by This Sunday, The New York Times magazine was entirely devoted to one subject: the 1619 Project. I can’t remember the last time I read the weekly magazine, cover to cover, before the newspaper.
Poring over those 98 pages took all day. Oh, I’m a speedy reader, so it wasn’t about pace. Reading took all day due to the weight of the words. I had to take breaks, walk away, breathe deeply.
The 1619 Project shook me hard.
A few years back, I reacted similarly to Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book, Between the World and Me. While I don’t remember where I was going or why I was on that plane, I do remember the reading. Specifically, reaching for Post-It Notes to mark unfamiliar authors and works. You see, Coates focused on references from people of color.
Oh, I was ashamed at the shocking proliferation of yellow sticky notes. You can see them still, in my photo. Yeah, I knew a 1980s-era English literature education skewed heavily toward European white (and mostly dead) men. And, being a life-long feminist, I knew to adjust that representation. But Coates revealed just how much, despite my best intentions to thwart the patriarchy, I’d failed to fully amend.
Why didn’t I, an avid reader, know these important Black writers and their books?
So I set about to rectify those gaps, catch up on previously overlooked works and writers, and seek new diverse viewpoints. The sooner the better–I had about 40 years of backlog to fill.
Now, four years later, the 1619 Project has given me another good, hard shake. I’ve missed a lot in American history.
The 1619 Project shifts the standard-issue white American origin story from 1776 to August, 1619, when the first slaver ship landed and sold its kidnapped human cargo to colonists.
This readjustment involves a massive conceptual realignment. When you accept protection of slavery as key motivation behind America’s birth and its Declaration of Independence, it’s impossible to see racism as arising in only certain isolated instances. Racism isn’t the ugly exception–it’s the foul connecting thread.
I had not seen America’s history as a continuing timeline of slavery.
I’m not clueless. As a native Austinite, I’m familiar with the way city planning has reflected racist segregation. I understand how identity politics have affected everything from food subsidies to medical science to housing. I’ve read about the institution of slavery, Jim Crow laws, our American prison systems, eviction, voter suppression, cultural appropriation.
Despite my good intentions, I had still bought into a false mythology of a country born to promote freedom. My eyes were shut to the direct correlations between today’s inequality and yesterday’s bondage. I see that white privilege allowed that blindness. Only by being white could I have envisioned “before” and “after” the Emancipation Proclamation. Inclusivity in the feminist movement. Or, following President Obama’s election, an American “post-racial society.”
A week earlier, on August 8, I wrote a blackout poem. Inspiration is always a bit mysterious, but surely having just finished The Known World (a novel by Edward P. Jones about antebellum slavery) provided a spark. The El Paso mass shooting had occurred only days before. When my eyes found “restitution” among the text (from Artemis by Andy Weir, page 299), “Reparations” was born. Is it any wonder my subconscious mind focused here?
I believed it before, but reading The 1619 Project solidified my conviction: addressing, resolving, and rectifying racism is America’s most important issue. Whites must consciously dismantle slavery’s remnants in American society. If we turn a blind eye to racist state and national policies, if we remain silent at racist rhetoric, if we allow bigotry and hatred to proliferate for the sake of power, then we are just as much oppressors as those enslaving colonists.
Until we face ugly truths, the United States cannot have a successful economy, quality health care, first-rate education, wage equality, effective immigration policy, civil and reproductive rights, and fair government representation.
“What was required was a new story, a new history, told through the lens of our struggle”
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me (p. 44)
Re-Education Resources
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
