_______ __ _______
| | |.---.-..----.| |--..-----..----. | | |.-----..--.--.--..-----.
| || _ || __|| < | -__|| _| | || -__|| | | ||__ --|
|___|___||___._||____||__|__||_____||__| |__|____||_____||________||_____|
on Gopher (inofficial)
URI Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI The New York Times is wrong about Haiti
krisboyz781 wrote 3 days ago:
this post is garbage. This author clearly has some bias in his
articles. Haiti and DR were one country at one point, the French debt
forced Haitians to tax Dominicans to help pay off the money. Dominicans
ended up fighting a war to separate which resulted in even more money
lost. Secondly, the West completely shunned Haiti which is why France
was even able to get away with the debt. US didn't want to trade with a
country that eliminated slavery and other western countries felt the
same. Lastly in regards to America's involvement. Who tf do you think
was bankrolling dictator, Duvalier? Oh, that's right, the US. Take a
look at Haiti early to mid 1900s to now. There is a stark contrast. The
country itself may have not been extremely wealthy, but the image of
being the poorest country in the Americas, complete collapse
infrastructure destroyed what should have been a thriving tourist
industry like other parts of the Caribbean. Instead the primary tourist
destination of Haiti is leased by an American corporation
rgovostes wrote 3 days ago:
While the referenced article does not have inline citations, the NYT
did publish a bibliography: [1] The data for their calculations are
also published on GitHub:
URI [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/20/world/americas/haiti-biblio...
URI [2]: https://github.com/nytimes/haiti-debt
YATA2 wrote 3 days ago:
One often overlooked fact is Haiti committed a real genocide against
whites, almost entirely wiping them off the island (thousands were
murdered).
Whites in the Americas and elsewhere were shocked and scared by the
news. Many US and European sailors refused to port in Haiti due to
this, which only hampered Haiti's economic growth.
krisboyz781 wrote 3 days ago:
Stop pushing fucking bullshit. US and European refused to port in
Haiti because it was bad optics, as Haiti was a country that
successfully freed itself from slavery while European and American
countries still employed those tactics. US had no problem dealing
with countries slaughtering natives, black people, etc. but somehow
you're trying to paint this bullshit genocide narrative. Spoken like
a person who truly has no fucking clue what they're talking about.
dang wrote 3 days ago:
Recent and related:
Invade Haiti, Wall Street Urged. The U.S. Obliged - [1] - May 2022 (183
comments)
URI [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31468196
unity1001 wrote 3 days ago:
NYT has always been an establishment trumpet.
URI [1]: https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-766d88313d7f89c78da3f3f1...
WaitWaitWha wrote 3 days ago:
>But the main controversy is centered on a strawman: should the New
York Times cite sources in their articles?
100% yes. In the cyber security field, this has become such a problem.
Several prominent cyber security news consolidating sites will put out
very impacting articles, but remove any and all references where the
information comes from. It is a nightmare of news reverse engineering.
I also have a vague suspicion that the articles are scraped from the
original sites, and re-written by automagically with ML tools. That
is, vast majority of these articles are auto-generated. Nothing wrong
with it, but no way to prevent such scraping, and no way to compete SEO
with them.
stjohnswarts wrote 3 days ago:
The NYT article was written by some very far left activist writers, and
that's why it has be taken with a grain of salt as another data point
but far from the whole story. The writing is reactionist and full of
venom, and that automatically turns me off.
gumby wrote 3 days ago:
I guess I think the footnote and "paper of record trying to morph into
an academic journal" argument is silly.
The 1619 articles in the NYT magazine (used in this blog post as a
prior example) were not footnoted. The subsequent book version is
heavily footnoted, plus includes info on contributors and an index.
This criticism feels like someone complaining about character
development in the film adaptation of Lord of the Rings: that's not the
nature of the medium.
Relatedly: the NYT is hardly overreaching (and if they were, I don't
consider it a justifiable criticism). Newspapers do analysis and
inherently do summarization and selection. While most such articles
are "small" (i.e. reporting on the recent shooting) they have had large
analysis, most notably the Pentagon papers that weren't merely
published but extensively analyzed. They do "long form" multi-article
analysis all the time, from the recent Tucker Carlson pieces to
analysis of the complex timeline of the Jan 6 incident.
The definition of newspaper changes all the time and frankly more long
form is a good thing.
(the comments here are orthogonal to any criticism I might have of the
NYT in general)
shkkmo wrote 3 days ago:
I think that if newspapers are trying to take academic tone and
content, it behooves them to also adopt some of the rigor that helps
that pursuit.
