Nikole Hannah-Jones, the creator of the New York Times‘ now-debunked “1619 Project,” said that paying reparations for slavery would amount to admitting that “the entire existence of the United States” is a crime.
Speaking with The Meteor about reparations and American history, Hannah-Jones did not hold back and said many Americans still flat-out refuse to face the reality of slavery. To prove her point, she pointed to the recent culture wars, citing backlash over Juneteenth, the 1619 Project, critical race theory, and restrictions on how history is taught in schools.
“Paying reparations is an admission of the crime. But it’s not an admission of the crime of a handful of bad apples or a few years of bad policy. It is the crime of the entire existence of the United States,” Hannah-Jones said.
Hannah-Jones argued that the nation’s history of slavery is so deeply embedded in the United States that it cannot simply be erased, saying that doing so would require removing “all the monuments on the Mall in Washington.”
“And so you can have reconciliation when you don’t have to look every day at the people that you visited these crimes upon. My God. But we’re right here in the country that did this to our ancestors,” Hannah-Jones added. “Slavery predates the founding of our country by 150 years. You could never knock down all the statues to enslavers, or you have to remove all the monuments on the Mall in Washington.”