Indiana taxpayers shelled out more than $100,000 to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/1619-project-creator-raked-in-1m-last-year-for-college-speeches-on-inequality/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1619 Project</a> author <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/1619-project-writer-demanded-40k-for-45-minute-speech-busting-librarys-budget/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nikole Hannah-Jones</a> for just over 24 hours of work, according to a contract obtained by The Daily Wire under public records laws.
The deal between the Trustees of Indiana University and Hannah-Jones&#8217; speakers bureau said the university would pay $101,700 for a &#8220;2022 Themester Lecture on Identity and Identification.&#8221; The &#8220;Themester&#8221; reference meant that for an entire semester, Indiana students were told to focus on the &#8220;theme&#8221; of identity.
&#8220;During the fall of 2022, we invite members of the College and campus community to reflect on identity and all that it entails,&#8221; the university&#8217;s <a href="https://themester.indiana.edu/policies-and-planning/themester-2022/index.html">website</a> says. &#8220;Race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, nationality, native language, socio-economic status, and myriad other identities shape our worldview: how we see, how we portray ourselves, and how we are perceived (and received).&#8221;
The &#8220;themester&#8221; is run by an advisory committee that includes a gender studies professor and undergraduates &#8220;majoring in Theatre, Drama, and Contemporary Dance&#8221; and &#8220;Anthropology and Folklore and Ethnomusicology.&#8221;
Indiana is a deep-red state. Its governor, Eric Holcomb, is a Republican, and its state legislature is overwhelmingly Republican. The university did not return a Daily Wire request for comment on whether the six-figure sum was a wise expenditure of taxpayer money or whether it reflects the desires of Indiana&#8217;s electorate.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-493019" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/indiana-ss.png" alt="" width="832" height="596" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/01/indiana-ss.png 832w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/01/indiana-ss-300x215.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/01/indiana-ss-804x576.png 804w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/01/indiana-ss-768x550.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 832px) 100vw, 832px" /></div>
The lavish paycheck was in return for Hannah-Jones arriving on the afternoon on October 19 and participating in two classroom discussions followed by a &#8220;dinner-party with invited students and Union Board directors involving some discussion, but no prepared remarks from Speaker.&#8221; The next day, she was to participate in two more classroom sessions, followed by a &#8220;30-min public lecture, and 30 minutes of moderated discussion/q&amp;a with the audience. A meet/greet and booksigning will conclude the program.&#8221;
The $101,700 is the largest known sum of taxpayer money paid for a single engagement to the woman who has parlayed her assertions that America is &#8220;one of the most unequal societies in the history of the world&#8221; into a lucrative enterprise. Hannah-Jones was raised in Iowa, the daughter of a mixed-race couple.
The Daily Wire previously obtained records for 11 speeches she made in 2022, averaging $40,000 even though some were made online. She made at least 33 speeches last year, which at that average figure would work out to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/1619-project-creator-raked-in-1m-last-year-for-college-speeches-on-inequality" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$1.2 million</a> in 2022 speaking fees.
Most of the speeches were at universities, despite <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/historians-shred-nyt-1619-project-claiming-slavery-defines-america" target="_blank" rel="noopener">historians</a> from across the political spectrum pointing to significant errors in her writing, down to the foundational assertion that America&#8217;s colonists fought for independence from Britain in order to preserve slavery.
The speeches also serve to promote her book, which earned an estimated $2 million in royalties.
Among her other income sources, Hannah-Jones received nearly $75,000 not to work at the University of North Carolina last year as part of a legal settlement. In 2020, Hannah-Jones inked a deal with Oprah Winfrey and Lionsgate to develop 1619 “into an expansive portfolio of feature films, television series and other content,” including a Hulu series that will premier this month.
Despite her heavy speech schedule, the New York Times Magazine writer is employed by Howard University following the Knight Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation and other philanthropists earmarking $25 million.
The list of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/1619-project-creator-raked-in-1m-last-year-for-college-speeches-on-inequality" target="_blank" rel="noopener">speeches</a> is:
<ul>
<li>1/19/2022: Union League Club of Chicago</li>
<li>1/21/2022: Metro State University-Denver (via Zoom) $25,000</li>
<li>1/25/2022: University of Wisconsin $55,000</li>
<li>1/16/2022: University of Buffalo</li>
<li>1/31/2022: Grand Rapids Community College $25,000</li>
<li>2/1/2022: Fordham University</li>
<li>2/9/2022: University of Houston (via Zoom)</li>
<li>3/15/2022: Notre Dame</li>
<li>3/22/2022: Southern Methodist University</li>
<li>3/23/2022: Macalester College (via Zoom)</li>
<li>3/25/2022: University of Lynchburg</li>
<li>3/30/2022: U-Conn $36,500</li>
<li>4/1/2022: SUNY-Brockport $50,000</li>
<li>4/15/2022: Dartmouth</li>
<li>4/26/2022: Colby College</li>
<li>5/3/2022: University of Maryland $40,500</li>
<li>5/5/2022: St Johns University</li>
<li>5/17/2022: Rutgers</li>
<li>5/21/2022: NC A&amp;T State U</li>
<li>9/20/2022: Arlington, VA library $40,000</li>
<li>9/24/2022: The Links Inc (via Zoom)</li>
<li>9/27/2022: Sarah Lawrence University</li>
<li>10/11/2022: Lehigh University</li>
<li>10/13/2022: Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis</li>
<li>10/20/2022: Indiana University $101,700</li>
<li>10/27/2022: Northern Illinois University (via Zoom) $30,000</li>
<li>10/28/2022: Syracuse University</li>
<li>11/2/2022: Iowa State University $38,000</li>
<li>11/7/2022: French Embassy</li>
<li>11/18/2022: Newark Public Library</li>
<li>11/19/2022: Cleveland Library (via Zoom) $20,000</li>
<li>11/20/2022: Howard University School of Law / Pulitzer Center</li>
<li>12/6/2022: University of Minnesota $50,000</li>
</ul>

