{"id":1513103,"date":"2022-06-13T08:06:18","date_gmt":"2022-06-13T12:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1513103"},"modified":"2022-06-13T08:06:47","modified_gmt":"2022-06-13T12:06:47","slug":"read-this-book-to-counter-the-hopeless-lies-of-1619-project-racial-determinists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/read-this-book-to-counter-the-hopeless-lies-of-1619-project-racial-determinists\/","title":{"rendered":"Read This Book To Counter The Hopeless Lies Of \u20181619 Project\u2019 Racial Determinists"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fread-this-book-to-counter-the-hopeless-lies-of-1619-project-racial-determinists%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1513103&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/family-5469315_1920.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>In an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2022\/05\/19\/black-americans-emigrate-tops-shooting-ghana\/\">op-ed for The Washington Post<\/a> last month entitled \u201cFor African Americans tired of U.S. hostility, Ghana is still calling,\u201d columnist Karen Attiah discusses the trend of African Americans moving to Africa, or what she calls \u201cblack asylum from white supremacy.\u201d Attiah, of Nigerian and Ghanian descent, declares that \u201cleaving is the most powerful form of resistance,\u201d and cites prominent African Americans who move to Africa to \u201cfeel mentally and spiritually free from White America\u2019s psychic violence.\u201d Because, you know, Africa <a href=\"https:\/\/www.travelinglifestyle.net\/most-dangerous-countries-africa\/\">doesn\u2019t suffer from much violence<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I suppose one shouldn\u2019t be surprised to read such nonsense from a writer who <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/06\/29\/washington-post-editor-karen-attiah-calls-for-revenge-against-white-women\/\">two years ago <\/a>blamed the \u201clies &#038; tears of white women\u201d for violence against black Americans and claimed white women were \u201clucky\u201d blacks were not \u201ccalling for revenge.\u201d But Attiah\u2019s blinkered thinking on race in America is sadly commonplace among prominent black intellectuals on the left. <\/p>\n<p>Nikole Hannah-Jones, whose \u201c1619 Project\u201d curriculum is now taught across the United States, <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/06\/26\/nikole-hannah-jones-hatred-for-america-is-the-basis-of-the-1619-project\/\">has claimed<\/a> America was \u201cfounded \u2026 on an ideal and a lie\u201d as a \u201cslavocracy,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/entertainment-arts-and-entertainment-race-and-ethnicity-slavery-democracy-639d2841fad5619c32a87c786a60a515\">and that<\/a> \u201canti-blackness\u201d is \u201cat the core of so many of our institutions and really our society itself.\u201d Ibram X. Kendi, perhaps the most prominent black intellectual in America, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.firstthings.com\/article\/2020\/10\/against-racialism\">has claimed that<\/a> \u201cracial discrimination is the sole cause of racial disparities in this country and in the world at large.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It is these theories \u2014 and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2020\/03\/06\/1619-project-new-york-times-mistake-122248\">often<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.abbevilleinstitute.org\/the-end-of-reconciliation\/\">erroneous<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/11\/12\/book-version-of-the-ny-times-1619-project-doubles-down-on-junk-history\/\">stories<\/a> that reinforce them \u2014 that define much of the discourse on race in America, especially during national <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/opinion\/2021\/06\/17\/juneteenth-holiday-history-slavery-ongoing-racism\/7701889002\/\">Juneteenth<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/nbcblk\/one-black-leader-sees-trademarking-juneteenth-protection-black-culture-rcna31749\">celebrations<\/a>, which commemorate the effective end of slavery. But the story doesn\u2019t have to be told this way.<\/p>\n<p>There is an alternative approach to understanding (and celebrating) black life in the United States. \u201cThe State of Black America: Progress, Pitfalls, and the Promise of the Republic,\u201d edited by emeritus professor of political philosophy at Michigan State University W.B. Allen and featuring essays from several prominent black scholars, offers a much-needed corrective to the cynical (and false) thinking peddled by people like Attiah, Hannah-Jones, and Kendi.<\/p>\n<h2>In Touch With Reality<\/h2>\n<p>In an essay entitled \u201cWhose Fourth of July: Black Patriotism and Racial Inequality in America,\u201d the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.firstthings.com\/article\/2022\/01\/the-case-for-black-patriotism\">erudite<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=VPu9xI-xl7Q\">rhetorically effective<\/a> Brown University economics professor Glenn C. Loury calls for an \u201cunabashed black patriotism\u201d and \u201cforthright embrace of American nationalism by black people.\u201d One of the keys to doing so, as Loury has regularly explained, is to \u201ckeep in touch with reality.\u201d By that, the economist means that, whatever racism still exists in America, we must not allow that to obscure the remarkable, even unprecedented success black Americans have experienced in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHere in America,\u201d writes Loury, \u201cwe have witnessed since the end of the Civil War the greatest transformation in the status of an enserfed people \u2026 that is to be found anywhere in world history. Some forty million strong, we have become by far the richest and most powerful population of African descent on the planet.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>He notes several important developments for blacks in the last 75 years: the development of a large middle class, the existence of black billionaires, and the influence of blacks on American culture. \u201cBlack Americans are the richest and most powerful people in large numbers of African descent on the planet. \u2026 [African Americans] have access to five times the income of a typical Nigerian.\u201d He also argues that the success of people like Hannah-Jones and Kendi \u201cgives the lie\u201d to their cynical pessimism.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>Bluffs and Bludgeons<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cStructural racism,\u201d says Loury, is largely a fabrication employed as a \u201cbluff and a bludgeon.\u201d It is a bluff in the sense that it is presented as an explanation that is not a legitimate one, and a bludgeon in that it is leveraged as a rhetorical weapon to shame and defeat one\u2019s opponents.