I too think that deeper analysis is value-able, but when newspapers
do that, they should up their game. If they are trying to present
themselves as more academic or scientific, they need more citations
and possibly a process akin to peer review (or even submitting a
paper with underlying materials themselves to a journal if they are
doing original work, as the NYT is claiming to have done here.)
gumby wrote 3 days ago:
I think it's OK if that material is in the book and doesn't make it
to the "paper" part. The audiences are different.
bigbacaloa wrote 3 days ago:
An academic writes an article saying that a newspaper article is too
academic.
mikkergp wrote 3 days ago:
I don't know if this is a new trend, but there's this idea of news that
news is "just the facts". Now I think most reasonable journalists would
disagree with this notion, and they would say that news is facts +
context. What is the significance of fact A and why does it matter.
But I think there is a trend towards defining not just what information
the reader should take away, but what conclusions they should reach.
And I think there's a growing desire among readers for media to perform
this function, but it's not because they need to know what conclusions
to reach, but because they want to know that other people are reaching
those conclusions.
yunohn wrote 3 days ago:
> The indemnity was immoral, and France should be ashamed of it.
Ah of course, most colonisers wish that being ashamed is punishment
enough. Sadly, the victims donât even get that since France wonât
even talk about it.
avgcorrection wrote 3 days ago:
Economists and downplaying the economic effects of imperialism and
slavery. Could you name a more amicable duo?
They donât even say that the NYT is wrong (âThis is correct,
butâ).
DaveExeter wrote 3 days ago:
To say that the New York Times is "wrong" is a bit misleading. The NYT
article was written in order to promote reparations. It was never meant
to be accurate.
Many journalists and even some historians claim that American
economic prosperity would have been unattainable without slavery. If
you truly believe that, and you look at the billions of lives that have
been lifted out of poverty thanks to this prosperity, then a callous
calculus could conclude that the abuses of slavery were a cost we had
to pay. But economists do not believe this claim. In fact, economists
believe at best slavery did not provide any growth benefits over free
labor and at worst it impeded America's economic development.
If slavery was not responsible for American economic prosperity, one of
the left's main arguments for reparations falls.
stjohnswarts wrote 3 days ago:
I always find it simple minded to say something like "slavery is
responsible for America's wealth" when America has a half dozen
other major things going for it. That's what turns would be
sympathizers off is the hyperbola and that they are coming for your
wallet "you goddamn POS colonizer". Yeah sorry that doesn't work
except in the that 1-5% of extremists. I see the need for social
programs for those areas which are poor and have been hidden from
wealthier parts of America whether white, black, or brown. We don't
need to be communist to fix what ails us, just be compassionate,
there is far more than enough prosperity to spread it around starting
domestically at first.
mynameishere wrote 3 days ago:
I've never heard any arguments for reparations that even approach the
plausible. The real reason is obviously the grift. As for slavery:
Its economic advantage is obvious when you compare the United States,
especially the Southern United States, with Canada (proportionately
of course). There is no economic advantage. In fact there is an
economic detriment.
(For arguments that suggest some disadvantage is thrust upon the
descendants of the slaves one need only compare the economic status
of American blacks with African blacks.)
potatoz2 wrote 3 days ago:
This is a particularly weak set of arguments: Canada and the
Southern US have many _other_ core differences that could explain
their different outcome, and so do African Americans and Africans
(neither of which are homogeneous by the way, and especially not
the latter).
On top of that, it doesn't matter for reparations-purposes whether
slavery was, overall, efficient. What matters is whether an
institution harmed someone and therefore owes them compensation.
pessimizer wrote 3 days ago:
African blacks weren't slaves. Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but
are you making the case that African blacks have been able to
overcome the slavery of American blacks, therefore enslavement
isn't harmful?
dbrueck wrote 3 days ago:
I'm guessing the post is differentiating modern black people in
the U.S. vs Africa? I don't really know.
But I'm not sure I understand your comment of "African blacks
weren't slaves" - plenty of African blacks were slaves. African
slavery was a thing long before Europeans and Americans became
customers and continued long after (IIRC, slavery wasn't outlawed
in Ethopia til the 1930s). Heck, even today there's something
like 30 million slaves worldwide, with many of them in Africa
(though I think the majority of current slaves are in Asia).
pr0zac wrote 3 days ago:
Not expressing an opinion on the topic in either direction but I
don't really see a reason the argument for reparations would require
slavery to be a more economically productive mode of labor vs it
simply factually being the mode of labor used at the time.
The argument for reparations is they are owed because the value of
the slaves' economic productivity was stolen from them (and thus also
their descendants), its not at all dependent on slavery producing a
higher economic output compared to a hypothetical situation in which
slaves received fair compensation.
Sorta similar to how wage theft is illegal because its stealing
earned economic value not because doing so increases productivity.
wahern wrote 3 days ago:
True, you don't need that argument to make the case for
reparations. But the left still relies heavily on it nonetheless.
It's used to justify monetary reparations (as opposed to other
kinds) with higher dollar figures. But more importantly, it
complements the premise of black Americans as merely an oppressed,
victimized, outsider class; ironically, a premise that modern
leftist identity politics happens to strongly promote.
