1619 project

@pulitzerprizes/Twitter

Conservatives are outraged that the NYT’s project on slavery won a Pulitzer

They're saying it's a 'rewriting of American history.'

 

Brooke Sjoberg

IRL

Posted on May 4, 2020

After the New York Times‘ “1619 Project” won a Pulitzer, conservative pundits flocked to Twitter to express their displeasure with the award.

The project is intended to reframe the history of slavery in the U.S., putting the human cost of the trans-Atlantic slave trade at the forefront. This reframing, while intended to provide a human face to the history of slavery, has prompted conservatives to call it a haphazard “rewriting.”

“The goal is to mainstream the rewriting of American history and philosophy as a garbage heap of evil—not as a corrective to whitewashed traditional history, but as a complete replacement of it,” right-wing political commentator Ben Shapiro wrote in a tweet.

Claims of “errors” in the “1619 Project” appear to be the basis for much of the outrage. Others think that the project is left-leaning.

“You know, I know, and everyone else knows: nothing full of as many shoddy errors and untruths, and subject to such withering scholarly rebuttal, as the 1619 Project would be awarded such an accolade if its politics were of the right rather than of the left,” Twitter user @baseballcrank wrote.

Disdain for the press is also a source of displeasure with the award’s recipient.

“Journalism awards are little more than a circle jerk of impotent little bitches lifting each other up to keep the appearance of relevancy when they have no relevance,” Twitter user @thealexvanness wrote.

READ MORE:

Share this article
*First Published: May 4, 2020, 10:12 pm CDT