Reprinted from November 25, December 2, 2021
Third of four parts
“The Times published the 1619 Project in August 2019, the lynching of George Floyd the following May amplified its reach during global racial reckoning.
“Ibram X. Kendi’s essay suggests that our ideal of racial progress ‘does more than obfuscate; it actually undermines the efforts to achieve and maintain equality.’ And he gives the stinging example of Chief Justice John Roberts’ unwinding voting rights protections in 2013 because in Roberts’ word, ‘thins have changed dramatically.’
‘“We are constantly battling this idea that things aren’t as bad as they used to be. It’s very seductive, but it allows us to accept a great deal of inequality in the present. The worst thing for me is for people to come through this book and say, ‘How terrible things were back then.’ Not having slavery, or not having Jim Crow, is not justice. We are clearly in a moment of backlash, and we are dangerously close to backtracking right now.
‘“Is the momentum from Black Lives Matter dissipating?
‘“Absolutely, dissipating. Because of the work I do, so much reading and writing and thinking about the past, I don’t tend to be a hopeful person; it is not personally useful to me. But I couldn’t help but think something did feel different because of last year. It is hard to see now how little has changed. It’s hard to see how few companies and institutions are speaking up now. The federal policing reform bill is dead. The polling of white support for the movement, whites who see structural inequality as a major limit to black Americans, those numbers have just plummeted.
“The backlash to the 1619 Project, the passing of bills to prevent teaching it, is a reaction to the movement last year. This backlash is arguing that this project just wants you to feel bad as a white person. That’s not the point, but that is politically useful to the right. Race is useful to divide the country.’”
Continued next week