2021 Morehouse College Commencement

Indiana Taxpayers Shelled Out $101,700 To 1619 Project Author For Two Days’ Work

Indiana Taxpayers Shelled Out $101,700 To 1619 Project Author For Two Days' Work

1619 Project

Critical Race Theory

Education

Indiana

Indiana University

Nikole Hannah-Jones

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/what-evidence-do-you-have-chris-wallace-throws-down-with-nikole-hannah-jones-on-cnn/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nikole Hannah-Jones</a>, the creator of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/1619-project-writer-demanded-40k-for-45-minute-speech-busting-librarys-budget/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1619 Project</a>, raked in big bucks from dozens of colleges last year giving speeches condemning America and shaming her audiences for belonging to “one of the most unequal societies in the history of the world,” according to pay records examined by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Daily Wire</a>.
Some 33 speeches Hannah-Jones made in 2022 netted her an estimated payday of more than $1.2 million, according to a Daily Wire analysis. Twenty-seven of those speeches were made at colleges, including 14 at public schools, for an estimated $1 million. The Daily Wire&#8217;s estimate is based on records from 11 schools which responded to Freedom of Information requests and showed payments averaging $40,000 each.
The $1.2 million figure likely significantly understates the total since the list of speeches is incomplete and private institutions may have paid Hanah-Jones even more than the typical $40,000 fee forked over by public schools.
For some, she collected tens of thousands of dollars without having to leave the house. For example, the Cleveland Public Library paid her $20,000 for a Zoom lecture on November 19. Others included perks like first-class airfare.
The $1.2 million in speaking fees could pay for a year of tuition for 175 students at <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/community-college-pays-the-cost-of-20-students-tuition-for-celeb-diversity-lectures" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Grand Rapids Community College</a>, where Hannah-Jones spoke in January for $25,000, paid through a combination of school and private funds. In 2021, a parents group faulted the Oregon Department of Education for using funds intended to <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2021/06/10/oregon-yanks-money-from-struggling-students-program-to-pay-nikole-hannah-jones-for-lectures-on-race/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">benefit the neediest</a> to pay Hannah-Jones $50,000, amounting to $14,000 an hour.
The 1619 Project was a 2019 series in the New York Times Magazine that posited that anti-black racism has shaped every facet of American society. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/historians-shred-nyt-1619-project-claiming-slavery-defines-america" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Historians</a> across the political spectrum have said it contains serious factual errors, including the premise that &#8220;one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery.&#8221;
Hannah-Jones is half-white and half-black and was raised in Iowa. She has become wealthy by writing about the oppression of blacks in America, with speeches just one of many concurrent sources of revenue.
In July Hannah-Jones received $75,000 not to work at the University of North Carolina as part of a legal settlement. UNC offered her a job as a professor, but the board of trustees delayed granting her tenure before eventually agreeing to it. Hannah-Jones claimed racism and threatened to sue, and turned down the job after tenure was offered.
On top of the hefty speaking fees, many of the speeches serve as an opportunity to sell books. According to BookScan figures, <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-1619-project-nikole-hannah-jones/1139222389?ean=9780593230572" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1619 Project: An Origin Story</a> has sold 456,000 copies, which under industry standards could work out to $2 million in royalties. (It’s unknown how much of the royalties go to Hannah-Jones versus the New York Times.)
In September, Hannah-Jones gave a talk as part of an Arlington, Virginia, library program&#8211;where her books were also sold&#8211;whose $40,000 price tag caused <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/1619-project-writer-demanded-40k-for-45-minute-speech-busting-librarys-budget" target="_blank" rel="noopener">budget problems</a> for a library group.
In 2020, Hannah-Jones inked a deal with Oprah Winfrey and Lionsgate to develop 1619 &#8220;into an expansive portfolio of feature films, television series and other content,&#8221; including a <a href="https://www.nytco.com/press/1619-hulu-january/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hulu series</a> that will premier this month.
Hannah-Jones &#8220;will serve as the creative leader and producer in developing feature films, television series, documentaries, unscripted programming and other forms of entertainment enlisting world-class Black creative voices to help adapt her celebrated series chronicling the ways that the original sin of slavery in America still permeates all aspects of our society today,&#8221; a press release <a href="https://www.nytco.com/press/global-media-leader-entrepreneur-oprah-winfrey-and-lionsgate-join-forces-with-pulitzer-prize-winning-journalist-nikole-hannah-jones-and-the-new-york-times-to-adapt-the-acclaimed-1619-project-into-a/">said</a>.
The MacArthur Foundation has also showered her with cash for years, giving her a <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/237093598/201813199349100836/IRS990PF" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$625,000</a> &#8220;genius grant&#8221; that was paid in the form of $125,000 per year from 2017 to 2021, according to nonprofit filings.
In 2021, the Knight Foundation donated <a href="https://communications.howard.edu/about-us" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$5 million</a> to Howard University to create a job for her there, the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism. Other donors shelled out <a href="https://thedig.howard.edu/all-stories/two-iconic-american-writers-join-howard-create-center-help-educate-next-generation-black-journalists" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$20 million</a>&#8211;including $5 million from MacArthur&#8211;to Howard University to bring Hannah-Jones on as its &#8220;Knight Chair in Race and Journalism,&#8221; alongside Ta-Nehisi Coates. That tasked Hannah-Jones with creating the Center for Journalism &amp; Democracy at Howard University, a “first-of-its-kind academic center committed to strengthening historically-informed, pro-democracy journalism.” The Center held its <a href="https://cfjd.howard.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first event</a>, a &#8220;Democracy Summit,&#8221; on Nov. 15.
It’s unclear how Hannah-Jones manages to serve Howard while juggling so many other projects. Hannah-Jones still <a href="https://nikolehannahjones.com/about/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">refers</a> to herself as a New York Times Magazine writer, but her <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/nikole-hannah-jones" target="_blank" rel="noopener">byline page</a> at the Times has shown little activity in recent years. She did not return a request for comment.
On her personal <a href="https://nikolehannahjones.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">web page</a>, the banner quote blares: &#8220;I see my work as forcing us to confront our hypocrisy.&#8221;
The list of speeches is:
<ul>
<li>1/19/2022: Union League Club of Chicago</li>
<li>1/21/2022: Metro State University-Denver (via Zoom) $25,000</li>
<li>1/25/2022: University of Wisconsin $55,000</li>
<li>1/16/2022: University of Buffalo</li>
<li>1/31/2022: Grand Rapids Community College $25,000</li>
<li>2/1/2022: Fordham University</li>
<li>2/9/2022: University of Houston (via Zoom)</li>
<li>3/15/2022: Notre Dame</li>
<li>3/22/2022: Southern Methodist University</li>
<li>3/23/2022: Macalester College (via Zoom)</li>
<li>3/25/2022: University of Lynchburg</li>
<li>3/30/2022: U-Conn $36,500</li>
<li>4/1/2022: SUNY-Brockport $50,000</li>
<li>4/15/2022: Dartmouth</li>
<li>4/26/2022: Colby College</li>
<li>5/3/2022: University of Maryland $40,500</li>
<li>5/5/2022: St Johns University</li>
<li>5/17/2022: Rutgers</li>
<li>5/21/2022: NC A&amp;T State U</li>
<li>9/20/2022: Arlington, VA library $40,000</li>
<li>9/24/2022: The Links Inc (via Zoom)</li>
<li>9/27/2022: Sarah Lawrence University</li>
<li>10/11/2022: Lehigh University</li>
<li>10/13/2022: Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis</li>
<li>10/20/2022: Indiana University</li>
<li>10/27/2022: Northern Illinois University (via Zoom) $30,000</li>
<li>10/28/2022: Syracuse University</li>
<li>11/2/2022: Iowa State University $38,000</li>
<li>11/7/2022: French Embassy</li>
<li>11/18/2022: Newark Public Library</li>
<li>11/19/2022: Cleveland Library (via Zoom) $20,000</li>
<li>11/20/2022: Howard University School of Law / Pulitzer Center</li>
<li>12/6/2022: University of Minnesota $50,000</li>
</ul>