Identity politics is built around the notion of victimhood and
standing outside the dominate (i.e. "white", male) social and
economic system, and tuned to bolster the sympathy and guilt
factor, which notions of agency and independent contribution tend
to diminish. Given that narrative, it's unsurprising that when
making the case for positive contributions to the shared, national
identity, they're going to heavily emphasize contributions via the
institution of slavery.
But to be fair, slavery and peanut butter is basically how most
Americans understand the black contribution to the American story.
The dominate narrative on the left, after failing[1] with peanut
butter in the 20th century, simply reverted back to slavery. Of
course, the black contribution and place in the American story is
infinitely more complex, substantial, and pervasive than that. We
just haven't figured out to how to get out of that rut.
(And one of the primary arguments against reparations is that not
only would reparations not address that, it would further it. I
think even many proponents, such as Ta-Nehisi Coates, would agree
with the first part of that claim. Coates admits that reparations
wouldn't actually fix anything; rather, he argues that achieving
reparations would be the proof that we materially reconciled
ourselves with and â¢changed* the narrative. IOW, from that
perspective the solution is not in the reparations, per se, but the
process of coming to an agreement on reparations. The reparations
themselves are just the stakes, so people aren't just making idle,
abstract commitments--talk [alone] is cheap.)
[1] Or believing that they failed. The project of creating a shared
sense of inclusive history is ongoing. I cringe at proclamations of
first black this or first female that. But it's the proclamations
that are cringe worthy and, I think, counter-productive, not the
fact itself. (The proclamations are a double-edged sword--they draw
attention to particular instances of representation of a group, but
the proclamation also reinforces passivity and lower status of the
group.) Taking affirmative action to improve inclusion across
society is extremely important, though obviously it's in tension
with notions of equal treatment and so I don't necessarily agree
with all forms of formal institutionalization of affirmative
action. If you look at countries where an oppressed class (minority
or majority) has achieved formal, institutionalized
preferences--Malaysia, South Africa, Rwanda, etc--it clearly
doesn't achieve the goals and even tends to solidify hierarchy and
economic disparity.
Apropos Haiti, one theory for why Haiti has never properly
developed is because the society strongly internalized a victimhood
mentality from the very beginning. Long after slavery ended the
national identity is still centered around enslavement and
oppression, rather than on a positive sense of construction and
cooperation. That makes the society easy prey for demagogues and
avaricious elite--internal and external.
tomcat27 wrote 3 days ago:
It makes sense to write three versions on a topic.
1. A PPT Deck. A 2 mins elevator pitch, A 10 mins potty reading
2. A Blog post. Ok you got my attention, why should I care?
3. A Careful Argument. I see your point, explain me everything
People do this in ML research, and it's way better than other fields
tbh.
colinmhayes wrote 3 days ago:
The new york times goal is to make money. If the careful argument
costs more than it brings in they won't do it. I don't think many
people would read the careful argument version of this piece which I
suspect is why they went for the blog version instead.
tomcat27 wrote 3 days ago:
Low barrier of entry is actually a good way to increase readers. I
bet they are now not as influential as they were in 80s and 90s
robertlagrant wrote 3 days ago:
> In fact, economists believe at best slavery did not provide any
growth benefits over free labor and at worst it impeded America's
economic development.
I don't know if this is true or not, but like this article I imagine
the NYT is going to publish pro-reparations articles, and so wouldn't
want to indulge this sort of even-handed thinking.
potatoz2 wrote 3 days ago:
I donât think it would preclude supporting reparations. If I burn
down your home, I donât benefit from it but I still owe you
compensation. (Thereâs also the fact that, in the US, itâs
possible the country as a whole suffered from slavery but individual
people or states benefited.)
tytso wrote 3 days ago:
Indeed, the statement of slavery not providing any economic
benefits as a whole is a country-level statement. Whether or not
there exists certain large slaveholders, or business people in the
North who made their family fortune building ships for the slave
trade, or worse, trading slaves, who did benefit from slavery is
not really subject to debate.
The hard question from a reparations perspective is suppose that
business person left the bulk of their family fortune to a
particular church diocese. Let's further assume that donation was
made in the form of the trust fund, so it's very easy to identify
the source of a particular trust fund would not have existed but
for the fact that this business person was part of the slave trade.
What moral obligation, if any, does the church diocese have to
repairing the harms that this donor may have inflicted on a group
of people more than a century ago, given that in the meantime this
church diocese has been enjoying a continuing income stream that
originally had its roots in the slave trade?
One could argue, "none at all", and one could also point out that
there was an awful lot of good being done by the works enabled from
the income stream of that trust fund. Dismantling that trust fund
(if it can be legally done; there might be donor restrictions that
might make this difficult/impossible) would eliminate the good
being done via that trust fund. But one could argue that this is
a similar argument made by the British Museum when it was refusing
to return the Elgin Marbles, and that it is a bogus one. Or
someone could argue that no matter what the value of that trust
fund should be, it pales in comparison that the harm that has been
done, and so you shouldn't even try. Others might argue that at
least admitting the truth of how an organization has benefited by
past injustices is the important thing, and that reparations is not
so much about money, as it is about repair --- acknolwedging and
making at least some effort to repair the damage to the community
by past injusticies.
