As we read in the Autumn, 1619 is the year that the first kidnapped men, women and children, abducted from Africa, arrived in the English colony of Virginia. To acknowledge the 400th anniversary of this violent act that would be followed by the enslavement of millions, the New York Times played a role in creating The 1619 Project.
Look through the titles of the articles that appear at this link and choose one to read. Then share as a comment one thing that you did not know before reading the piece that you learned from the article that you chose.
As is our practice... reply to the comments others, minimally twice.
I learned about he time where republicans refused to raise the debt ceiling if they didn't get their way with policy.
ReplyDelete... The policy they wanted was lower social security and if they didn't raise the debt ceiling it could cause a collapse in the economy.
DeleteThat is really interesting and frustrating. I could not imagine threatening to collapse our economy just to ensure that people do not get proper social insurance.
DeleteI also learned this, and it was frankly appalling to me that the Tea Party would threaten collapsing the entire American economy in order to get rid of the ACA and other social safety nets.
DeleteOne thing I learned from Nikole Hannah-Jones's essay,"Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true"is that in 1776 Britain was considering abolishing slavery. If that had happened, all of the American colonies would have lost their labor that built and continued to produce their wealth. Protecting the practice of slavery was one of the main reasons the founding fathers wanted independence from Britain.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting. I thought the founding fathers wanted to protect their taxes but its interesting that they also wanted to protect slavery.
DeleteThat makes sense in a bit of a morbid (and somewhat ironic) way. The American economy had become so dependent on slave labor that it was a contributing factor to the War of Independence. Part of the reason why Americans wanted to go to war for their independence is so they could continue enslaving people.
DeleteThis kind of makes sense, an extra reason for America to declare independence, so it can continue its policy of slavery and still profit.
DeleteIt is interesting how this was considered to be one of the reasons they wanted independence from Britain. It just shows how reliant they were on the enslaved people.
DeleteKabir, taxes and slave labor are both inherently linked to economic reasons. Economic reasons are why American colonials wanted independence from Britain so badly.
DeleteIt's insane how America experiences how it is to not be free but after they get free, they enslave others.
Delete90% of Icelandic workers are unionized, compared to 26% of Canadians, and only 10% of Americans. This, along with many other facets of American capitalism, trace back to practices found on plantations.
ReplyDeleteThat statistic is shocking but not surprising. It makes sense that many of our modern forms of suppression of labor rights connect to the foundation of our country, slavery.
DeleteNot surprising at all, not many people have access to unions at their workplace, as many don't offer it, and I could probably understand why it traced to plantations
DeleteIt is really bad that unions are so low in America. I've heard union membership has been going down ever since the 1900s.
DeleteThe statistics have a major gap which is incredibly surprising and shocking as to how low the percentage is in Americans.
DeleteIt's interesting that 10% of workers are unionized, and it is terribly low, this is an issue that we should watch for.
DeleteSomething I learned from Jeneen Interlandi's story, "Why doesn’t the United States have universal health care? The answer has everything to do with race." This all dates back to the Civil War, during the time of a war+smallpox disease, it led to whites thinking that giving free healthcare would lead to the racial hierarchy of America at the time would be changed and affected. Later on, many African Americans were excluded from what the New Deal had to offer.
ReplyDeleteThat's a sad and ridiculously unfair belief that people had about healthcare, although it does seem like we as a society will be correcting that soon (though it is certainly too little too late). More than two thirds of Americans support some kind of universal healthcare, so hopefully we will show (some) progress on this matter soon.
DeleteIt is upsetting how this slight thought caused African Americans to lose out just because of the "fear" of the racial hierarchy being affected.
DeleteThis is very interesting but also incredibly horrendous how our society could have beliefs like this.
DeleteIt's incredibly upsetting that racism is at the root of this issue, though honestly not surprising. And what's even more upsetting is the historical erasure- most people make up excuses that cover up the real issue.
DeleteWhat I learned from Matthew Desmond's article is that in the United States the wealthiest 1% of Americans own 40% of the countries wealth while the working class lives in poverty.
ReplyDeleteThat is so sad. This whole country is like a pyramid scheme.
DeleteI didn't really know this as well, the fact that the wealthiest 1% of Americans hold so much wealth in the United States, while the rest live in a state of poverty.
DeleteThat's honestly horrifying. Definitely reminiscent of a pyramid or a Ponzi scheme, like Nuzhat said.
DeleteI knew the difference was big, but I had forgotten it was that prevalent. It's infuriating to think about how easily so many problems like homelessness and hunger could be solved if all that wealth was given to the people instead of being hoarded by the rich.
DeleteI learned that traffic jams (the article mentions those in Atlanta) have a connection to segregation. The poorly placed highways showed a clear intent on segregating. Interstates were constructed to bulldoze black and other poor neighborhoods, which housed racial minorities. They were also used to place “the boundary between the white and Negro communities." Though this has changed, it does not change the fact that "the awkward path of I-20 remains in place."
ReplyDeleteThis really highlights the lack of change in our society to better support people of color. It's so sad that this is still a prevalent issue.
DeleteI did not know before this that some architecture was designed to discriminate based on race, which is incredibly disturbing to hear.
DeleteIt's unbelievable how deep the segregation and racism goes in our society, how ingrained it is without most people even knowing.
DeleteSomething I learned is that in 2011, Congressional Republican members of the Tea Party used the debt ceiling as leverage in order to make Democrats agree to harsh terms, many of which decreased social safety nets and the ACA. The Tea Party, according to this article, formed as "a reaction to an ascendant majority of black people, Latinos, Asian-Americans and liberal white people." Many Tea Party members fear that "real Americans" are losing hold of the country. This is a very racist and extremely conservative idea.