The Grio Awards 2022 – Red Carpet

1619 Project Creator Raked In $1M+ Last Year For College Speeches On Inequality

Anti-Racism

Martin Luther King Jr.

Media

New York Times

A California school district voted this week to ban <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/critical-race-theory" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Critical Race Theory</a> from being taught in its schools.
In a 3-2 vote, the Temecula Valley Unified School District in southern <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/california" target="_blank" rel="noopener">California</a> voted to ban schools from teaching CRT. The vote came at the end of a marathon session on Tuesday night that ran into the wee hours of Wednesday morning; a new conservative majority had just been sworn in at the beginning of the meeting.
&#8220;The TVUSD desires to uplift and unite students by not imposing the responsibility of historical transgressions in the past and instead will engage students of all cultures in age-appropriate critical thinking that helps students navigate the past, present, and future,&#8221; the resolution banning CRT stated.
The school board&#8217;s <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/614039805/Critical-Race-Theory-Resolution#download" target="_blank" rel="noopener">resolution</a> makes clear that teachers are not required to violate state, local, or federal law, and maintains that they adhere to the curriculum adopted by the board as the primary source for the context of instruction. The resolution also states that the board respects diversity.
&#8220;[R]acism has no place in American society and especially not in the Temecula Valley Unified School District,&#8221; the resolution stated. &#8220;[T]he TVUSD condemns racism and will not tolerate racism and racist conduct.&#8221; The <a href="https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2022/12/14/critical-race-theory-debated-by-temecula-school-board/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">East Bay Times</a> reported that the board passed another resolution condemning racism.
The resolution continued, explicitly condemning Critical Race Theory as &#8220;an ideology based on false assumptions about the United States of America and its population,&#8221; the foundation of which was based on an &#8220;artificial distortion of the traditional definition of &#8216;racism.'&#8221;
The board also explicitly condemned CRT as a racist ideology in itself, which assigns generational and racial guilt for conduct far in the past; violates the principle of equal protection under the law; and detracts from the underlying causes of real societal problems by framing all social issues as racial issues. &#8220;Critical Race Theory or other similar frameworks will not be used as a source to guide how topics related to race will be taught,&#8221; the board said.
The resolution then banned all of the following core tenets of Critical Race Theory from being taught:
<ol>
<li>&#8220;Racism is racial prejudice plus power, a concept that is often used to argue that (i) only individuals classified as &#8220;white&#8221; people can be racist because only &#8220;white&#8221; people control society and (ii) individuals in ethnic minorities cannot be racist because they do not control society.</li>
<li>Racism is ordinary and the usual way society operates</li>
<li>&#8220;Interest convergence&#8221; or &#8220;material determinism&#8221;; the idea that moving away from racist policies is motivated primarily by the oppressor class&#8217;s own self-interest.</li>
<li>&#8220;Differential racialization,&#8221; the idea that society racializes different minorities according to the needs of the labor market.</li>
<li>The &#8220;voice-of-color&#8221; thesis, the belief that minority groups are inherently better equipped to speak about race and racism.</li>
</ol>
The resolution also banned many core teachings that have their origins in CRT. Specifically, that because of their race or sex, an individual:
<ul>
<li>inherently racist or sexist, consciously or unconsciously;</li>
<li>a member of either and oppressor or an oppressed class;</li>
<li>inherently morally superior or inferior to another race;</li>
<li>should be discriminated against or receive favorable treatment on the basis of race or sex;</li>
<li>bears responsibility for past actions committed by other members of the same group;</li>
<li>should feel guilty or discomforted on the basis of race or sex</li>
</ul>
Furthermore, the resolution banned the idea that meritocracy, hard work, or the scientific method are inherently racist or sexist or were created by members of one race to oppress another. It also banned the core principle of the &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/1619-project" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1619 Project</a>,&#8221; that the advent of slavery in the American colonies was the real founding of the United States, and that the Revolution and American independence from Britain was partly an effort to preserve slavery.
The resolution does allow for some teaching of CRT, but only as a small role and in ways that focus on its faults.

School board discusses critical race theory

California School Board Bans Schools From Teaching Critical Race Theory In First Meeting After Being Sworn In

