quintupled.

Here's exactly what you can expect when policies like that are enacted:

1. https://www.foxnews.com/us/two-teenage-girls-stabbed-inside-grand-central-christmas-man-allegedly-wanted-white-people-dead

2. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/watch-christmas-eve-lawless-california-youth-riot-streets

Expand full comment
Clever Pseudonym's avatar

N H-J does seem like an ugly person and is an obvious hack, but in the spirit of Christmas I want to try to be generous to her, and in the intellectual spirit of our times, I will try to do this using the lens of social constructionism, which is the trendy bauble every ambitious academic must have and which is the American version of wearing glasses to look smart.

That being said, there is something truly tragic that happens to young black minds under the white liberal dispensation—they are encouraged to constantly be venting rage and performing victimhood, trained to throw tantrums for advancement and attention, to cry about how exhausted they are, indoctrinated to believe that the world is out to get them and that all their misery is caused by white conservatives, who just coincidentally happen to be the blood enemies of white liberals.

Our new class of angry black antiracist fundamentalists are the 21st-century's version of Blues singers or the whipped slaves pictured in those postcards the Abolitionists used to circulate—the method is different but the goal is the same: they parade their scars for money and attention, to manipulate white people with shame and guilt, their skin color made into a credential and the historical pain of their people sold as a commodity for hungry masochists and political opportunists. (In the case of the NYT, black pain becomes just another luxury product like a Rolex watch or Chanel purse.)

The real tragedy of black writers/thinkers in modern America is that they are always wielded as symbols and never get to be flesh-and-blood fallible humans, and that their white liberal benefactors (who produce and direct the modern White Guilt Industrial Complex, and who rolled out the 1619 Project like a summer blockbuster) have segregated them into color-coded playpens and condemned them to intellectual infancy, where they perform Black Rage! for book deals and tenure.

N H-J is simply following the incentives offered by her environment, where white liberals will worship her and strew her path with blank checks as long as she always makes sure to aim her rage at white conservatives and always offer a path to absolution for white liberals.

She is Malcolm X crossed with P.T. Barnum and knows that there's a (rich white) sucker born every minute.

Expand full comment
John's avatar

NHJ is another race baiting grifter who should be scorned and ridiculed at every opportunity.

Expand full comment
Brandy's avatar

I'm not even going to write in print what I think about her in full. On surface, I am willing to say this: She is dumb, she is loud, she is boorish, she has the behavior of a person who celebrates being uncivilized, she is a liar and a fraud. More importantly, the people who held her up as an example, who awarded her anything beyond a minor position at a newspaper, are complete buffoons who simply cannot be respected or trusted. Thanks for this. Gonna come back and read through links tomorrow. I may have more to say. For everyone's sake (mostly mine) I hope not.

Expand full comment
DMC's avatar

dont forget she is thuggish!

Expand full comment
Brandy's avatar

Yes, but she defines herself there. Apparently, that's a new quality trait we are all supposed to try to attain. I'll just have to be unfashionable here.

Expand full comment
DMC's avatar

it bothers me that we have raised our children to worship the vices and not the virtues.

Expand full comment
Brandy's avatar

Many have. My husband and I chose very specifically to raise our children like we were raised, with the wisdom from our grandparents and some from our parents. We taught Virtue 80% and Vice 20%. It worked. They are adults now. People must start choosing this

Expand full comment
DMC's avatar

I understand but its always a battle against society as a whole and that society worships vice and has warped virtue. We did the same and the kids have done OK so far but it was a battle. the most interesting is my middle child who is Low IQ/Hi EQ. we had to restict all internet access as the message from Social/Mass media to him was never subliminal, it was straight in your face. very instructive.

Expand full comment
Brandy's avatar

My oldest son is autistic. He's 27 with iq 68. I understand this completely. We've had to take measures. We still have to.

Expand full comment
Brigid LaSage's avatar

Thank you for pointing out the long tentacles this has in k-12 education where it successfully delegitimizes the USA to millions of impressionable youth. Also for using the word defenestrate which is a great word but what a scumbag treacherous colleague that NHJ.

Expand full comment
Frank Lee's avatar

"A politically motivated, reactionary, race-based falsification of our nation’s past that distorts the truth and instead promotes a deliberately skewed, monocausal narrative in which inconvenient facts get discarded."

This fits Hannah-Jones, the Critical Theory / Woke movement, the current corporate media, and the modern Democrat Party.