After all, if someone burns down your home, what gets lost is far
more than the monetary damages; it's also the emotion impact of
having your home being lost, and objects of sentimental value, such
as photographs, jewelry once owned by your mother, etc., which
can't be compensated using mere money. All of that is true. And
yet, having a true and sincere "I'm sorry" by someone who is
genuinely sorrowful and repentant, can mean an awful lot.
Bottom line is "reparations" is a deeply complex topic, and it is
not just about writing checks. In fact, that's arguably the least
important part of the whole process. It's unfortunate that this is
the part that most people who are against reparations focus upon.
potatoz2 wrote 3 days ago:
I donât disagree that reparations is more than monetary, but it
certainly includes monetary compensation and therefore itâs
worth discussing.
The dilemma you described (using stolen goods to do otherwise
good deeds) boils down to whether you want to take a utilitarian
or deontological moral view. Having said that, no one (in our
capitalist society, at least) would accept me stealing your car
to drive patients to the hospital as OK, even if my car otherwise
sits completely unused. And similarly, if I crashed your car
while doing my good deed, there would be no question that I owe
you a replacement.
I think the more interesting question about reparation is whether
there is truly a âcontinuityâ (of the institution, state, or
country on the one hand, and of a family unit on the other). If
there is, then obviously the institution owes everything needed
to make you whole. If there isnât, then they owe you the same
as any other citizen.
robertlagrant wrote 1 day ago:
> I think the more interesting question about reparation is
whether there is truly a âcontinuityâ (of the institution,
state, or country on the one hand, and of a family unit on the
other). If there is, then obviously the institution owes
everything needed to make you whole. If there isnât, then
they owe you the same as any other citizen.
Can you explain this? What is continuity in this sense, and why
is it obvious that they owe everything needed to make everyone
whole?
chernevik wrote 3 days ago:
Yes, but it removes one of the core arguments for reparations --
"this is _our_ wealth, which we created, and which we simply want
returned to us."
I don't think you can find anyone who would disagree that
individual people and states benefitted. But all those people are
dead.
pr0zac wrote 3 days ago:
I'm really confused why I keep seeing arguments suggesting that
that excerpt in any way matters to the argument of reparations.
I've never had a strong opinion on the topic in either direction
but the argument of, as you put it, "this is _our_ wealth, which
we created, and which we simply want returned to us." doesn't
require excess wealth to have been created by slavery, it simply
requires that some of the wealth didn't go to the people that did
the work to produce it resulting in those people (and their
descendants) not profiting from it.
Like I said in the other place I saw this, wage theft is illegal
because someone isn't getting paid for work they did, its not in
any way based on that theft providing economic growth compared to
paying folks.
chernevik wrote 3 days ago:
But the reparations argument generally makes exactly that
argument -- the US is wealthier than it would have been b/c of
slavery. If so, this justifies taxing present citizens for
reparations -- they are wealthier because of slavery, and
should give back a share of that increase in their wealth.
Of course slavery was a theft of wages. But the people who
benefitted are long gone.
headsupernova wrote 3 days ago:
Can you link to any example of that argument being used for
reparations?
Also generational wealth is like _the_ predictive factor in
future economic outcomes. This is basic stuff.
robertlagrant wrote 2 days ago:
Point is the only case for taking money from people now and
giving it to other people is based on the wealth people
have now. Everyone involved in slavery (or the slavery
reparations attempts to address) is long dead. The argument
is "you are wealthier because of slavery". Which may not be
true according to the above.
I don't know if that line of reasoning is correct; I'm just
laying it out for discussion.
robertlagrant wrote 3 days ago:
Fair point, yes. I suppose the idea I've heard that the US was
built entirely by slaves is the one I'm thinking of more.
DANK_YACHT wrote 3 days ago:
The two main points of contention are:
1) While "wall street" did want the U.S. to invade Haiti to increase
profits, there were other reasons for the U.S. to invade as well.
Specifically, there was a worry that Germany would invade (Germany was
80% of Haiti's trade). This was during WWI where there were fears about
Germany's Latin America business dealings. After the invasion, it
appears Citibank (aka "wall street") lost out due to increased
competition.
2) Haiti had a number of structural differences that would have
prevented it from developing even if France didn't force Haiti to pay
for its freedom. One example is that Haiti tore down their plantations
and distributed land among individual farmers. These farmers were not
economically productive and prevented Haiti from adopting new
technology as it became available. The other example is that Haiti had
extreme instability even before France demanded payment. Leaders were
frequently assassinated and the government even split in two for some
time.
The author of this post feels the NYT glossed over the facts in order
to paint a narrative.
joe_the_user wrote 3 days ago:
Haiti had a number of structural differences that would have
prevented it from developing even if France didn't force Haiti to pay
for its freedom.