California

Race

School Boards

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/1619-project" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The 1619 Project</a> writer who has made an opulent living highlighting racial inequality in schools was paid $40,000 to give a speech at a high school just minutes away from the campus of her new employer, according to materials obtained by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Daily Wire</a>.
Former New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones was paid the sum to give a 45-minute talk Sept. 20 as part of a three-hour event at Washington-Liberty High School in Arlington, Virginia. That&#8217;s only eight miles from Howard University, where she became a tenured professor with the help of <a href="https://www.macfound.org/press/press-releases/two-iconic-american-writers-join-howard-university-to-create-a-center-to-educate-the-next-generation-of-black-journalists">$20 million</a> in donations from the MacArthur, Knight, and Ford foundations. Including travel time, that fee amounts to approximately $10,000 an hour.
The speech was also an opportunity for Hannah-Jones to sell her book, even as the event implied that it was &#8220;banned.&#8221;
While held at a public high school, the talk was a program of the Arlington Public Library, and the cost was so enormous that it spurred tension between the library and the Friends of Arlington Library, a nonprofit that raises money to fund <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/american-library-association-transgender-gender-queer-comics-schools" target="_blank" rel="noopener">library</a> activities including author events.
On August 9, Peter Petruski, a library division chief, wrote that the speakers fund was $7,500 over budget even though &#8220;The Friends offered $130,000 for Arlington Reads in FY23, which was less than the library said would be needed.&#8221;
On August 11, Diane Kresh, another <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/texas-library-association-conference-features-a-drag-queen-and-ibram-kendi" target="_blank" rel="noopener">library</a> official, called the apparent &#8220;Arlington READS encumbrances troubling&#8230; The bottom line is there is a difference of $7,500 over and above the &#8216;approved&#8217; budget, money which is due now to meet Fall contractual obligations. I am certain all of you can appreciate we cannot jeopardize either the County or the Library&#8217;s financial standing if bills are not paid.&#8221;
Claire Christian, the president of the Friends group, wrote two days later: &#8220;Not necessarily thrilled about the overage.&#8221; On August 19, the second installment of $20,000 was wired to Hannah-Jones&#8217; agent.
Internal correspondence also shows officials&#8217; response to criticism from community members. A local news outlet &#8220;has posted an article about the upcoming event with Nikole Hannah-Jones and it&#8217;s getting a lot of very ignorant and negative comments,&#8221; Christian wrote. Criticism of Hannah-Jones is primarily because she is not a historian and leading <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/historians-shred-nyt-1619-project-claiming-slavery-defines-america" target="_blank" rel="noopener">historians have rejected</a> her factual premise that the U.S. was founded to preserve slavery.
The contract with Hannah-Jones barred any recording of the event, with a charge of $100,000 if breached.
Charles Yao, who represents Hannah-Jones for the Lavin agency, did not return a request for comment from The Daily Wire.
Hannah-Jones was raised by a white mother and black father in Iowa. The speaking fee has raised eyebrows because Hannah-Jones&#8217; work has been based on the argument that blacks are oppressed, as demonstrated in part by wealth inequality, even as she has effortlessly been showered with wealth and accolades from elite institutions.
Michael Chamberlain, director of the government watchdog group Protect the Public&#8217;s Trust, told The Daily Wire the fee Hannah-Jones pocketed I unusually high for a local library to pay.
“The $40,000 they paid to one particular speaker, which put the program over budget, is an eye-popping amount for a local library to spend on such a controversial figure,&#8221; Chamberlain said. &#8220;Only Arlington residents can determine the wisdom of this decision, but transparency is a necessary first step for them to make that determination.”

1619 Project Writer Demanded $40K For 45-Minute Speech, Busting Library’s Budget

1619 Project Writer Demanded $40K For 45-Minute Speech, Busting Library's Budget

Library

U.S.

Holding historical figures up to modern-day woke values is silly scholarship, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/bill-maher" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bill Maher</a> declared Friday in his latest ‘Real Time’ lecture to leftists.
The old-school liberal made the point about so-called “presentisim” in the “New Rules” segment of his HBO show while discussing a controversial <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="noopener">essay</a> by American Historical Society President James Sweet. The historian, who later apologized for writing that judging historical figures by contemporary standards “ignores the values and mores of people in their own times,” shouldn’t be sorry, Maher said.
“Being woke is like a magic moral time machine in which you judge everyone by what you think you would have done in 1066, and you always win,” Maher said, adding that presentism is “just a way to congratulate yourself about being better than George Washington because you have a gay friend and he didn’t.”
“But if he were alive today, he would too, and if you were alive then, you wouldn’t,” Maher added.
Brooks’ essay called out <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/1619-project" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The 1619 Project</a> and The Woman King as examples of historical presentism, which enraged many on the Left. The 1619 Project, by former New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones, claimed that America’s true founding took place when slavery began on the continent, not with the Declaration of Independence. Several historians have disputed Hannah-Jones’ theory, and the author herself had to <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/seven-months-later-1619-project-leader-admits-she-got-it-wrong" target="_blank" rel="noopener">walk back her central claim</a> that colonists revolted against England in order to preserve slavery.
Hannah-Jones, who won a Pulitzer prize for the 1619 Project, is now a professor at Howard University. Earlier this year, <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/1619-project-author-nikole-hannah-jones-says-tipping-rooted-in-racism" target="_blank" rel="noopener">she claimed</a> the practice of tipping waiters and waitresses was linked to slavery.
Maher said slavery was not simply a racist institution, noting “the capacity for cruelty is a human thing, not a white thing.”
“Everybody who could afford one, had a slave – including people of color,” Maher said. “The way people talk about slavery these days, you’d think it was a uniquely American thing that we invented in 1619. But slavery throughout history has been the rule, not the exception.”
Presentism, Maher said, puts “race, gay, gender, and colonizers” into a wokeness blender as if “the New World was a great big diverse dance club, and the pilgrims were the bridge and tunnel crowd who came in and ruined everything.”
Maher, who has increasingly been <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bill-maher-clashes-with-meathead-rob-reiner-over-medias-burial-of-hunter-biden-laptop-bombshell" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tweaking modern progressive liberals</a>, also joked about liberals&#8217; reaction to Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis&#8217;s decision to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/island-adventure-bill-maher-mocks-biden-left-over-marthas-vineyard-migrant-dump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">send 50 illegal immigrants to Martha&#8217;s Vineyard</a>.
“The migrants, first, they went to Martha’s Vineyard, and then they — today, they sent them to Cape Cod,” Maher said. “Just throw in a stop in Nantucket, and it’s the same cruise I got my parents a few years back.&#8221;

Screen Shot 2022-09-18 at 9.23.22 AM

‘Magic Moral Time Machine’: Bill Maher Calls Out Woke Historians Over Slavery ‘Presentism’

'Magic Moral Time Machine': Bill Maher Calls Out Woke Historians Over Slavery 'Presentism'

