{"id":1621135,"date":"2022-08-25T18:03:02","date_gmt":"2022-08-25T22:03:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1621135"},"modified":"2022-08-25T18:03:09","modified_gmt":"2022-08-25T22:03:09","slug":"american-historical-association-falls-prey-to-presentism-struggle-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/american-historical-association-falls-prey-to-presentism-struggle-session\/","title":{"rendered":"American Historical Association Falls Prey To \u2018Presentism\u2019 Struggle Session"},"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\">18<\/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%2Famerican-historical-association-falls-prey-to-presentism-struggle-session%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=1621135&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--><p>American history since the 1960s has been plagued by the problem of \u201cpresentism,\u201d the insistence that historians leave their ivory towers and use their knowledge of history to help us understand and fix social problems of the present. Its provenance is Marxist, so it was natural that the late historian Howard Zinn, in 1967, contributed an essay \u201cHistory as Private Enterprise\u201d to a collection honoring Herbert Marcuse, a leader in the Frankfurt School that created Critical Theory, which was then modified into Critical Race Theory.<\/p>\n<p>Zinn encouraged historians to engage in \u201csocial action\u201d in the manner of \u201ca group of American historians\u201d who, in 1965, \u201cjoined the Negroes marching from Selma to Montgomery.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, historians\u2019 <em>writing<\/em> and <em>scholarship<\/em> should be aimed \u201ctowards humane concerns,\u201d inspiring readers and students to engage in \u201csocial action,\u201d such as marching and protesting.<\/p>\n<p>One of Zinn\u2019s biggest critics, Harvard history professor Oscar Handlin, bemoaned the trends in the profession illustrated starkly by Zinn\u2019s work. Handlin <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hup.harvard.edu\/catalog.php?isbn=9780674910263\">wrote<\/a> that historians, \u201cin reducing truth to an instrument, even an instrument for doing good,\u201d \u201cnecessarily blunt its edge. . . . For, when truth ceases to be an end in itself and becomes but a means toward an end, it also becomes malleable. . . .\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>The Crime<\/h2>\n<p>Indeed, truth has become malleable. It\u2019s essentially what James H. Sweet, Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a specialist in African history and the Atlantic slave trade, wrote in his Aug. 17 column, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/publications-and-directories\/perspectives-on-history\/september-2022\/is-history-history-identity-politics-and-teleologies-of-the-present\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Is History History?<\/a>\u201d on the American Historical Association website, of which he is also president. <\/p>\n<p>The essay weighed in on the problem of \u201cpresentism,\u201d which he describes as evidenced today in reading \u201cthe past through the prism of contemporary social justice issues\u2014race, gender, sexuality, nationalism, capitalism,\u201d as well as historical focus on recent time periods.<\/p>\n<p>Sweet used examples from the political right and the political left as illustrations. His characterization of conservatives wanting to forbid teaching about slavery and present the Founders as flawless \u201ctribunes of liberty\u201d along with opinions by Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, though wrong, hardly produced a peep.<\/p>\n<p>Not so for Sweet\u2019s mild and sympathetic criticism of the New York Times\u2019s 1619 Project, which he had initially viewed as \u201ca synthesis of a tradition of Black nationalist historiography dating to the 19<sup>th<\/sup> century with Ta-Nehisi Coates\u2019s recent call for reparations.\u201d Indeed, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/1619-Project-American-Origin-Story\/dp\/0753559536\/ref=sr_1_7?crid=2GNEUPHUNAR8B&amp;keywords=the+1619+project+book&amp;qid=1661364351&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=the+1619+project%2Cstripbooks%2C158&amp;sr=1-7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The 1619 Project: A New American Origin Story<\/a>\u201d book version concludes with Nikole Hannah-Jones\u2019s essay explicitly claiming that the material in the volume supported \u201crace-specific remedies\u201d for \u201ca vastly unequal society maintained by historical and systemic racism\u201d \u2014 reparations. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Sweet had not even thought of the project as a work of history \u2014 a view in line with what Hannah-Jones herself said in the past: that it was \u201cnot a history,\u201d but \u201ca work of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aier.org\/article\/the-suicide-of-the-american-historical-association\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">journalism<\/a>.\u201d Yet, it seemed to become one as historians engaged with it and 1619 Project lessons were infused into thousands of schools, spurring protests by school boards against \u201cthe characterization of Washington, Jefferson, and Madison as unpatriotic owners of \u2018forced labor camps.