NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Racial Essentialism Corrupts Medicine Minnesota has joined New York in using race to determine access to life-saving Covid treatments. Rav Arora

Posted By on January 9th, 2022

https://www.city-journal.org/racial-essentialism-corrupts-medicine

The progressive Left is openly attempting to codify racial categories into education, culture, law—and now medicine. New York State has authorized health-care providers to include race in a set of risk factors to determine who qualifies for the limited quantity of life-saving Covid-19 treatments. New York City’s official guidance to providers also reads: “Longstanding systemic health and social inequities may contribute to an increased risk of getting sick and dying from COVID-19.” As a result, health-care providers in the city will now “consider race and ethnicity when assessing individual risk,” prioritizing nonwhite patients over their white counterparts.

Skin color is far too broad a category to offer any meaningful insight at the individual level. Using race as a proxy to assess an individual’s risk would make sense only if there were evidence that it genetically puts one at higher risk of severe Covid. No such evidence exists. The virus does not appear to selectively target those of African descent, for example. African countries generally have far lower Covid death rates than Western ones.

Of course, the New York Health Department is not claiming otherwise. Under the influence of woke ideology, it is using oversimplified racial categories to correct for alleged systemic inequities that fall along racial lines. On progressive thinking, this compromising of medical practice allegedly achieves a greater social good. Racial prioritization is not perfect, say progressives, but it is justified on a group level since whites have better outcomes than “people of color” in the aggregate.

But even this rationale doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. Not all nonwhite groups suffer more than whites on average from Covid. According to CDC data last updated on November 22, Asian-Americans have a 20 percent lower rate of Covid hospitalizations and a 10 percent lower rate of Covid deaths. There is no justification for prioritizing Asians over whites for Covid therapeutics.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

“Crimes in the Name of Religion”: The Persecution of Christians, November 2021 by Raymond Ibrahim

Posted By on January 9th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18097/persecution-of-christians-november

“The servants of Allah entered my house in order to remove the clothes which they were wearing, because they were soaked in blood, and said that they had killed an infidel, hence Allah will reward them….” — Morning Star News; November 14, 2021; Uganda.

“The United Nations has estimated that since 2011, Boko Haram has killed more than 15,200 Nigerians and forced 1.7 million others from their homes as it has sought to turn Nigeria into an Islamic nation ruled by Sharia law.” — Catholicherald.co.uk, November 5, 2021; Nigeria.

On November 17, the U.S. removed Nigeria from its list of Countries of Particular Concern, meaning nations that engage in, or tolerate violations of, religious freedom. Nigeria was the country with the most Christians killed (3,530) for their faith in 2020….. “If the U.S. CPC list means anything at all – an open question at this point – Nigeria belongs on it.” — Hammurabi Human Rights Organization, quoting Christian Solidarity, Nigeria.

“[I]n recent weeks there have been cases in which the terrorists have first been asking whether the owner [of cattle] is a Christian or a Muslim…. ‘If the owners were Christians the attackers didn’t consider it necessary to count their animals, because they said that they didn’t just want to take their animals, but also to kill the owners….'” — churchinneed.org, November 5, 2021; Nigeria.

“They also tried to force my wife and our four children to convert to Islam, but when they refused to convert, they shot my wife in the head while our four children were cut into pieces with a Somali sword… the rebel militants intend to establish an Islamist state ruled by sharia [Islamic law].” — Morning Star News, December 1, 2021, for November 20-25, 2021; Democratic Republic of Congo.

According to a separate, November 19 report, in just the first half of 2021, in Pakistan’s Punjab Province alone, 6,754 women were abducted. Out of those, 1,890 were raped, 3,721 were tortured and 752 children were raped. The same report notes that “over 1,000 girls belonging to Hindu and Christian communities are forcefully converted to Islam every year in Pakistan.”

“Mareeb is only 12 years old, and she cannot marry. The perpetrators commit these crimes in the name of religion.” — Pastor Zahid Augustine, asianews.it; Pakistan.