So the robber who says: "If hadn't stolen your paycheck, you would
have drunken it all away" is perfectly in their rights.
908B64B197 wrote 3 days ago:
France actually sent Haiti a lot of humanitarian help and cancelled
some of the country's debts.
Now, looking at the series of instable and corrupt regimes the
country had since independence, the more apt analogy would be that
it was smart from the bank's (France) point of view to foreclose
the property before thieves broke in and stole the TV and copper
wire. If you're looking for the TV by the way, there's a man called
Duvalier who knows exactly where it is.
Even recently, Wyclef Jean's humanitarian foundation (the same
person who tried to ran for presidency in Haiti) was found to be
diverting an impressive amount of funds to... Himself!
The issue is cultural. But that's certainly not a position that
will be popular with the NYT's readership.
whack wrote 3 days ago:
From the article:
> Haiti has been the victim of injustice. The indemnity was
immoral, and France should be ashamed of it. The US Occupation of
Haiti abused many Haitians, and I, an American, am ashamed when I
see photos of Charlemagne Peralte nailed to a door.
> But these projects are trying assign greater moral weight by
claiming exaggerated economic consequences. I can condemn the
Haitian indemnity for the injustices they were. But I worry that
unnuanced articles like what the NYT has been publishing will
cheapen those past injustices by attracting critics who believe
that disproving some of the articles' claims then disproves all of
them
joe_the_user wrote 2 days ago:
I can condemn the Haitian indemnity for the injustices they were.
But I worry that unnuanced articles like what the NYT has been
publishing will cheapen those past injustices by attracting
critics who believe that disproving some of the articles' claims
then disproves all of them.
The thing about this is he's not challenging the bare facts -
that France was the force taking resources from the Haitian
people. That agreed. He's challenge the conceptual framework; "if
France hadn't done this, someone else would have". Whether one
agrees or disagrees with this change, it's not a factual question
and so his hand wringing about disproofs seem basically
disingenuous.
wutbrodo wrote 3 days ago:
Or, the point is addressed to adults, who are interested in
understanding history per se, and assessing the veracity of
specific claims (like, "Haiti's underdevelopment is attributable to
these reparation demands").
It's not addressed to the simpletons who can't escape childish
black-and-white thinking in which reality doesn't exist outside of
the ammunition it provides for taking sides.
Tldr: it's ludicrous to hear the claim "reparations weren't
responsible for Haiti's underdevelopment" and conclude "OH so you
think the reparations were good??"
joe_the_user wrote 3 days ago:
The GP I replied (summarizing the artice): "Haiti had a number of
structural differences that would have prevented it from
developing even if France didn't force Haiti to pay for its
freedom."
This is not saying, "reparations weren't responsible for Haiti's
underdevelopment". Money paid is economic opportunities lost.
France was benefiting from the payments and Haitians were
suffering.
The argument being made is that this is either insignificant or
OK because if France had not done this, Haiti would have been
underdeveloped some other way.
It's pretty exactly analogous to thief that steals from you on
Friday and when confronted on Monday says "I'm not responsible
for you being broke, you would have lost the money some other
way". That's sort reprehensible even if it's true. Let I repeat
even if it's true.
wutbrodo wrote 3 days ago:
> The argument being made is that this is either insignificant
or OK
This is my point. Nobody is saying it's "okay". Facts are
_upstream_ of the normative claims people use them to support,
and don't always lead to conclusions that you can predict from
kneejerk, nonsensical assumptions of the sort you're making.
A historian can object to the NYT (allegedly) explicitly making
an incorrect _factual_ claim; that's practically his damn job!
The only person rushing to project an agenda onto it so that
you can get high off of outrage is you. Before we can make
detailed normative decisions about reality, we need to
understand the facts that underlie them.
> That's sort reprehensible even if it's true. Let I repeat
even if it's true
Even the assumption that this exonerates the French doesn't
make any sense! It's trivial to frame this as "the French
further damaged an economy that was already at a disadvantage
relative to its peers"! You're throwing away the truth for a
"benefit" that doesn't even make any sense!
I apologize for the pointed language, but I can't think of
anything in modern discourse that I loath more than this
revolting focus on what factual claims _sound_ like instead of
what they actually mean and how they contribute to our picture
of the world. The world is _complicated_. Facts don't always
lead you to the conclusions that this childish kneejerk style
of analysis assumes they do. There are a lot of decent, serious
people trying to understand the world and make it better, and
it is _precisely_ this alternative-facts approach that is
poisoning our modern discourse.
cpleppert wrote 3 days ago:
I don't think anyone has ever asserted that stealing can be
justified if the casual outcome for the victim is insignificant
and it is certainly isn't a justification here. It is a valid
historical question of the impact of the indemnity. Pointing
out that haiti's economy was unable to develop should be
relevant and certainly not reprehensible. There are a lot of
cases of historical injustice including other instances that
involved Haiti in the first place. Justice will be harmed if we
can't fairly judge the outcome of these injustices.
defen wrote 3 days ago:
It doesn't change the morality of the theft, but it is relevant
when determining how the thief should make the victim whole. To
use your paycheck analogy - consider these two situations:
1. The thief steals from you on your way to the bank, where you
have a history of making on-time loan payments. The theft
causes you to default on your loan and lose your car which
leads to you losing your job.
