The walls are closing in on Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 Project mastermind Nikole Hannah-Jones.
If you’ve been following along, even after getting called out over and over again for blatantly ahistorical “facts” in her opus, Hannah-Jones has stood by her work, insisting that it’s completely legitimate. Recently, she got caught lying about the nature of the 1619 Project, asserting that she never meant for it to suggest that 1619 was the true founding of America, despite the fact that she — and the New York Times — had in fact said that on multiple occasions.
Last week, Atlantic staff writer Conor Friedersdorf called out Hannah-Jones for her chronic gaslighting:
This claim is staggering. Because I wrote an essay arguing that The 1619 Project was great in parts, but was wrong to argue that 1619 was our "true founding," I take exception to it. My essay is here: https://t.co/fh6JjqnGon Was I duped by "the right" or duping others? A thread: https://t.co/DhsON1NJ77
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 18, 2020
Nikole Hannah Jones repeats this claim on CNN, where the interviewer credulously accepts her framing that the right is misrepresenting the project https://t.co/drU0CTZELS
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 18, 2020
Here she is calling Ben Shapiro a liar and saying that the wrongheadedness of his claim is easily verified. Am I going crazy? I thought. So I went back to check myself to make sure I didn't error in my essay. What I found is quite damning. pic.twitter.com/43FatPnJFc
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 18, 2020
There is, first, the original display copy: "The 1619 project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American Slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding”
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 18, 2020
Numerous mainstream and left of center publications, as well as right of center publications, used that characterization *because that is what the NYT Magazine published.* Here is The Nation, not thinking that was factually wrong: pic.twitter.com/hJNK67FfZO
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 18, 2020
Recommended
Here is The Daily Kos, no one's idea of "the right" pic.twitter.com/BJhri5UHgs
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 18, 2020
At first I thought, NHJ should just say that the display copy wasn't quite right, and she intended to argue something different. As a journalist I can sympathize with copy written by editors that I wish was just slightly different. It happens! But.
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 18, 2020
How do you call other people liars who repeat an easily falsifiable claim when you have characterized the matter this way? pic.twitter.com/tXdbsGqeA2
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 18, 2020
Or when you give an interview to Niemen Lab and say: pic.twitter.com/j4E14w9nvT
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 18, 2020
People like me, who argued in good faith with the ideas that the New York Times Magazine and Nikole Hannah Jones put forth, do not deserve to be tarred as dupes or liars or sloppy for accurately characterizing their original presentation, now that they are walking it back.
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 18, 2020
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 18, 2020
For providing concrete evidence that Nikole Hannah-Jones has been on a gaslighting tear, Friedersdorf was blocked.
Which was a big mistake on Hannah-Jones’ part, as you’ll soon see:
Annoyingly, Nikole Hannah-Jones blocked me on Twitter today before posting more mischaracterizations of our recent disagreements about 1619 vs 1776. I'd hoped and intended to leave things at my last thread. Now I'll post videos corroborating my position.
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
Lest there be any confusion, I want to be clear that I do not favor banning the project from schools or the president's attacks on NHJ.
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
Indeed, this week a hs teacher sent me a link to a video presentation by a student who read The 1619 Project and my essay about it. My discourse and debate-loving self found it so heartening.
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
She studied the history on her own and by being taught the debate. And she reached her own nuanced conclusion about whether Americans ought to think of their true founding as 1619 or 1776.
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
Unlike Trump, I believe The 1619 Project has a place in schools so long as the strongest criticism of it is taught, too–that teaching such public controversies is a good thing if done well. Some students learn *best* from engaging in debates about a subject.
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
What's more, I have confidence in my side of that debate: that considering 1776 as America's true founding is better and more inclusive (full argument here https://t.co/fh6JjqFhfV). Teaching the debate highlights how unifying the civic creed expressed in 1776 can be today.
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
That debate has become distorted. Everyone always agreed 1776 is the literal political founding. For many months, everyone acknowledged the Project made the provocative claim that Americans ought to consider their country's "true" or symbolic founding to be 1619 instead
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
Jones repeatedly cited that metaphorical claim about the most "true" founding year *as a specific reason* she knew that the Project would elicit disagreement and provoke criticism and debate.
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
Now she treats people like me, who believe 1776 is not merely the literal founding and birth date, but better considered the symbolic founding as well, as if we fabricated contrary claims.
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
As noted, I'd planned to let the issue rest with a thread I posted earlier this week https://t.co/lKgjdZbnDh But NHJ deleted a Tweet of hers I quoted in that thread. Today, she blocked me and Tweeted additional wrongheaded characterizations.
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
She writes, "I must acknowledge being imprecise in my casual language on Twitter, using true as in *literal and actual* and true as in *symbolic* when discussing the project, but the project nor I never argued 1619 as our literal founding."
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
Accurate. But the debate is about the best symbolic founding! And everything I have argued is consistent not just with stray Tweets, but with multiple videotaped statements she has made in public appearances, & that the editor of the NYT Magazine, Jake Silverstein, made as well
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
September 15, 2020 (yes, that recently!) https://t.co/eHzfOAcx6o pic.twitter.com/8Nn96ZbCF6
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
July 17, 2020https://t.co/vlHHwnXNCH
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
July 6, 2020: https://t.co/6bkdULGJkr
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
February 13, 2020https://t.co/lpeZMNzs2b pic.twitter.com/K58ygV3SrU
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
December 4, 2019: https://t.co/ik6iWwCQ50
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
This last one is October 8, 2019 at an event where Jake Silverstein, the editor of the NYT magazine, is on stage with NHJ. Two clips are relevant. Here's the first: https://t.co/nSxpJjpHXf
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
"a powerful simplification of the project"! pic.twitter.com/7qCOdK0DN8
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
Later in the same conversation https://t.co/PhONnHgZIg pic.twitter.com/pBFQA2F2Le
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
Those are the claims I & others NHJ has criticized have always been debating. What do I want? For the symbolic debate about whether 1776 or 1619 is the better symbolic founding date to be had on the merits rather than short-circuited by the canard we're arguing with a straw man
— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 24, 2020
After this, we’d actually love to see a real debate between Friedersdorf and Hannah-Jones. Hannah-Jones needs to not only be confronted with the inconvenient truth; she needs to have her nose rubbed in it.
she’s a liar ??♂️ https://t.co/2ZZicGW1NG
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) September 25, 2020
A liar and a fraud. The silver lining is that it’s going to catch up with her at some point.
Oof. She should stop digging. https://t.co/NWwIgUhsNN
— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) September 25, 2020
No, let her keep going until she hits rock-bottom. That’s where she belongs.
If it's any consolation, I'm just muted, and she's still squirming around and blaming everyone else as always.
I don't see this behavior changing. Being blocked is probably for the best.
— Paul Heckman (@Paul_J_Heckman) September 24, 2020
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