As the New York Times “revisits” its controversial 1619 Project amid growing criticism, one story has largely avoided the media’s attention: What it’s founder — “journalist” Nikole Hannah-Jones — wants to replace America with.
For some background, the 1619 Project seeks to redefine American history as systemically racist, built purely on the reprehensible institution of slavery. This effort is designed to undermine public faith in the goodness of American society.
And Hannah-Jones has not been quiet about her far-Left goals. As she told PBS regarding 1619:
“We have a story about why we’re the only Western industrial country without universal health care, about why Americans consume so much sugar, about capitalism, about democracy. We’re really trying to change the way that Americans are thinking…”
Hannah-Jones then expressed her contempt for America, alleging that if not for slavery, we could’ve been the leftist paradise of Canada (of course, she ignores Canada’s past issues with institutionalized slavery).
Statements like Hannah-Jones’ on 1619 bring to mind the warning of Claremont Institute Chairman Thomas Klingenstein, who also recently delivered a viral speech on this topic:
“[1619’s] version of American history teaches us that we are unworthy — not just that we have sinned (which of course we have) but that we are irredeemably sinful.”
He summarized it thus: “In a sentence, the 1619 Project teaches that America — its values, customs, and institutions — is evil.”
Klingenstein correctly calls out far-Left radicals looking to overthrow the American way of life. Given 1619’s desire to cancel America, it’s valuable to read Hannah-Jones’ past writing to discern how she wants America to look.
In 2008, writing for The Oregonian, Hannah-Jones praised Fidel Castro’s Cuba — exalting what “the revolution” accomplished “through socialism.”
She delivered strange applause for Cuba’s “press freedom,” stating: “We journalists had a great deal of freedom to travel through Havana — no handlers, no monitors. We could see that Cuba is not the great evil we are led to believe.”
This despite Cuba consistently being ranked among the worst violators of press freedom (currently among such pro-journalist nations as China and North Korea).
In fact, a report on Cuba’s violations of press freedom pointed out Cuba’s abuse of journalists, also reading in part: “It is striking to note that there were some 2,000 newspaper professionals in Cuba in 1959 and that only three years later, 1,500 had fled.”
And despite well-documented human rights abuses in the Cuban healthcare system (including segregation of HIV positive citizens and possible forced abortions), Hannah-Jones celebrated it as a “world model.”
Meanwhile, the system has been called out for delivering “a deceiving performance” in critical treatment areas, per a 2018 Oxford Academic article Still, Hannah-Jones wrote:
“While there, I found a Cuba you may not know. A Cuba with a 99.8 percent literacy rate, the lowest HIV infection rate in the Western Hemisphere, free college and health care.”
It seems Hannah-Jones’ ultimate goal is to make America more like a socialist dictatorship. That’s not particularly shocking though, considering a major funder of the Ida B. Wells Society (an organization Hannah-Jones founded) is George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.
Soros himself has spent tens of millions of dollars on far-Left causes to radically change America.
He’s voiced his disdain for America, stating: “The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States” and calling capitalism itself “the main enemy of the open society.” The fact that Hannah-Jones has cozied up to his cash should concern Americans everywhere.
Given her anti-American past, it’s no wonder she told Essence that “I’ve always written about the worst side of America.” The 1619 Project is simply an extension of that work.
The fact is Americans are still overwhelmingly proud of this nation and the steady progress we’ve made in expanding individual rights. But Hannah-Jones’ 1619 Project aims to force the radical view that America is broken at its core.
If we are to preserve our great country, we must forcefully reject the anti-American agenda that 1619 promotes.