Ramy Kamel, a Christian activist arrested two years earlier for reporting on the persecution of the nation’s indigenous Christian minority, the Copts, remained under arrest—mostly in solitary confinement, and sometimes under torture—beyond the maximum amount of time permitted by law. “Furthermore, Ramy Kamel’s case is not unique. There are many other Egyptian activists, journalists, politicians, and regular citizens who are suffering under Egypt’s sham of a judicial system.” — copticsolidarity.org, November 29, 2021; Egypt.

Based on a new law that came into effect on November 1, converting out of Islam has become illegal in Malaysia’s Kelantan State. Apostates now face prison, fines, and/or caning. Other sharia-compliant mandates that also came into effect in November include laws against disrespecting Ramadan, misrepresenting Islam, getting tattoos or plastic surgery, engaging in sexual intercourse with corpses and non-humans, and witchcraft. — thestar.com.my, November 2, 2021; Malaysia.

The following are among the abuses Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of November 2021:

ISRAEL Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

Posted By on January 9th, 2022

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

 

Israel is open again to all foreign tourists, including so many from formerly hostile nations. Tourism is Israel’s best defense against the bias and libels that plague the democratic, diverse, inclusive and free wheeling Jewish State. Many of those tourists are citizens of nations that profit from the dazzling and outsize research and development of life enriching technology that brings succor, hope and light 24/7 to millions of people throughout the globe. To his enormous credit, Michael Ordman catalogs the foregoing as well as Israel’s outstanding social and entertainment institutions in his weekly newsletters.  rsk

 

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Etta’s cancer breakthrough. Professor Etta Livneh of Israel’s Ben Gurion University has found a peptide (uPEP2) in the body’s messenger RNA that inhibits cancer cell survival, tumor progression, metastasis and more. Amazingly, uPEP2 originates from a gene classified with the Greek letter Eta (Prof Livneh’s forename).
https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/pages/news/hetta_livne.aspx   https://www.pnas.org/content/118/40/e2018899118
 
Unraveling the genetics of ADHD. Israeli scientists at Ben-Gurion University and Soroka Medical Center have proved that a mutation in a single gene, CDH2, can cause ADHD. Molecular analysis of neurons in mutant mice demonstrated the precise effects of the mutation on the activity of synapses in the brain.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/mind-and-spirit/what-causes-adhd-new-israeli-study-may-have-found-out-687668   https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26426-1
 
First Israeli to receive new Alzheimer’s treatment. (TY WIN) Yirmiyahu Kozari, 57, recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, is the first Israeli to receive Aduhelm (Aducanumab) from Biogen, at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center. The treatment removes beta-amyloid from the brain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz39Zt5HZcw
 
First shipment of anti-Covid pill. Israel has received its first consignment of tens of thousands of Pfizer’s COVID-fighting Paxlovid pills – the first country outside the USA to take delivery. Israel has authorized use of the treatment, which is effective if taken within five days of the onset of coronavirus symptoms.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-first-shipment-of-pfizer-covid-pills-set-to-arrive/
 
Dormant insulin-producing cells. Israeli scientists have discovered that babies make insulin in their intestines before birth. The responsible cells are present after birth, but they no longer produce insulin. This means that adults may have a “backup” system that could be reactivated to treat diabetes.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-scientists-say-humans-may-have-backup-insulin-system-diabetics-could-use/  https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/while-waiting-food-surprising-fetal-gut-cells-make-insulin
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01586-1
 
Haifa’s digital health accelerator launched. Plans to promote tech innovation in Haifa (see here previously) have come to fruition with the launch of Startup City Haifa – Digital Health Accelerator. Led by JVP, Margalit Startup City and others, it will support startups working on advanced medical technology and cybersecurity.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3926027,00.html
 
Coexistence saves Myanmar girl. 8-year-old Hannah from Myanmar was brought to Israel for an urgent operation by Jewish, Muslim and Christian doctors from Israeli non-profit Save A Child’s Heart. The surgeons were led by Dr Hagi Dekel and included Dr Mervat El-Faraha from the PA and Dr Ziwa Modniso from Zambia.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/only-in-israel-jewish-christian-and-muslim-doctors-save-8-year-old-from-myanmar/
 