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Sweet falsely claimed that \u201cConservative lawmakers decided that if this was the history of slavery being taught in schools, the topic shouldn\u2019t be taught at all.\u201d (A major alternative, <a href=\"https:\/\/k12.hillsdale.edu\/k12\/media\/Documents\/1776-Curriculum-Resource-List.pdf?ext=.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Hillsdale 1776 Curriculum<\/a>, in fact, introduces Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass to kindergartners and the issue of slavery to third-graders.) \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Yet, Sweet was rightfully concerned about the popularity of The 1619 Project and similarly flawed presentations of the African slave trade.<\/p>\n<p>He was correct about how The 1619 Project falsely cast slavery in America by ignoring the fact that the \u201c20. and odd\u201d Africans who arrived in Jamestown in 1619, the seminal moment for The Project, were but a small part of the entire shipload, most of whom went to Mexico, Jamaica, and Bermuda, and that the vast majority passing through the slave port of Elmina went not to the American colonies but \u201cto Brazil and the Caribbean.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He was absolutely correct to present concern that the tour guide at Elmina (in Ghana where Sweet was traveling) wrongly stated that the Ghanaians \u201cunknowingly\u201d sent their \u201cservants\u201d into chattel slavery. No, villages had been raided for slaves to be sold, a practice that had been going on for centuries before the arrival of the Europeans. Sweet also rightly pointed out that the claim in the forthcoming film \u201cThe Woman King\u201d that \u201cDahomey\u2019s female warriors and King Ghezo fought the European slave trade\u201d is false. To the contrary, \u201cthey <em>promoted<\/em> it\u201d (emphasis added).<\/p>\n<p>These are long-established, accepted historical facts.<\/p>\n<p>That Americans are taking The 1619 Project as true history, as displayed by the \u201cdog-eared\u201d copy of The 1619 Project of an extended African American family visiting Africa, as Sweet described, <em>is<\/em> cause for concern (as is the claim in the accompanying children\u2019s picture book, used <a href=\"https:\/\/www.frontpagemag.com\/fpm\/2021\/12\/1619-project-story-weeks-mary-grabar\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">kindergarten to eighth-grade<\/a>, that \u201cwhite people\u201d came to Africa and kidnapped and \u201ctraded another\u2019s child \/ another\u2019s momma and daddy\u201d whom they \u201cbought and sold . . . alongside horses and chairs\u201d).<\/p>\n<p>But Sweet\u2019s accompanying acknowledgment of African Americans\u2019 \u201caffirmation and bonding\u201d through \u201cthe memorialization of ancestors lost to slavery,\u201d wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n<p>Nor was it enough that he linked back to an American Historical Association <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=LdcoBQy41zI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">video of historians<\/a>, including himself, objecting to attempts to keep the factually flawed 1619 Project out of classrooms. \u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>The Struggle Session<\/h2>\n<p>Sweet\u2019s apology, posted the next day, could have come from the Soviet archives. He expressed his regret that his \u201cPerspectives on History column has generated anger and dismay among many of our colleagues and members.\u201d He only intended \u201cto open a conversation on how we \u2018do\u2019 history in our current politically charged environment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, he \u201csincerely\u201d regretted \u201cthe way I have alienated some of my Black colleagues and friends.\u201d His \u201cclumsy efforts to draw attention to methodological flaws in teleological presentism\u201d had \u201cleft the impression that questions posed from absence, grief, memory, and resilience somehow matter less than those posed from positions of power. This absolutely is not true. It wasn\u2019t my intention to leave that impression, but my provocation completely missed the mark.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s a new crime \u2014 provocation!<\/p>\n<p>The Trotskyites, over at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2022\/08\/24\/ogzj-a24.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">World Socialist Web Site<\/a>, noted that Sweet\u2019s \u201cabject mea culpa maxima,\u201d includes in \u201ca note of just 260 words,\u201d Sweet\u2019s apology \u201cthree times for \u2018causing harm\u2019 or \u2018damage\u2019 to \u2018colleagues, the discipline, and the Association.\u2019 The following phrases all appear: \u201cI take full responsibility;\u2019 \u2018I am deeply sorry;\u2019 \u2018I sincerely regret;\u2019 \u2018it wasn\u2019t my intention;\u2019 and the especially scraping, \u2018I hope to redeem myself.\u2019 If one did not know the context, it might be assumed that this was a confession extracted after torture before the Inquisition\u201d \u2014 or after a Moscow show trial \u2014 as the Trotskyites should know!