Bill Maher

Wokeness

WASHINGTON – The National Archives Museum, home of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, now puts woke ideologies like <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/critical-race-theory">Critical Race Theory</a> and the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/1619-project">1619 Project</a> alongside the nation&#8217;s founding principles.
The museum made a hard Left turn under the leadership of former Archivist David Ferriero, a 2009 appointee of then-President Obama who also <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/15/from-bureaucrat-hack-to-grand-jury-witch-hunt-the-dojs-trump-raid-smells-like-spygate/">had a hand</a> in the Department of Justice&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/doj-to-unseal-more-documents-related-to-trump-raid-refuses-to-unseal-key-document">ongoing investigation</a> of former President Trump. Ferriero, who called January 6, 2021, “the worst day of [his] life,” as The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/05/11/archives-retires-jan-6-ferriero-mob/">reported</a>, resigned in April 2022 to ensure that a Democrat selected his replacement.
“It’s important to me, that this administration replace me,” said Ferriero, whose accusations about Trump taking items from the White House <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/national-archives-official-notified-doj-trump-probe-declined-clinton-emails">reportedly</a> led to the Washington grand jury that approved a search of Trump&#8217;s Mar-a-Lago home. “I’m concerned about what’s going to happen in 2024.&#8221;
Even though he&#8217;s gone, Ferriero&#8217;s mark on the National Archives is obvious to visitors. The official cathedral of our nation’s history, the Archives’ museum on Constitution Avenue, reflects a decidedly negative and partisan slant.
Visitors to the museum first enter the <a href="http://recordsofrights.org/">David M. Rubenstein Gallery</a>, sponsored by a hedge fund magnate who bought the Magna Carta and at whose Nantucket home Joe Biden <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/biden-vacation-democratic-donor-20-million-kiawah-island-estate">stayed</a> last year. Rubenstein formerly chaired the Duke University Board of Trustees, and Ferriero was a vice provost at the school. The exhibit focuses almost entirely on America’s failure to live up to its founding ideals.
“Americans of African descent were barred from exercising the rights guaranteed to all citizens,” says a sign near the front, with additional text explaining that slaves built the White House. Next is a section titled “Reproductive Rights,” which says that Margaret Sanger, the eugenicist founder of abortion provider Planned Parenthood, was a nurse who “dedicated herself to the women’s rights struggle.”
The exhibit highlights topics like the persecution of Native Americans and the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, with headers like “Separate &amp; Unequal,” “Denied the Right to Vote,” &#8220;We the (Straight) People,&#8221; and “Murder on Christmas Day.” It paints restrictions on immigration as racist, with signs saying, “Klan women press for quotas” and “No idiots, criminals, or paupers.”
<div id="attachment_424836" style="width: 755px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-424836" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-424836 size-large" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/12-745x576.jpg" alt="" width="745" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/12-745x576.jpg 745w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/12-300x232.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/12-768x594.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/12.jpg 1419w" sizes="(max-width: 745px) 100vw, 745px" />The Daily Wire</div>
The gift shop sells the 1619 Project book — which, despite historians’ overwhelming <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/historians-shred-nyt-1619-project-claiming-slavery-defines-america">rejection</a> of its premise, claims that colonists fought for independence from Britain to preserve slavery — in not just one, but multiple locations. One bookshelf in the gift store consists of titles like &#8220;Who Was Harvey Milk?&#8221;, &#8220;What Is Juneteenth?&#8221;, &#8220;Who Is Michelle Obama&#8221;, and &#8220;I Am Sonya Sotomayor.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_424799" style="width: 545px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-424799" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-424799 size-large" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/16-535x576.jpg" alt="" width="535" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/16-535x576.jpg 535w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/16-279x300.jpg 279w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/16-768x827.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/16.jpg 1427w" sizes="(max-width: 535px) 100vw, 535px" />The Daily Wire</div>
An apparent sports section consists of a cookbook from Shaquille O’Neal and books about Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, and Venus and Serena Williams. The gift shop even has mousepads featuring Ketanji Jackson, the newest member of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Despite the heavy focus on paraphernalia about black Americans who often had little to do with American history, one black man who did was conspicuously absent. When asked whether anything about Clarence Thomas was available, a clerk looked confused.
“We’ve got a kids&#8217; book about the Supreme Court that has Clarence Thomas in it, but we don’t have anything about Clarence Thomas,” she said.
<h1>&#8220;We don’t have anything about Clarence Thomas,” an employee said.</h1>
Critical Race Theory advocate Ibram X. Kendi&#8217;s book, &#8220;Stamped,&#8221; is for sale, as is a book simply titled &#8220;U.S. Presidents,&#8221; whose cover features Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and George Washington, but not Donald Trump.
<div id="attachment_424805" style="width: 626px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-424805" loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-424805" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/7-616x576.jpg" alt="" width="616" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/7-616x576.jpg 616w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/7-300x281.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/7-768x718.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/7.jpg 1451w" sizes="(max-width: 616px) 100vw, 616px" />The Daily Wire</div>
The <a href="https://www.archivesfoundation.org/board-of-directors/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">board</a> of the National Archives Foundation, a nonprofit which raises money for the government entity, is advised by leftist filmmaker <a href="https://variety.com/2022/film/features/ken-burns-documentaries-benjamin-franklin-donald-trump-pbs-1235182021/">Ken Burns</a> and identity politics-obsessed former CNN journalist <a href="https://www.matteroffact.tv/watch-soledad-obrien-hosts-to-be-an-american-identity-race-and-justice-3/">Soledad O’Brien</a>. The store is a <a href="https://www.nationalarchivesstore.org/collections/the-kamala-collection" target="_blank" rel="noopener">veritable shrine</a> to Kamala Harris, featuring busts, bobbleheads, socks, and purported inspiring quotes from a woman best known for being an embarrassingly bad public speaker.
<div id="attachment_424821" style="width: 561px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-424821" loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-424821" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/harris.png" alt="" width="551" height="287" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/harris.png 551w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/harris-300x156.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 551px) 100vw, 551px" />The National Archives Store</div>
On the second floor, museum visitors are treated to what comes across as a plea to abolish the filibuster, with headlines blaring, “The Majority Loses?&#8221; and “When having the most votes isn’t enough.” Only the Rotunda, which houses the nation’s founding documents, remains relatively untouched by partisanship.
The moment visitors exit the museum, they are confronted with a different reality. Directly outside the door, a sidewalk vendor was doing brisk business on a recent day selling paraphernalia mocking President Joe Biden.
“Let’s go Brandon!” an African immigrant shouted approvingly at the vendor as he walked past.
<div id="attachment_424827" style="width: 590px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-424827" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-424827 size-full" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/1.jpg" alt="" width="580" height="413" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/1.jpg 580w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/08/1-300x214.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 580px) 100vw, 580px" />The Daily Wire</div>
&nbsp;