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>An example of the bluff is the left\u2019s obsessions with the narrative of police brutality against black victims. Yet more whites are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statista.com\/statistics\/585152\/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race\/\">killed<\/a> by police every year, and although blacks are overrepresented in that statistic, they are far less than the majority (about one-fourth of just over 1,000 fatal shootings by police annually). <\/p>\n<p>The left-wing narrative also typically elides that many of the persons killed are engaged in violent conflict with police officers, and that, as Loury notes, almost half of the 17,000 homicides in the United States every year involve black perpetrators. \u201cFor every black killed by the police, more than twenty-five other black people meet their end because of homicides committed by other blacks,\u201d writes Loury.<\/p>\n<p>The bludgeon, of course, is even easier to identify. That weapon is employed every time someone claims that this or that institution is permeated with systemic racism, or claims systemic racism explains some news event. The reaction to Will Smith slapping Chris Rock is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/life\/health-wellness\/2022\/03\/31\/will-smith-chris-rock-slap-oscars-burden-of-black-men\/7207917001\/\">explained by structural racism<\/a>; gun rights are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.splcenter.org\/sites\/default\/files\/_stand_your_ground_kills_-_how_these_nra-backed_laws_promote_racist_violence_1.pdf\">based on it<\/a>, and the disproportionate number of black Americans killed by Covid is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/health-shots\/2021\/12\/07\/1061099570\/covid-race-disparities-exposed-by-data-analysts-and-community-leaders\">because of it<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>These are either overly simplistic or fallacious. Although the use of this weapon is pervasive and quite damaging, Loury is hopeful: \u201cI believe we are already beginning to see the collapse of this house of cards.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>A More Complicated History<\/h2>\n<p>The introductory essay by W.B. Allen and Mikael Rose Good exposes yet another problem with the \u201csystemic\u201d and \u201cstructural\u201d racism narratives on the left. For, contrary to what many have been led to believe, substantial progress toward parity with whites for black Americans occurred <em>before <\/em>the civil rights movement, and <em>during <\/em>Jim Crow \u2014 quite an achievement, given what blacks were up against. Yet the sharpest drop in intergenerational economic mobility in the United States since 1965 has been among African Americans \u2014 quite counterintuitive given this was coeval with desegregation and other race-related policies like increased government subsidies for black communities, affirmative action, and busing.<\/p>\n<p>What then explains the stagnation, and even decline of black fortunes in America? Allen and Good blame, in part, administrative cantonment, by which they mean the policy of the U.S. government treating blacks as separate and apart from everyone else. <\/p>\n<p>Precious D. Hall and Daphne Cooper in their essay note that \u201con the whole, public policies have had a negative effect on African Americans, contributing significantly to a persistent state of poverty \u2026 and causing them to face unemployment, underemployment, and inadequate access to health care, housing, and education.\u201d Stan Parker and Robert Borens in the summary of their essay note that poverty correlates strongly with family structure, that since the 1960s marriage and the traditional family dramatically deteriorated (in large part because of changes in attitudes toward religion and government), and that these changes were bolstered, accelerated, and enabled by Supreme Court decisions such as <em>Roe v. Wade<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Ian V. Rowe in another essay observes that \u201coverwhelming data and common sense suggest that family stability matters significantly in virtually every facet of a child\u2019s future life.\u201d Yet about half of black children are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.census.gov\/library\/stories\/2021\/04\/number-of-children-living-only-with-their-mothers-has-doubled-in-past-50-years.html\">living<\/a> in a home headed by a single parent, increasing the likelihood of all manner of negative outcomes, including failure to graduate high school, underemployment, or prison time. As Parker and Borens mourn: \u201cIt is an unfortunate historical fact that the civil rights movement coincided with the prevalence of a certain cultural arrogance which emphasized religion and pretended like the federal government could solve all social ills.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Which Story Will We Tell?<\/h2>\n<p>In other words, the very same trends that have devastated all American demographics since the 1960s \u2014 the breakdown of the family, declining religious observance and attendance, failed federal social welfare programs, and increased rates of substance abuse \u2014 have hit the black community. Many of the economic and social gains patiently and diligently accumulated among multiple black generations since emancipation \u2014 which were leading them closer to parity with white Americans \u2014 stalled, or even evaporated.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A few years ago, Hannah-Jones <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heritage.org\/civil-society\/commentary\/nikole-hannah-jones-editor-the-1619-project-stokes-fires-racial-division\">asserted<\/a>: \u201cNone of the actions we are told black people must take if they want to \u2018lift themselves\u2019 out of poverty and gain financial stability \u2014 not marrying, not getting educated, not saving more, not owning a home \u2014 can mitigate 400 years of racialized plundering.\u201d The story told by the contributors to \u201cThe State of Black America\u201d quite decisively repudiates Hannah-Jones\u2019 claim and the broader racialist accounts offered by her and others like Attiah and Kendi. This Juneteenth, which story we tell ourselves, and allow to inform our imaginations, will in large part determine the future trajectory of blacks in America.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Casey Chalk is a senior contributor at The Federalist and an editor and columnist at The New Oxford Review. He has a bachelor\u2019s in history and master\u2019s in teaching from the University of Virginia and a master\u2019s in theology from Christendom College. He is the author of The Persecuted: True Stories of Courageous Christians Living Their Faith in Muslim Lands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In an op-ed for The Washington Post last month entitled \u201cFor African Americans tired of U.S. hostility, Ghana is still calling,\u201d columnist Karen Attiah discusses the trend of African Americans<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":658,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1513103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/658"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1513103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1513103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1513103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1513103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}