Brain surgery under local anesthetic. (TY WIN) Israel’s Rabin Medical Center recently completed the world’s first ever operation on a patient’s brain, using ketamine as a local anesthetic. They performed Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS), implanting an electrode to cure the tremors of a patient with Parkinson’s disease.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1TYsT0tJoo
 
The world’s smallest needles. Israel’s NanoPass (see here) is partnering Korea’s Micro2Nano to mass-produce the world’s smallest needles.  The tiny needle uses standard syringes, allowing intradermal (between the skin layers) injections, including for coronavirus. These are painless and elicit a better immune response.
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2022/01/03/nanopass-developed-the-worlds-painless-smallest-medical-needle/
 
Two in a million. An Israeli woman gave birth to healthy twins at the Tel Aviv Sourasky (Ichilov) hospital. The boy and girl only encountered each other after the birth, as the mother was born with a double uterus – a rare condition, known as Uterus didelphys. Less than 15 cases of similar births have ever been reported.
https://worldisraelnews.com/one-in-a-million-israeli-woman-with-two-wombs-gives-birth-to-healthy-twins/
 
 

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

World Order: Back to the Future by Amir Taheri

Posted By on January 9th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18110/world-order

The whispering in Moscow is that Putin will try to tempt Biden with a number of promises.

These include persuading the Islamic Republic in Iran to re-endorse the Obama “nuclear deal”, which President Donald Trump denounced as a sham. Tehran’s acceptance of a new version presented by the US would give Biden his first diplomatic victory.

In exchange Putin wants the removal of sanctions, a promise not to extend NATO to Ukraine, and to gradually accept the annexation of Crimea and South Ossetia, the virtual occupation of Abkhazia, and Russia’s military presence in Transcaucasia, as so many faits accomplis.

The problem is that Putin’s hope of reverting to the status quo ante, a balance of power that no longer exists, sounds more like a fantasy than a serious strategy. This is no longer a bipolar system in which a US-USSR accord could have an immediate impact on a crisis.

With so many players trying to deal with the problems of the 21st century with solutions shaped in 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, we are unlikely to witness the emergence of a new world order anytime soon, certainly not through this week’s diplomatic razzmatazz.

In the next few days we will witness a tsunami of diplomatic agitations spanning over Geneva and Brussels as American, Russian and European leaders try to create the impression that they know what is going on and what must be done about it.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Veteran Miami Herald Reporter Caught Coaching Democrats to Cheat An audio recording reveals reporter Mary Ellen Klas allegedly “seeking to pre-litigate the 2022 redistricting cycle.” By Rod Thomson

Posted By on January 9th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/08/veteran-miami-herald-reporter-caught-coaching-democrats-to-cheat/

Long-time Miami Herald reporter Mary Ellen Klas was just caught red-handed coaching Democrats on how to challenge Republican redistricting in Florida.

For conservatives and Republicans, the story is as old as time. But some amazing revelations reflecting the current state of journalism, including indisputable evidence of Klas’ partisanship, help illustrate our current predicament. Klas, who is no newbie, is the Miami Herald’s capitol bureau chief in Tallahassee, where she has covered Florida politics since the 1990s. One wonders how often she has freelanced as a political consultant over the years. In this instance, she was cavalier enough to get caught by a Republican Senate staffer who was sitting right there.

A public records request netted an audio recording by an aide to Senate President Wilton Simpson of Klas talking to state Senator Randolph Bracy, an Orlando Democrat currently running for Congress. The audio, Simpson wrote, showed Klas was “seeking to pre-litigate the 2022 redistricting cycle, pitting Senate counsel against expert witnesses frequently used by plaintiffs in litigation against the state, thereby creating a manipulated legislative record to be used in the courts.”

The story broke with Florida Power and Light—a favorite target for Klas over the years and the largest power company in the nation—taking the extreme measure of publicly going on the attack against Klas and the Herald. FPL on Wednesday launched a website called Truth Matters that details Klas’ duplicitous and partisan coverage against the power company. Giant companies rarely go to such lengths, particularly those as heavily regulated as a utility. But apparently FPL felt it had no choice, and the website makes clear why. 