2. The thief steals from you on your way to the tavern, where
you have a history of drinking your paycheck.
Wouldn't you agree that in scenario 1, the thief owes you more
compensation than just the money he stole?
Imagine if I said "If France hadn't forced Haiti to pay for its
freedom, Haiti would have become a world leader in
semiconductor manufacturing, like Taiwan". Do you have any
evidence against that claim? Can you see why the extent of the
damage is relevant for determining how France should make up
for it?
drekk wrote 3 days ago:
To use your analogy here, France should determine how much
they should pay back to Haiti for taking their wealth after
long hardship as a colony? I'm just trying to make sure I
don't build a strawman here.
France doesn't care. They're not going to pay. They still
have colonies for that matter. Their museums aren't going to
be losing plundered artifacts any time soon. But it's
interesting that the argument against Haiti being able to
ever rise out of its colonial mire was the fact they
nationalized the plantations where they had been enslaved and
doled them out to Haitians.
Maybe the fact the US sent marines to seize assets from the
Haitian treasury (to ensure France got those payments)
impacted their ability to adopt new technologies as they
became available. Who's to say?
"If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out
six inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way
out that's not progress. Progress is healing the wound that
the blow made. And they haven't even pulled the knife out
much less heal the wound. They won't even admit the knife is
there." â Malcolm X
ewzimm wrote 3 days ago:
I think the most important point is that addressing inequality in
this way feeds into the lie that exploitation is zero sum and those
who benefited from it must now sacrifice to balance the scales.
In truth, inequality makes everyone poorer, because we share the same
world, and we all suffer when opportunity is hoarded. The richest
often live the worst lives trying to maintain their advantages.
Consider Putin spending decades obsessing over television news.
Addressing inequality isnât about punishing those who benefitted
unfairly, itâs about making the world better for everyone.
âBut these projects are trying assign greater moral weight by
claiming exaggerated economic consequences. But these claims can
weaken the morality of the original crime. Take slavery as an
example. Many journalists and even some historians claim that
American economic prosperity would have been unattainable without
slavery. If you truly believe that, and you look at the billions of
lives that have been lifted out of poverty thanks to this prosperity,
then a callous calculus could conclude that the abuses of slavery
were a cost we had to pay. But economists do not believe this claim.
In fact, economists believe at best slavery did not provide any
growth benefits over free labor and at worst it impeded America's
economic development. To me, this is a much stronger moral claim
because not only was slavery terrible, it was unnecessary.â
NHQ wrote 3 days ago:
> The author of this post feels the NYT glossed over the facts in
order to paint a narrative.
They must be new on planet earth.
It is not even about right or wrong. The question is, what does the
NYT narrative serve? Is it anti-french? The last time the U.S. had
an official anti-French attitude was before the invasion of Iraq.
Perhaps they are trying to give the French Globalists something to
browbeat against the French Nationalists.
nemothekid wrote 3 days ago:
>The question is, what does the NYT narrative serve? Is it
anti-french?
It serves the same narrative as a long Reddit comment waxing on and
off about the America's imperialism in South America. While it's
technically true, I think it just makes the writer feel more
intellectual while being morally superior to some powerful status
quo. These ideas travel from serious intellectuals, to pop-sci
nerds, to reddit comments then ultimately to mainstream.
Not to say that they are wrong, I'm just saying I don't think
there's some nefarious conspiracy (not to say they don't exist),
but this could be just a case of a writer making a name from
himself.
908B64B197 wrote 3 days ago:
> The author of this post feels the NYT glossed over the facts in
order to paint a narrative.
It also omits the incredible amount of wealth stolen by the Duvalier
regime
akhmatova wrote 3 days ago:
Which happened 5-7 decades later.
And which was not visited upon Haiti from some higher plane; but
rather, was structurally enabled by the events of 1915.
trhway wrote 3 days ago:
wrt. land reform - century and a half later Zimbabwe did pretty much
the same with about the same result. The USSR famine of 1932 had
while not exactly the same yet similar reasons - destruction of the
successful private farmers and transfer of those lands into
collective farms.
