'New York Times' Staffer Charges Criticism of NYT Reporting on Slave-Related History Just Done by 'Old, White Male Historians'

The blame everything on all whites is in full-swing at The New York Times. I mean blame everything. But the blame is getting serious blow-back from those who are familiar with the historical record.

The Times "1619 Project," in particular, has been skewered by major league historians.

Elliot Kaufman explains in the Wall Street Journal:

The “1619 Project” was launched in August with a 100-page spread in the Times’s Sunday magazine. It intends to “reframe the country’s history” by crossing out 1776 as America’s founding date and substituting 1619, the year 20 or so African slaves were brought to Jamestown, Va. The project has been celebrated up and down the liberal establishment, praised by Sen. Kamala Harris and Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

This is what historians had to say about the project:

‘So wrong in so many ways” is how Gordon Wood, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of the American Revolution, characterized the New York Times’s “1619 Project.” James McPherson, dean of Civil War historians and another Pulitzer winner, said the Times presented an “unbalanced, one-sided account” that “left most of the history out.” 

This is how the project's creator, who is a domestic correspondent for The New York Times Magazine focusing on racial injustice, has reacted to the criticism:

The project’s creator, Nikole Hannah-Jones, is proud that it “decenters whiteness” and disdains its critics as “old, white male historians.” She tweeted of Mr. McPherson: “Who considers him preeminent? I don’t.” Her own qualifications are an undergraduate degree in history and African-American studies and a master’s in journalism.

Then there is this whopper. She told the Chicago Tribune:

I knew that I wanted to do a story on why we are the only industrialized nation without universal health care, and I wanted that story to show that we have the stingiest social safety net because of anti-black racism that developed out of slavery.  

Note: I have previously published interviews of Wood and McPherson on The Times project:

Civil War Scholar Rips Apart New York Times Reporting on Slavery

and

Historian Rips Apart New York Times Reporting on Slavery

 -RW