The final straw for FPL was a December 20, 2021 “story” by Klas claiming FPL was using “dark money” and lobbyists to write legislation that would hamstring rooftop solar. In the increasingly dirty world of the partisan media, it’s important to note that this story was done in conjunction with Floodlight, an environmentalist group which describes itself this way on its own site: “Floodlight investigates the corporate interests holding back climate action. We partner and co-publish with local journalists and national outlets . . . .” 

So there is not even the pretense of this being honest journalism. FPL vehemently denies the veracity of the story and wrote an opinion piece refuting it. But the Miami Herald refused to run the opinion piece and instead heavily edited it down, removing all criticism of the Herald and of Klas, and then ran it as a watery letter to the editor. Even that was just in the lightly read print edition, and not online.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Trump in 2024? Maybe! What’s certain is not too many Americans will be willing to hand over the honor of choosing the next president to Liz Cheney and her smug, entitled, and repellent confrères. By Roger Kimball

Posted By on January 9th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/08/trump-in-2024-maybe/

Among Trump-friendly conservatives, there seem to be essentially two strands of sentiment about who should be the Republican candidate for president in 2024. One strand says, “Donald Trump, assuming he runs and his health is good.” 

The other strand exhibits various shades of dubiousness. Some profess admiration for what Trump accomplished in his first term, but lament his “divisiveness,” which they anatomize in various ways as a product of narcissism, impulsiveness, or simple bad character. 

A few in this group blame the divisiveness not on Trump, but the people, inside his administration and out, who spent the entirety of Trump’s first term trying to undermine his presidency. A sizable segment of this dubious group would, truth be told, like to see the back of Donald Trump forever. 

Other segments of this group acknowledge that they would support Trump should he run and win the nomination, but confess, sotto voce, that they would prefer another “Trumpist” candidate. “Trumpism without Trump” is the slogan of many in this group, and it is in these circles that one repeatedly hears the names of Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, and Mike Pompeo, secretary of state in the second part of the Trump Administration.

Is there such a thing as “Trumpism without Trump”? I do not know. I understand those who argue that asking for Trumpism without Trump is a bit like asking for sunshine without the sun. It was often said, sometimes thankfully, sometimes as a matter of fact, that Trump was sui generis. If that is the case, then it might well be that the message and the messenger are so closely bound up with each other that the effort to disentangle them is doomed to fail. 

I understand the concern about Trump’s vaunted “divisiveness.” But it is well to acknowledge this irony. The tsunami of hatred and vitriol that washed over Donald Trump since before he assumed office until the present moment was nothing if not “divisive.” It infected the Twittersphere as brazenly as any of Trump’s “mean tweets” about Jim Acosta, the “fake news,” or sundry other “losers.” Why was that not castigated as “divisive,” evidence of bad character, against the norms or civilized political behavior? 

We now know that the whole Russia collusion delusion was invented lock-stock-and-barrel in the fetid skunkworks of the Clinton campaign. We know, too, that it was seized upon and pumped up by an irresponsible media and the rancid outposts of the administrative state and its so-called intelligence agencies. Trump was cooked before he set foot in the Oval Office. 

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel should declare 3 No’s By Ted Belman

Posted By on January 9th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/01/israel_should_declare_3_nos.html

In June 1967, Israel defeated five Arab armies in what became known as the Six Day War.  That war actually began when the Arabs invaded Israel immediately after her Declaration of Independence in 1948. The Arabs had hoped to destroy Israel and “drive the Jews into the sea”.

Three months later, the Arab League met in Khartoum and declared their 3 no’s; no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel, Also included was their insistence on the rights of the Palestinian people in their own country.

Thereafter they resorted to a different battlefield. They began a diplomatic war against Israel in which they used propaganda, extortion and terror to achieve their desired goal. Eventually, they managed to get most of the world to back their false narrative and to support their cause. In particular, the world now believes that the land in question is Occupied Palestinian Land and that international law supports them and holds that the settlements are illegal. These beliefs are supported by the US, the EU and the UN among others.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. For the truth, read International Law and the State of Israel and The Legality of Israel Sovereignty over Judea and Samaria According to International law.

It is long past time for Israel to declare its own 3 no’s; no to a nuclear Iran, no to the two-state solution, no to a bi-national state.