National Archives

National Archives Museum Now A Shrine To Hard Left, Thanks To Bureaucrat Behind FBI’s Trump Raid

The National Archives Has Gone Woke, Peddling The 1619 Project And Ibram Kendi In The Constitution's Shrine

Constitution

Declaration of Independence

Donald Trump

Ibram X. Kendi

Joe Biden

Readers Pass – Horowitz – Heading Towards The Abyss16x9 copy

Horowitz: ‘Radicals’ Are Racist Criminals Driving America Towards The Abyss

Biden Administration

Leftists

Progressivism

Readers Pass

Revolution

Nikole Hannah-Jones, a New York Times reporter and creator of the 1619 Project, riled up social media on Monday when she tweeted that &#8220;tipping is a legacy of slavery.&#8221;
&#8220;Tipping is a legacy of slavery and if it&#8217;s not optional then it shouldn&#8217;t be a tip but simply included in the bill,&#8221; Hannah-Jones wrote. &#8220;Have you ever stopped to think why we tip, like why tipping is a practice in the U.S. and almost nowhere else?&#8221;
Hannah-Jones, 45, created the 1619 Project which intends to &#8220;reframe&#8221; American history by &#8220;placing the consequences of slavery at the center of the national narrative,&#8221; she <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html">wrote</a> in the Times.
Her tweet drew mockery from historian Phil Magness, a longtime gadfly to Hannah-Jones.
&#8220;Wait, what?&#8221; Magness, author of a rival project called &#8220;The 1619 Project: A Critique,&#8221; wrote on Twitter.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Wait, what? <a href="https://t.co/ylpH1UigLe">pic.twitter.com/ylpH1UigLe</a>
&mdash; Phil Magness (@PhilWMagness) <a href="https://twitter.com/PhilWMagness/status/1506111677292498947?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 22, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Magness noted that tipping is not isolated to just the U.S., posting a Good Housekeeping guide for how to tip in other countries. Magness also cited a scene from William Shakespeare&#8217;s play &#8220;Twelfth Night&#8221; that references tipping.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
And yes, there&#39;s even a scene in Shakespeare&#39;s Twelfth Night that depicts tipping.
Note: &quot;gratillity&quot; is an obsolete old English word for gratuity. <a href="https://t.co/iix1vNPxm8">pic.twitter.com/iix1vNPxm8</a>
&mdash; Phil Magness (@PhilWMagness) <a href="https://twitter.com/PhilWMagness/status/1506135369548550147?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 22, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
That drew a response from Hannah-Jones. &#8220;I know your obsession with my Twitter account is unrelenting because it’s the only time anyone pays attention to your tweets, but come on,&#8221; she tweeted.
&#8220;You can&#8217;t discredit me, you&#8217;re not converting anyone or revealing anything by going behind my block to stalk my Twitter for tweets you can post to invite scorn,&#8221; Hannah-Jones added. &#8220;This is about you hoping to bring attention you otherwise don&#8217;t get and fill some bitter hole you have. Sad. So sad.&#8221;
Hannah-Jones also said she tips, despite her view that it&#8217;s racist.
Hannah-Jones was quick to add that she doesn&#8217;t stiff the help despite her dubious claims about the practice&#8217;s origin.
&#8220;Are y’all reading what I am writing or nah?&#8221; she wrote after others on social media piled on. &#8220;I said I tip. I tip well. I tip almost always. But I object to the idea that I am obligated to tip no matter how I am treated. Nope. And you can’t get more offended at me than employers that pay less-than-minimum wage.&#8221;
And Hannah-Jones said she sometimes is &#8220;disrespected at restaurants.&#8221; &#8220;I’ve said what I have to say about this,&#8221; she wrote. &#8220;I have been utterly disrespected at restaurants. Ignored. Rudeness. Nope.&#8221;
Hannah-Jones penned a New York Times magazine <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html">article</a> titled &#8220;The 1619 Project.&#8221;
&#8220;Published in August 2019, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the English colony of Virginia, the work has been criticized by some academics for its claims &#8211; and angered many others who saw it as unpatriotic,&#8221; the Daily Mail <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10640883/1619-Projects-Nikole-Hannah-Jones-claims-tipping-tied-slavery-Twitter-row-historian.html">wrote</a>.
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent, and ran the Drudge Report from 2010 to 2015. Send tips to josephcurl@dailywire.com and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.

Person paying waiter for restaurant bill

Yup, Now Even Tipping Is Racist

An expanded book of The New York Times “1619 Project” is already on top of Amazon’s bestseller list before it has been released.
The book, based on the project led by The New York Times staff writer Nikole Hannah-Jones, is set to come out Tuesday. The book landed on bestseller lists on Amazon, the world’s largest book retailer, over the weekend as Hannah-Jones travels across the U.S. promoting the book for libraries and schools. As the <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bc-us-books-1619-project_n_618fdc4ce4b0ab5f284a161e">Associated Press</a> reported:
<blockquote>“The 1619 Project” book already has reached the top 100 on the bestseller lists of <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/impact/topic/amazon">Amazon</a>.com and Barnes &amp; Noble.com. Online seller <a href="https://bookshop.org/">Bookshop.org</a> has set up a partnership with the publisher One World, an imprint of Penguin Random House, for independent stores such as Reverie Books to donate copies to local libraries, schools, book banks and other local organizations.
Hannah-Jones’ promotional tour is a mix of bookstores and performing venues, and at least one very personal journey. She will make appearances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Free Library of Philadelphia. She will visit Waterloo West High School in her home state of Iowa, partner with Loyalty Bookstore and Mahogany Books for an event at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington and attend the Chicago Humanities Festival.
She also will speak at the annual convention of the National Council of Teachers of English. Lynsey Burkins, who leads the council’s Build Your Stack initiative, which helps teachers build their classroom libraries, says it was important to reflect a diversity of experiences in the classroom texts.</blockquote>
The ”1619 Project” was an effort to reframe Americans history and the founding of the United States away from the Declaration of Independence in 1776 to the arrival of the first slave ship on U.S. shores in 1619. The project has been one of the principle examples of a recent strain of progressive academic theory known as Critical Race Theory.
The project itself was widely <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pulitzer-prize-awarded-to-creator-of-widely-derided-1619-project-from-the-new-york-times">panned</a> by historians who alleged that the “1619 Project” lacked nuance and left out much necessary context over the United States past struggle with slavery.
“I was disturbed by what seemed like a very unbalanced, one-sided account, which lacked context and perspective on the complexity of slavery, which was clearly, obviously, not an exclusively American institution, but existed throughout history,” Pulitzer-Prize winning author James McPherson, professor emeritus of history at Princeton University, said of the “1619 Project.”
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Gordon Wood, professor emeritus at Brown University, said:
<blockquote>I read the first essay by Nikole Hannah-Jones, which alleges that the Revolution occurred primarily because of the Americans’ desire to save their slaves. She claims the British were on the warpath against the slave trade and slavery and that rebellion was the only hope for American slavery. This made the American Revolution out to be like the Civil War, where the South seceded to save and protect slavery, and that the Americans 70 years earlier revolted to protect their institution of slavery. I just couldn’t believe this.
I was surprised, as many other people were, by the scope of this thing, especially since it’s going to become the basis for high school education and has the authority of the New York Times behind it, and yet it is so wrong in so many ways.</blockquote>
James Oakes, Distinguished Professor of History and Graduate School Humanities Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, slammed two of the project’s central claims: that racism is an uniquely American “sin” and slavery is built into the “DNA” of the United States.
“These are really dangerous tropes. They’re not only ahistorical, they’re actually anti-historical,” he said.