It seems they are all together in this... crap.

Expand full comment
Project Luminas's avatar

The 1619 Project is anachronistic rhetorical reclamation, or ARR. Where progressives pilfer the past to pull off a history heist. NHJ is a past pirate twice over, stealth-editing the project’s claims about America’s origins. Like BLM scrubbing from its website any mention of wanting to disrupt the nuclear family unit.

Expand full comment
Dave's avatar

Thank you for sacrificing a portion of your sanity by reading her drivel.

Expand full comment
Richard Vos's avatar

Knocked it out of the park again Brad. Superb piece of journalism. Thank you.

Expand full comment
Kayleen Hunsaker Smith's avatar

i am impressed with all the work you went through to send this info to us.

Not only did you read it all, you shared it and your opinions.

I am grateful for all the time you have taken to bring us this entire saga.

Expand full comment
Hollis Brown's avatar

let's be honest. the Industrial Revolution is what ended slavery, not the better angels of the British Empire. as many historians have pointed out, slavery has been a global institution for eons. since Western Europe was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, the 30 years that separate the emancipation of slavery on the American continent is a mere blip on the radar of economic advantage. the 1619 project exists for one reason only: to assuage the guilt of the white ruling elite.

their crass fetishization of "black bodies" betrays their inherent self hatred and projection. even NHJ expressed surprise at the breakneck popularity of her initial project in the beginning.

by co-opting the 1619 project, they get to signal to the world that they are on the right side of history, regardless if that history only exists as mere fantasy.

too bad that a whole generation of students have been subjected to this internal struggle session...

Expand full comment
Marc DB's avatar

To add to your list of income by ethnic group, I found this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income. Look at the detailed information. It lists the most successful group as Indian Americans. People with dark skin. Who work hard.

Expand full comment
Rightful Freedom's avatar

Slavery is just another issue that leftists lie about to get political power.

In spite or how it seems, leftists DO NOT OPPOSE SLAVERY. Their actions disprove their claims. https://michael796.substack.com/p/leftist-untruth-18-the-left-opposes

Expand full comment
Ryan Gardner's avatar

Yup. They are wannabe slave owners who are slaves to virtue signaling

Expand full comment
Rightful Freedom's avatar

And they are trying to keep black voters from wandering off the leftist plantation.

Expand full comment
Ryan Gardner's avatar

Exactly.

Bunch of rich people, convincing poor people, to vote for rich people, by telling poor people that other rich people are the reason they're poor.

It's really despicable if you think about it.

Expand full comment
PrivEsc's avatar

Great article. On a tangentially-related note, I don't understand your loyalty to egalitarianism. Humans are not blank slates. Different groups of humans are not equal and do not have equal potential. These different group outcomes in a free society will lead to resentment and social problems, especially as the underperforming groups gain more political power. More generally, mixing heterogeneous groups, when one group is not dominant over the others, tends towards ethnic/religious/tribal/etc infighting (see: the history of every place in the entire world, forever). This is a hard lesson, but one I think we must learn. Returning to the classical liberalism from the '60s will not fix our problems, just as Sulla could not repair the Republic by reversing the reforms of the previous generations and pretending he solved the underlying problems.

Expand full comment
Brad's avatar

You make some good points. Honestly, I might just be a bit naive.

Expand full comment
Ministry of Truth's avatar

The 1619 project isn't much different from foreign disinformation trying to make people hate their country and fellow citizens. This could have come straight from the KGB.

Expand full comment
DMC's avatar

yes - but no greater havoc will be done by outside forces then that done by disgruntled intellectuals.

Expand full comment
Ministry of Truth's avatar

And I think it's often the same kind of hatred that is the basis for this. They really hate us for our (relative) freedom.

Expand full comment
DMC's avatar

but the intellectuals hate us because we have not recognized their superiority and are richer and happier than they are. That knd of hate gets people (Kulaks) killed.

Expand full comment
Susan G's avatar

Brad, why don't you tells how you really feel? Seriously, great piece. I had not seen the historians responses; illuminating. The lady (?) herself, I think her own words and actions speak volumes.

Expand full comment
Susan G's avatar

Tell us how, not tells how.

Expand full comment
Bandit's avatar

Gay and Hannah-Jones, diversity hires, what'cha gonna do? `\_(•_•)_/`

Expand full comment