TMWNN wrote 2 days ago:
>wrt. land reform - century and a half later Zimbabwe did pretty
much the same with about the same result
Recent history of Zimbabwe < [1] >
URI [1]: http://imgur.com/a/VdQdD
shakow wrote 3 days ago:
> The USSR famine of 1932 had while not exactly the same yet
similar reasons
Partly only. The 1932 famine was much more complicated, and a
conjunction of what you said, a weak economy a few years after WWI
and the civil war, Stalin pushing on exporting massive quantities
of grain to pay for industrial imports, bad weather, lack of
information due to the fear within the state apparatus of being the
shot messenger, and failure in resources allocation.
trhway wrote 3 days ago:
>Partly only.
of course. Though for precision sake:
>a weak economy a few years after WWI and the civil war
that wasn't really an issue as food production has been pretty
much restored during 192x "New Economical Policies"
>lack of information due to the fear within the state apparatus
of being the shot messenger, and failure in resources allocation.
in many senses that was exactly the consequences of the transfer
of control from successful private farmers ("kulaks") to
collective farms
>bad weather
one can argue that private farmers would have fared much better
through it than collective farms exactly due to management
issues you mentioned. As far as i remember agriculture in USSR
had always had a lot of production issues and officially blamed
"bad weather", and USSR had to import grain. Interesting that
after end of USSR, Russia and Ukraine has again (like before 1917
Revolution) become large exporters of grain - as if "bad weather"
magically disappeared :)
shakow wrote 3 days ago:
> that wasn't really an issue as food production has been
pretty much restored during 192x "New Economical Policies"
Fair point; I meant that many efforts were devoted to the
industrialization of the country, depriving the agricultural
sectors from those â especially regarding resources
allocation in brainpower and machinery.
> in many senses that was exactly the consequences of the
transfer of control from successful private farmers ("kulaks")
to collective farms
I disagree; it seems to me it was the consequences of Stalin's
purges profiling at the horizon, and noone â especially among
the low-rankers of the party hierarchy â wanting to find
themselves on the wrong side of a Nagant for announcing a
failure to fill the quotas.
> as if "bad weather" magically disappeared :)
Bad weather is a problem if (i), as you mentioned, the whole
incentives for production are screwed up, and (ii) the
agricultural infrastructure of the country is miles behind the
state of the art. Imperial Russia was still relying mostly on
human work for agricultural tasks in the 1910's, and 1930's
USSR was miles behind 1950's-1980's USSR w.r.t. agronomical
methods & knowledge, equipment, irrigation, mechanization, etc.
So if bad weather would only be an inconvenience more recent
USSR, it would become a compounding factor for a generalized
famine in 1932.
RC_ITR wrote 3 days ago:
I think the fallacy that the author misses in all this is that
problems compound (something I notice that academics often ignore
because their narrow focus.)
Sure, Haiti was not at the cutting edge of technology but the
staggering amount of debt they owed France certainly didn't help them
catch up
Sure, the US didn't want a German puppet in the Caribbean but it's
mostly because the US liked the profit margins of being the sole
puppet master
To make matters worse, he makes a case for a more nuanced portrait,
but then titles the thing The New York Times is Wrong About Haiti
In general, I'm surprised this article is getting so much traction
here when it combines two much maligned (by HN) rhetorical styles,
but I think it's because of some emerging culture war against the
NYT.
DANK_YACHT wrote 3 days ago:
You're falling into the same trap the author asserts the NYT has
fallen into. You're right, debt to the French didn't help Haiti's
situation, but that doesn't mean that the debt to France caused
Haiti's situation, which is essentially what the NYT article was
implying. I think this resonates not because of an emerging culture
war against the NYT, but because the NYT has chosen sides in an
existing culture war, namely whether or not the imperialist past of
Europe and the U.S. can be reconciled with the modern day world.
deanCommie wrote 3 days ago:
Is anything in history as simple as "Action A CAUSED Outcome B"?
What caused Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor? Was it wanton imperial
ambitions? Or was it the US oil blockade.
What caused US to bomb Hiroshima/Nagasaki? Was it a desire to
save the lives of hundreds of thousands of US soldiers? Or was it
a desire not to have to split the islands with the Soviets who
were lining up to invade, and intimidate them with the new weapon
the US developed?
There are always multiple angles to every historical narrative.
Noone is purely good or purely evil.
Understand that the NYT isn't writing this in a vacuum. None of
the discussions of colonialism are. Discussions of colonialism
are responding to DECADES of commonly accepted stereotypes that
"Shucks darn, Haiti/Africa are just fundamentally worse at
economics, peace and prosperity than the rest of the world. Must
be because black people are inherently stupider/more
violent/insert other racist justifications". It is only in the
last couple of decades that we've openly started to acknowledge
that maybe centuries of oppression had something to do with
creating the violent/unstable environments we scoff at at the
west, AND that the impact didn't end overnight when the colonial
powers left - such as in the case of Haiti's ongoing debt
repayments to France.
shakow wrote 3 days ago:
> Or was it a desire not to have to split the islands with the
Soviets who were lining up to invade
I don't think that anyone, the Soviets the first ones, ever
seriously envisioned a Soviet invasion of the US mainland; I'm
not even aware of serious Soviet plans and/or preparation for
it. Which is understandable given (i) their absence of fleet,
(ii) their inexistent experience in full-scale amphibious
invasions, (iii) the semi-failures that their smaller-scale
amphibious operations were along the war, from the Crimea to
the Kurils.
zuminator wrote 3 days ago:
GP is talking about the bombs forestalling a
possible Soviet invasion of Hokkaido.
