1619 and All That

The New York Times is right: the United States was born in slavery in 1619. At least, its America was. Of course, the genteel America of mannered New York society that has formed the core readership of the New York Times since its inception never owned slaves themselves. They merely lived off the proceeds of slavery while disparaging the Deplorables who did the dirty work of cruelty and oppression on the cotton plantations of the deep South. The New Yorkers were the bankers, the brokers, the jobbers, the lawyers, the accountants, the insurers—in short, the money-men of the slave economy. They opposed slavery while appropriating its profits.

Salvatore Babones appears in every Quadrant.
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The 1619 Project, placing “the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of [America’s] national narrative”, is the signature initiative of today’s New York Times. Launched with the August 18, 2019, issue of the New York…