Celebrities Visit SiriusXM – November 5, 2019

‘1619 Project’ Book, Panned By Historians, Hits Amazon’s Bestseller List

Amazon

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, claims that Amazon temporarily censored its ability to advertise and promote one of its researchers&#8217; new book on Black Lives Matter and its relationship to Marxism. 
According to a <a href="https://www.heritage.org/press/heritage-responds-amazon-censoring-experts-book-black-lives-matter">Heritage press release</a>, Amazon informed them that an advertisement for the book “BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution” failed to comply with its “Creative Acceptance” policy. On Thursday, Heritage won its appeal and was notified that the censoring was a result of “human error.”
Amazon claimed that the book “no longer complies with our current Creative Acceptance Policies. Specifically for the following reasons: Your ad contains books or content that is not allowed. Content that revolves around controversial or highly debated social topics is not permitted. Please remove this content from your ad.” 
The book was written by Heritage Senior Fellow Mike Gonzalez and released on September 7. Gonzalez is also the author of the 2020 book “The Plot to Change America: How Identity Politics is Dividing the Land of the Free.” According to Heritage, the book “examined how leftists obsessed with identity politics and racial divisions are undermining the American experiment.”
Gonzalez condemned Amazon for allegedly limiting the book’s reach and questioned whether books written by The New York Times’ “1619 Project” author Nikole Hannah-Jones or “anti-racist” scholar Ibram X. Kendi were subjected to the same standards.
“I wrote this book because most of the press refused to cover the important questions about the people and organizations behind Black Lives Matter. Now, Amazon is trying to limit how many Americans read this book,” Gonzalez said. “The American people deserve answers to those questions, especially after the 630 or more riots that left our cities burning, businesses destroyed and billions in damage, and Americans dead.”
“I have to wonder if Nikole Hannah Jones’ and Ibram X. Kendi’s books — which also sell in the ‘Black and African American History’ category, where my book often outranked them in the past week — face similar constraints,” Gonzalez continued. 
Heritage concluded that whether this outcome was the result of an algorithm or human action, “the outcome is censorship.” 
The Heritage Foundation and its news arm The Daily Signal have fallen victim to big tech censorship in the past. In 2020, one of the foundation’s YouTube videos on gender dysphoria was censored. In 2019, YouTube removed a similar video from The Daily Signal’s channel. 
In early 2019, Heritage President Kay Coles James was invited to sit on Google’s AI board, only for the tech giant to dissolve the board “after an outcry from company employees that James, a conservative, was asked to be on the board.”
James called on conservatives to take action against “Big Tech censorship.” 
“The examples of Big Tech censorship are inescapable and irrefutable. Sometimes they are brazen and outright, other times, they are dressed up in vague platitudes about ‘objectionable content.’ But the outcome is still the same — conservative voices are deemed ‘unacceptable’ and are silenced. This cannot continue,” James said. “The time for action is now. Conservatives  and all those concerned about Big Tech censorship need to come together on solutions that hold Big Tech accountable while preventing even more power from going into the hands of the corporate-government nexus.”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/journalist-unverified-on-twitter-after-launching-investigation-into-big-techs-crt-inspired-trainings">Journalist Unverified On Twitter After Launching Investigation Into Big Tech’s CRT-Inspired Trainings </a>

BLM Sign

Amazon Temporarily Censored Advertisement For New Book Critical Of Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter

In 1932, when journalist George Schuyler traveled with Roy Wilkins to report on abuses of black levee workers in Mississippi and Louisiana for the NAACP, he stopped to consult with “Dr. Dumas” in Vidalia, Louisiana. Dumas was later described in Schuyler’s 1966 autobiography, Black and Conservative, as “a former president of the National Medical Association, . . . a distinguished, courtly, and wealthy mulatto who owned a large white mansion atop a double terrace, six blocks of downtown real estate and a big plantation. He was one of a considerable number of Negroes in the vicinity who were planters and slaveholders before the Civil War. . . .” 
During the Great Depression, Dr. Dumas was doing quite well, thanks to inherited wealth from slave ownership. 
Those like Dumas and his descendants, however, do not figure in calls for reparations, which, according to Robin Rue Simmons, are needed to make up for “the massive intergenerational economic devastation inflicted by slavery.” Simmons, a former alderman in Evanston, Illinois, helped usher through legislation that allocated cannabis tax revenue as reparations to residents or descendants of a redlined district. She wrote in the Washington Post that such payments were still “inadequate,” a mere “down payment on what is rightfully owed to millions of African Americans.” 
Is Simmons thinking of the over 10,000 slaves owned by free blacks in 1830, in Louisiana, Maryland, South Carolina, and Virginia? As David Lightner and Alexander Ragan show, with black slaveowners constituting about two percent of the free black population of the South, and white slaveowners constituting six percent of whites, “a southern white was just three times more likely to own slaves than was a southern free black.” On a national level, “a white American was not even twice as likely as a free black American to be a slaveholder in 1830.” 
Today, however, histories that ignore black slave ownership and the role of African slave merchants, and wildly exaggerate the economic contributions of slavery, are used to argue for reparations. 
Listed among the “resources” at Simmons’s new nonprofit FirstRepair that advocates for “Local Reparations, Nationally” is The 1619 Project, the special issue of the New York Times Magazine published for the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first Africans at Jamestown. 
A collaborator of The 1619 Project’s creator Nikole Hannah-Jones, Ta-Nehisi Coates, testified for reparations before Congress in June 2019, claiming that by 1836, “more than $600 million, almost half of the economic activity in the United States derived directly or indirectly from the cotton produced by the million-odd slaves.” This comes from The Half That Has Never Been Told by Edward Baptist, a member of the neo-Marxist New History of Capitalism school. 
A couple months later, in The 1619 Project, Hannah-Jones similarly wrote, “[Slaves] grew and picked cotton that at the height of slavery was the nation’s most valuable commodity, accounting for half of all American exports and 66 percent of the world’s supply.” One of the Project’s longer essays, by sociologist Matthew Desmond, advanced Baptist’s claims. 
Baptist’s wildly inflated numbers had been exposed widely. Trevor Bernard, writing in Slavery &amp; Abolition in 2015, called Baptist’s claims largely “made up.” Economists Alan Olmstead and Paul Rhode in 2016 cast them “hocus pocus.” Economic historians Peter Coclanis, Philip Magness, and Gavin Wright have charged Baptist with innumeracy. 
But Hannah-Jones, in her June 30, 2020, New York Times Magazine article, “What Is Owed,” asserted that “white Americans’ centuries-long economic head start” and “their generational wealth and higher incomes” nullified antidiscrimination laws. They maintained “caste.” “[T]he racism we are fighting today,” she repeated, “was originally conjured to justify working unfree black people, often until death, to generate extravagant riches for European colonial powers, the white planter class and all the ancillary white people from Midwestern farmers to bankers to sailors to textile workers, who earned their living and built their wealth from free black labor and the products that labor produced.” Therefore, cash reparations should “go to any person who has documentation that he or she identified as a black person for at least 10 years before the beginning of any reparations process and can trace at least one ancestor back to American slavery.” 
But a black American could have ancestors from both the enslaving and enslaved camps, or have ancestors that were both at different times. Even those from disadvantaged backgrounds overcame racism to accrue fortunes on their own. Hannah-Jones, like Howard Zinn, promotes the Marxist narrative that black Americans are exploited proletariat. 
She ignores Frederick Douglass’s charges against “savage chiefs of the western coasts of Africa, who for ages have been accustomed to selling their captives into bondage,” and promotes the fiction that Europeans “kidnapped” Africans. 
She and other reparations agitators ignore the Wall Street Journal article, “When the Slave Traders Were African,” by Nigerian writer, and descendant of slave traders, Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, who reminded in 2019 that “local collaborators,” “middlemen and merchants,” sold slaves to the Europeans. Contrary to Hannah-Jones’s claims, slaves were captured by Africans. 
Nwaubani posed “questions of historic guilt and responsibility” to fellow Africans. But because agitators know that reparations are not forthcoming from Africa, they use fake histories like The 1619 Project. 
Mary Grabar is author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Debunking-1619-Project-Exposing-America/dp/1684511771/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&amp;keywords=debunking+1619+project&amp;qid=1631049117&amp;sr=8-3">Debunking The 1619 Project</a>.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

American Abolitionist Frederick Douglass

OPINION: Reparations: A Bad Idea Based On Fake History From The 1619 Project

A dean at the University of North Carolina (UNC) emailed an ABC News reporter insisting that the outlet “protect” “1619 Project” author and Pulitzer Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones in her battle for tenure at the university. 
According to emails obtained by <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17917">Campus Reform</a>, ABC News’ Averi Harper — an alumna of the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media — emailed the Journalism and Media Dean Susan King asking why the university had yet to offer Hannah-Jones tenure. 
Harper emailed: 
<blockquote>We’re not losing sight of the big picture, we’re trying to gauge what the issue is and where the breakdown in the process was. 
The university-wide tenure committee didn’t put it on the agenda? Or the committee of faculty within the J-School? Who is on this committee? 
Richard Stevens seemed to place blame on you yesterday, which is partly why [I] reached out to you for clarity. I know your character and given your role in trying to bring Nikole to the school, it didn’t sound like you would intentionally snub her. </blockquote>
King responded to Harper saying that the Board of Trustees declined to consider Hannah-Jones’ tenure. She insisted that the news outlet “protect Nikole.” 
King said: 
<blockquote>It’s clear there was NO DENIAL of tenure. The committee didn’t put it on the agenda… best I can tell. The package was ready since the fall — so the specifics of when and timing of board activities get away from the big issues. 
She deserves tenure. Her package is perhaps the best I’ve ever seen. … 
Protect Nikole. She deserves it and I’m doing all I can to make this right. We really want her here.” </blockquote>
The emails were exchanged amid the battle between UNC and the New York Times author, who had never taught a college class, over whether to grant her immediate tenure. The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/university-rescinds-offer-of-tenure-to-creator-of-1619-project-report-says">reported</a> that the UNC Board of Trustees initially denied Hannah-Jones immediate tenure, instead offering her a five-year term with the potential of tenure down the road.  
The board ultimately voted in favor of granting Hannah-Jones tenure in July, despite opposition from a donor with direct ties to the Republican-dominated UNC Board of Governors. One of the top opponents to Hannah-Jones’ immediate tenure approval was Walter Hussman, the UNC donor whose name adorns the university’s journalism school. 
Hussman told <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/06/30/1011880598/after-contentious-debate-unc-grants-tenure-to-nikole-hannah-jones">NPR</a> that he was “given pause by some prominent scholars’ criticism that Hannah-Jones distorted the historical record in arguing that the protection of slavery was one of the Founding Fathers’ primary motivations in seeking independence from the British.”
Despite receiving tenure, Hannah-Jones rejected UNC’s position and opted to accept a tenured position at Howard University’s school of communications as the newly created Knight Chair of Race and Journalism. Hannah-Jones will also lead Howard University’s Center for Journalism and Democracy, which will allegedly train students in investigative journalism. 
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/1619-create-nikole-hannah-jones-rejects-unc-tenure-offer-after-weeks-of-complaining">‘1619’ Creator Nikole Hannah-Jones Rejects UNC Tenure Offer After Weeks Of Complaining</a>

UNC Dean Emailed ABC Reporter Amid Nikole Hannah-Jones Tenure Battle: ‘Protect Nikole’

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