Why so? Because nothing is to be gained by negotiating.

MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

The Movie Chinese Communists Hate the Most? By Janet Levy

Posted By on January 9th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/01/the_movie_chinese_communists_hate_the_most.html

Some films are chilling because their fiction penetrates the agonizing core of reality.  The soon to be released Unsilenced, from award-winning Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Leon Lee, is a prime example.  It brings into sharp focus the oppression unleashed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on Falun Gong, a movement that emphasizes ethical conduct, qigong exercises, and meditation.  Fearing that Falun Gong would overtake it in popularity, the party has since 1999 been persecuting practitioners with arrest, torture, forced labor, menticide, and execution.  But an underground resistance has established itself, led by ordinary Falun Gong practitioners pushed by extraordinary circumstances into heroic acts.

The film’s lead character, Wang (played by Ting Wu), is based on Wang Weiyu, a survivor of China’s prisons and labor camps.  Wang and his friends pay a heavy price for fighting back.  But with the help of journalist Daniel Davis (played by Sam Trammell), they succeed in getting the word out on the plight of the Falun Gong.  Leading the crackdown against them is the sadistic Secretary Yang (played by Tzu-Chiang Wang).

Although Lee has been living in Canada since 2006, he is no stranger to Falun Gong or the CCP’s atrocities.  His documentary Human Harvest (2014) exposed China’s demonic removal and sale of organs from prisoners and inmates at labor camps.  Many of these are Falun Gong practitioners.  The documentary was broadcast in more than 25 countries and won the Peabody Award.

His Letter from Masanjia (2018) is an equally heartrending true story of a note found in a box of Halloween decorations by an Oregon resident.  The writer of the note is Sun Yi, a Falun Gong practitioner held at an infamous labor camp where the decorations were made.  Tracing Sun Yi after his release, collaborating with him via surreptitious Skype calls, and instructing him on how to use a camera, Lee put together the story of what happens in the CCP’s labor camps.  Sun Yi risked it all and later made his way to Indonesia, since China allows travel there without a passport.  He died in 2017 in Indonesia, most likely poisoned by Chinese agents.

Lee’s company, Flying Cloud Productions, remains committed to bringing “human rights violations to light in both documentary and narrative filmmaking.”  His films are among the most pirated in China, and he often receives emails from anonymous Chinese viewers stupefied by the content they hasten to share, evidence that Falun Gong may be reigniting hope in the People’s Republic.

The filming of Unsilenced, which took place in Taiwan, was replete with challenges.  During production, Taiwanese fighter jets scrambled to intercept Chinese planes intruding Taiwan’s airspace.  Many film professionals shied away from the production, cast and crew used aliases or remained anonymous, and a few actors quit after being threatened.  Lee was under constant pressure to recruit new talent and scout for alternative locations as filming permission would suddenly be withdrawn.  There were post-production hitches, too.  The owner of the Canadian production company wouldn’t risk listing his name in the credits.  Chinese students at Boston University were enlisted to protest a screening of the movie.  The film is as much a testament to his persistence as that of its protagonists.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Where Critical Race Theory Comes From By Daniel Buck

Posted By on January 9th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/01/where-critical-race-theory-comes-from/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=blog-post&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=more-in&utm_term=third

Critical pedagogy is the anti-Enlightenment wellspring from which CRT and other suspect activist ideologies flow.

T here is a fundamental change occurring in American education. You have likely heard from some that it is critical race theory, a fringe understanding of race in America, and from others that this is just a bogeyman. Neither assertion is correct. Rather, critical pedagogy — a politicized theory of education of which CRT is but one branch — has become the prevailing theory in American colleges of education, influencing curriculum, instruction, and policies across the country.

In place of academic skills and a worldview grounded in Enlightenment thinking, critical pedagogy teaches students political activism and a worldview of oppression. We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that the results of such a pedagogy leave students angry but with a paucity of literary, mathematical, and historical knowledge — the very things they need to live a fulfilled, thoughtful, successful life.