ReplyDeleteIt's terrible to see these prejudices take hold for long or at all, and what is a "real American" in their standards?
DeleteThat's legitimately insane, how is that even legal? Besides if their definition of a real american is someone who doesn't respect minorities and diversity then i don't wanna be american honestly
DeleteI learned that the healthcare system in America was extremely segregated before, and traces of it are still visible. It was interesting to know that black students were excluded from medical schools, black patients were segregated, and black doctors were barred from groups like the American Medical Organization. Segregation in health isn't something we really think about, it is assumed everyone gets equal treatment before medicine.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, we make these assumptions everyone gets equal treatment in healthcare, but unfortunately this is not the case and history tells
DeleteI actually remember there was a book about a black woman who had some type of cancer and I don't remember the details but basically they took a sample from her and it was used for experiments and replicated and like she had no idea about it and they gave no credit to her which i thought was really messed up
DeleteSomething I learned from "Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true" by Nikole Jones is they would Lynch black men for entering a room of white women or bumping into a white female.
ReplyDeleteThis makes me annoyed because of how something that shouldn't be a problem could lead to such a severe consequence.
DeleteIt is crazy that that people were murdered for such a small thing as bumping into a woman.
DeleteThat's so scary to know that this actually happens.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading, “Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true,” by Nikole Hannah-Jones, I learned that Abraham Lincoln’s plan was to ship the once freed black people to another country, as in his mind, Lincoln thought it was their fault for their, white people, suffering and the war.
ReplyDeleteI read the same one and I agree, Lincolns view on them was wrong even if it got them free it wasn't for the right reason.
DeleteI was not aware of the extent of the ignorance of people in the medical field. It is so scary and angering to see that 222 white medical students still believed in the myth about physiological differences between black people and white people. It goes to show that literally every aspect of society, especially this extremely important and risky part, is negatively affected by racist ideas and upholds an unequal America .
ReplyDeleteThis is sad, there shouldn't be any myths about this sort of stuff when we all function the same.
DeleteThis is very scary as it truly shows how deeply rooted racism is in America. Medical students should not be believing in these myths as they are the future of our health.
DeleteThe ignorance surrounding black people only adds to the issue of systemic racism and oppression in America.
DeleteI agree, there is a frightening factor to finding out that there are people who still believe that, and that medical students would see that not as superstition, but fact.
DeleteThis is scary; the ignorance present in even the most educated and vital of fields
DeleteThe racial disparity in the criminal justice system and its disproportionate effect of mass incarceration on people of color is so appalling.
ReplyDeleteBefore reading, I didn't know that Thomas Jefferson's executors scattered over 133 people just to pay off his debt. This showed me how people thought of slaves as objects during the time of slavery.
ReplyDeleteThis defines how someone's skin color could signify where they place not even on a social class scale but how they weren't even considered human.
DeleteYeah it just shows how they were seen as expendable, a mindset some people still have today towards all kinds of minorities.
DeleteKnowing that African Americans can get long jail time or even death for offenses that people of other skin colors would get off with barely anything for scares me.
ReplyDeleteI'd known that a lot to most of the wealth in this nation was with the top of the economic hierarchy, but I hadn't known that a full 40% of the wealth was with the top 1%. That was striking.
ReplyDeleteBefore reading "Is Slavery’s Legacy in the Power Dynamics of Sports?" I did not know that there are severe racial tensions in the N.B.A.
ReplyDeleteFrom "The Wealth Gap," by Trymaine Lee I learned that after Lincoln was assassinated, Andrew Johnson had returned the land of white plantation owners which 40,000 black families had settled on.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading "Slavery gave America a fear of black people and a taste for violent punishment. Both still define our criminal-justice system." I understood how unjust our criminal-justice system really is. The prison system is so bad in current America that, "We represent 4 percent of the planet’s population but 22 percent of its imprisoned."
ReplyDeletei agree—the American prison system greatly contributes to the oppression of black people in society
DeleteI agree as well, so many laws passed throughout our nations history were simply passed to oppress and hinder black people from moving forward and succeeding.
DeleteSomething really interesting I learned is that there was an African queen named Ana Njinga. She was forced to flee her kingdom of Ndongo due to repeated Portueguese attack, but she conquered the nearby kingdom of Matamba. The main reason I found this so interesting is that I love learning about strong and influential women throughout history but somehow I had never heard of her before.
ReplyDeleteI think that was a really cool part to learn about as well, and it would take a really amazing person to conquer a kingdom even after losing their own.
DeleteI agree, the fact that barely any of us have heard of her before but know several European kings and queens goes to show how underrepresented African history is in U.S schools.
DeleteThis article helped me understand the effect of slavery on American history. America has been pitted against the very group of people that had created it.
ReplyDeleteI found it both interesting and also appalling that the first slaves brought to North America were taken from their homes forcibly, then taken a SECOND time by pirates, who then sold them to North Americans.
ReplyDeleteA key point which stuck out to me after reading "Our Democracy's Founding Ideas were False when they were Written", is the story of the authors father. He was forced to join the army to escape the grip of the predator that is poverty, but was mistreated and eventually released, going on to live a life of working service jobs. This line is so depressing because it reminds you of how rigged the system is against black people, no matter where, there is always a barrier needing to be broken down.
ReplyDeleteI had never realized how much slavery played into modern day capitalism. Of course the major parts of it like big corporations stemming from it makes sense, but after reading the article I realized it affected everything even in the smallest ways. Because people got so used to free labor, companies do everything in their power to come as close to that as possible. Even highly monitoring and evaluating workers stems from the way enslavers ranked and worked their slaves.
ReplyDelete