A New Lens of History

At the forefront of the CRT debate are prominent pieces like The 1619 Project, the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times publication that reframes American history starting not in 1776, but in 1619 with the arrival of the first ship transporting slaves to the New World. 

Conceived by reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones and containing a series of essays detailing how institutionalized racism has shaped everything from urban sprawl trends in real estate to medical stereotypes, The 1619 Project has drawn both praise and criticism.

Among the most notable critiques was a letter written by Princeton historian Sean Wilentz and signed by four other historians, criticizing historical inaccuracies in the writing, particularly what they postulate to be an exaggerated role of slavery in the motivations behind the American revolution. The Times responded to this letter explaining its sources and defending its original information and claims.

As black and white scholars battled, the truth became anything but. History is often anything but objective, and many of the disputes were subject to interpretation depending on which scholar analyzed them.

These potential inaccuracies may have been a critical misstep for Hannah-Jones and the Times, as they have been leveraged by detractors to discredit the entirety of the project down to its very concept. Especially because the project has created a supplementary high school curriculum based on the essays, it was an easy target for the ire of parents who are understandably concerned about their children’s education. For her part, Hannah-Jones has acknowledged the exaggerations and said she will rectify them in later publications.

But even some of its critics acknowledge the importance of the project and of broadening the scope of American history education.

“Each of us, all of us, think that the idea of the 1619 Project is fantastic. I mean, it’s just urgently needed. The idea of bringing to light not only scholarship but all sorts of things that have to do with the centrality of slavery and of racism to American history is a wonderful idea. Far from an attempt to discredit the 1619 Project, our letter is intended to help it,” Wilentz said.

The 1619 Project may not be perfect, but it is undeniably deserving of credit for its revolutionary step toward challenging the traditional confines of history education.

And this is the core of the issue surrounding CRT: the term has been used as a wide-casting net to ensnare any type of racially-inclusive history or education regardless of its relationship to CRT.

It doesn’t help that much anti-CRT legislation is intentionally written in vague and subjective terms, leaving the door open to legally for banning all racial education.

In fact, both sides of the political spectrum have been arguably too inclusive of the phrase in their defense or criticism alike, using it to characterize any sort of racial education rather than a highly specific legal theory taught in graduate-level college courses. 

Many have been quick to label education like The 1619 Project a “warped view of American history,” as Oklahoma City Attorney General Mike Hunter said in an opposition letter to the U.S. Department of Education. 

But history is neither one-dimensional and opposing perspectives are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The same story may be told in very different ways depending on who is telling it—and they can be simultaneously valid.

Just as when one looks at a cube head-on, they remain blind to the majority of it, students must be presented with different angles in order to truly understand the nuance of complex historical events and the sentiments that drove them.

Some who argue against racially-inclusive education are concerned about sowing feelings of guilt into white people. But save for the most radical viewpoints, close to no one is arguing that individual white people ought to feel responsible for atrocities that occurred hundreds of years before them. What the vast majority of proponents of racially inclusive education are asking is that we as a society collectively recognize how institutionalized racism has shaped the Black American experience, from slavery to sharecropping to redlining, and presented a unique set of obstacles that require rectifying.

That is, of course, not to say that there is not also a history of marginalization for other groups. However, no group in the United States has been as institutionally or systemically oppressed, surpassing in both magnitude and longevity, as Black Americans. While it is absolutely possible for white people to be underprivileged, it is extremely rare that these disadvantages are the direct result of a history of discriminatory policies made on the basis of race.

Take redlining, the discriminatory practice of segmenting housing and denying financial services on a racial basis, for example. Redlining was officially outlawed in 1968, though there is evidence that it continued beyond then. My parents were born in 1968. That means that there are plenty of American teenagers whose parents or, more likely, grandparents experienced redlining, plenty of adults who were born into a household affected by redlining, and plenty of evidence it still affects people today.

Thus, it seems naive to believe that systemic inequalities that existed for centuries were erased a mere two generations ago, that a society where racism was ingrained into the social and political foundations of daily life for hundreds of years would be able to easily wash its hands of it. Yet the fight over how history should be taught rages on.

One has to wonder if those who resist counter-normative perspectives will ever realize they are warring against a threat of their own creation, or are now so committed to their views that they are content to hack a strawman to death.

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Editors’ note: All opinions expressed on The Uproar are a reflection solely of the beliefs of the bylined author and not the journalism program at NASH.  We continue to welcome school-appropriate comments and guest articles.