While showing every shortcoming of critical pedagogy is beyond the bounds of one essay, conservatives need to understand that this problem extends far beyond a few racialized, politicized lessons in coastal schools. One English curriculum, the Units of Study, which thousands of schools use, bases its work on critical theories, including CRT, but also postcolonial, feminist, and other radical ideologies. The curriculum cites Kimeberlé Crenshaw, a founding scholar of CRT, as well as other progressive activists such as Angela Davis, a Marxist scholar, and Judith Butler, a gender theorist.

Effective propaganda can be as subtle as it is insidious. When it’s obvious, loud, and galling, it’s easy to identify and reject. When it’s no more noticeable than a few mold spores, it can go on spreading until it has rotted entire institutions. We must absolutely confront the media-grabbing practices such as privilege walks, but picking such battles is akin to wiping away a few mold spots from rotting floorboards.

Traditional conceptions of education trace back to the Greeks and the Romantics, and comparing these ideas to critical pedagogy can isolate exactly what this philosophy is and, perhaps more importantly, isn’t. In his Republic, Plato portrays education as the process of extracting individuals from a cave of shadows into the light of reality. In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, the goal of education is the forming of virtuous habits. In both cases, education directs us beyond ourselves — discovering the world as it is and aligning our characters to an objective law from without.

These beliefs dominated European thought up until and through the Enlightenment; medieval universities built themselves upon the liberal arts, and Loyola attempted to systematize education for the youth in his Ratio Studiorum. Then, romantics such as Rousseau suggested that children follow their natural inclinations, that any ascription to outside influence is only corrupting, and John Dewey popularized this vision in the 20th century. Dewey went so far as to say that no content had inherent value in learning. Rather, what interests the child ought to lead the way. Education came to focus on the self.

Both Greek and Romantic theories manifest today in classical and project-based learning, respectively. We can debate their relative efficacy, but in both cases, the focus remains primarily on academics and moral formation. If traditional education asks us to step into our backyard to explore the world, and romantic education asks us to explore what’s inside, critical pedagogy would have us burn down the house and trench the garden.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The 1619 False-History Project By Wilfred Reilly

Posted By on January 9th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2022/01/24/the-1619-false-history-project/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=top-of-nav&utm_content=hero-module

What Nikole Hannah-Jones and the New York Times left out

Imagine a Native American history curriculum that focused entirely on four massacres of Natives by whites — beginning with the first encounter between Spanish conquistadores and the Inca emperor Atahualpa and culminating with Wounded Knee — and never touched on American Indian life before 1491, the many Native military victories, or the roughly 5.2 million Natives alive in the U.S. today. Would anyone see this as truly representative, or useful to students of any race, or worth teaching in the schools?

The 1619 Project, from the New York Times, must face the same questions. The project focuses on casting the era of historical slavery as an alternative founding for the United States, with its authors arguing that slavery was responsible for nearly everything that “truly made America exceptional.” Slavery, they write, was the primary reason for the Revolu­tionary War and was responsible for much or most of early American wealth, building “vast fortunes for white people North and South” and making “New York City the financial capital of the world.” Multiple 1619 essays, by Nikole Hannah-Jones and others, attribute to historical slavery and racism everything from the competitive capitalism of the U.S. to contemporary patterns of traffic. Slavery, in this narrative, is both the American original sin and the source of all our baraka — everything that makes this a unique and desirable country.

Honorable, non-racist centrists and conservatives face a serious question as we confront this material. How would a nuanced but thorough telling of American history, one that did not seek to minimize slavery, differ from 1619’s? Aren’t these journalists and radical academics — progressive friends often ask, in something approaching anguish — just telling hard truths? The short answer is a clear no.

The 1619 essays almost universally ignore or minimize four critical pieces of context that any unbiased school curriculum would include. These are the truly global prevalence of slavery and similar barbaric practices until quite recently; the detrimental economic impact of the Peculiar Institution on the South and on the American national economy; the nuanced but deeply patriotic perspectives on the United States expressed by the black and white leaders of the victorious anti-slavery movement that existed alongside slavery; and the reality that much of American history in fact had nothing to do with this particular issue. Not teaching about slavery or Jim Crow segregation in schools would be a deeply immoral act of omission, but it is almost equally bizarre to define these decades-past regional sins as the main through-line of American history.