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As Phil Magness recounts, \u201cWithin moments of his column appearing online, all <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aier.org\/article\/the-suicide-of-the-american-historical-association\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">hell broke loose<\/a> on Twitter,\u201d with Hannah-Jones retweeting attacks (none of which addressed the points Sweet made). There were <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Chris_Levesque_\/status\/1561007952659619840\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">demands<\/a> that he step down and claims that his apology was <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NotOccupying\/status\/1561000479450189826\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">insincere<\/a>, displaying a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheTattooedProf\/status\/1561018170223255553\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">misogynoir<\/a>, condescending tone.\u201d Public <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JimGrossmanAHA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1561131248751464452%7Ctwgr%5E4f7e0cc591d73fbd205f8a66ec09550096607d4d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcurrentpub.com%2F2022%2F08%2F21%2Fthe-james-sweet-aha-blowup%2F\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">commenting<\/a> was soon blocked by the American Historical Association. <\/p>\n<p>Other deviationist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Exiled-Conservative-Professors-Ostracized-Marginalized\/dp\/0986018325\/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=1661359718&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">professors<\/a> get canceled, exiled from the classroom, denied publication in scholarly outlets, and in some cases, even<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/pro-colonialism-article-taken-journal-editor-receives-credible-death-threats\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"> death threats<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>The situation in 2022 has deteriorated since those heady days when Howard Zinn led students on protests. An accomplished scholar has been brought down to the position of supplicant by someone whose distortion of American and world history is embarrassingly displayed, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Debunking-1619-Project-Exposing-America\/dp\/1684513065\/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?crid=29T7VBCTXIQEB&amp;keywords=debunking+the+1619+project&amp;qid=1661361600&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=debunking%2Cstripbooks%2C125&amp;sr=1-2-spons&amp;psc=1&amp;spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzQUIyRkZJRDNTQzBaJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMzIzMDcxMU5YNFlNRDBVVVdGViZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwMjIyMzI0N1dSRU1IRzFPNDA1JndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">page after page<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Back in 1971, Handlin could get his articles criticizing Zinn and the decline of the history profession published in the New York Times. Today, even an accomplished historian with an endowed chair dares not make the mildest critique about a \u201cproject\u201d that one of its non-historians writes. And the only ones that seem to be defending him are the conservatives whom he has mocked and misrepresented.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  Mary Grabar, the author of &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Fake-History-Generation-Against-America\/dp\/1621577732\/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=\">Debunking Howard Zinn<\/a>,&#8221; earned her PhD from the University of Georgia and taught college English for 20 years. She is now a resident fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization in Clinton, New York. She is also author of the &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.regnery.com\/9781684513062\/debunking-the-1619-project\/\">Debunking The 1619 Project: Exposing the Plan to Divide America<\/a>&#8221; (Regnery, September 7, 2021). Her writing can be found at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dissidentprof.com\/\">DissidentProf.com<\/a> and at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marygrabar.com\/\">marygrabar.com<\/a>.<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-comments mt-30 mt-sm-60\">\n<div class=\"article-comments-container d-flex flex-column align-items-center py-30\">\n    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"110\" height=\"106\" src=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/fdrlst-mark.svg\" class=\"img-fluid mb-20\" alt=\"The Federalist logo eagle mark\" \/>    <\/p>\n<p>Unlock commenting by joining the Federalist Community.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/plans\/pricing\/\" class=\"btn btn-on-white\">Subscribe<\/a>  <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>American history since the 1960s has been plagued by the problem of \u201cpresentism,\u201d the insistence that historians leave their ivory towers and use their knowledge of history to help us<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":741,"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-1621135","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\/1621135","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\/741"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1621135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1621135\/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=1621135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1621135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1621135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}