Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I won’t waste much time here, bought this book and read it because I heard a lot of rebuttals, and wanted to read for myself. There are two salient problems that lead one to a disturbing conclusion about this book, it’s author, and those with whom she is associated. First, there are a number of historical inaccuracies and untruths that have been rebutted by numerous historians far more versed than I. According to Mary Graber, a number of historians objected vehemently to the original project in the NYT, much of which is still in this book, albeit watered down a bit. From my perspective, the arguments made in these pages fall apart repeatedly regardless of the veracity of the ‘facts’ presented. Evidence is provided, but then a conclusion is drawn that is either unsupported by that evidence, or even contradictory to it. I’d like to think I wouldn’t have passed grad school with writing like Hannah-Jones presents us. Finally, the controversy created with this volume seems designed to do something familiar to anyone who knows how communist and racist movements work. It only takes a few years to run out of witnesses, and then one can try to spin a version of what happened that suits their motives. In this case, the motive seems to be to cast doubt on America’s relationship to slavery. Most of those who know, would say that slavery certainly wasn’t invented here, but rather came here to die. Nikole Hannah-Jones seems motivated to divide us from one another by misdirecting responsibility for equality gaps in our country today. Why would someone want to do that? Read it, then read Mary Graber’s ‘Debunking the 1619 Project…’