URI [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_Soviet_inva...
shakow wrote 3 days ago:
and I meant: âconcerns were raised within the Soviet high
command that an invasion of Hokkaido would be impractical
and unlikely to succeedâ
Sure, there was a huge political part at play and I don't
deny it, but even abstracting the US, purely militarily
speaking, the Soviets would have been hard-pressed to
succesfully invade Japan mainland.
RC_ITR wrote 3 days ago:
I'm struggling to parse your definition of causality here.
If I have a pre-existing condition that wouldn't have killed me
this year, then I get COVID and die, what caused my death?
EDIT: And let's be clear here, the author blithely ignores the
problems that slavery causes and acts as though the debt and the
slavery are unique concepts.
DANK_YACHT wrote 3 days ago:
If a society is poorly structured for economic growth AND has
debts that hamper economic growth, how do you say that the
later caused the lack of economic growth but not the former? In
your COVID example, had you not got COVID, you'd still be
alive. In terms of Haiti, had they not had French debt, they
may still have been in a similar situation economically.
You were alive prior to having covid, so we can assume had you
not become infected, you'd still be alive. Haiti wasn't
economically prospering before the debt, so we can't assume
they would have prospered without the debt. That's not to say
it's impossible for Haiti to prosper without the debt, but you
can't just definitively state that Haiti would prosper as if it
were a fact. There isn't enough evidence to say.
RC_ITR wrote 3 days ago:
>If a society is poorly structured for economic growth AND
has debts that hamper economic growth, how do you say that
the later caused the lack of economic growth but not the
former? In your COVID example, had you not got COVID, you'd
still be alive. In terms of Haiti, had they not had French
debt, they may still have been in a similar situation
economically.
It's sort of wild that we live in a world where Singapore was
kicked out of Malaysia in 1965 for being too poor and
violent, yet you think that the organizational structure of
Haiti's farmland in the 19th Century is what doomed it.
I'll concede that they were in bad shape in the 19th Century,
but I challenge you to tell me that Haiti in 1890 was
significantly worse in organization than Chile at the same
time. One of those two countries was able to benefit from
its resources and is in the OECD and the other had to pay
debt to France and is one of the poorest countries in the
world.
hitekker wrote 3 days ago:
> world where Singapore was kicked out of Malaysia in 1965
for being too poor and violent
Absolutely false. Singapore was kicked out of Malaysia for
wanting its Chinese citizens to have equality with Malayan
citizens. Which the Malaysian government responded to by
stirring up race riots. [1] The GP is making a good faith
attempt to educate you, but you're trying to "win" by
asserting facts without a second of googling.
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Singapore...
RC_ITR wrote 3 days ago:
Cool Wikipedia link
[0] [1] Although the Malaysian economy and population
were much larger than Singapore's, as the international
financial and commercial centre for the Malaysian
peninsula and with per capita income more than twice that
of Malaysia, we might expect ex ante that Singapore would
be in a strong position to determine the arrangements.
But contemporary views were more optimistic about the
development of the Malaysian economy than that of
Singapore in the late 1960s. In addition, Malaysia had
already developed a central bank, which placed it in a
more powerful position to lead the discussions on
monetary reform. Ultimately, Singapore's distrust of the
Malaysian administration led to the abandonment of the
efforts at continuing the monetary integration of the two
territories.
URI [1]: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/030...
yorwba wrote 3 days ago:
And Singaporean GDP per capita was almost twice that of
Malaysia during 1963-1965 when they were one country
URI [1]: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP...
RC_ITR wrote 3 days ago:
[0] [1] ...
Although the Malaysian economy and population were much
larger than Singapore's, as the international financial
and commercial centre for the Malaysian peninsula and
with per capita income more than twice that of
Malaysia, we might expect ex ante that Singapore would
be in a strong position to determine the arrangements.
But contemporary views were more optimistic about the
development of the Malaysian economy than that of
Singapore in the late 1960s. In addition, Malaysia had
already developed a central bank, which placed it in a
more powerful position to lead the discussions on
monetary reform. Ultimately, Singapore's distrust of
the Malaysian administration led to the abandonment of
the efforts at continuing the monetary integration of
the two territories.
URI [1]: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0...
DANK_YACHT wrote 3 days ago:
> yet you think that the organizational structure of
Haiti's farmland in the 19th Century is what doomed it.
You're putting words into my mouth. I didn't say what
caused Haiti's lack of economic growth. I was pointing out
that there isn't enough evidence to say French debt caused
the lack of economic growth. It's totally possible to
French debt did in fact cause the lack of economic growth.
But it's also possible other issues caused the lack of
economic growth. Or perhaps it was a combination. Maybe
Haiti could have prospered economically had it been better
structured even with French debt, or it could have
prospered with poor structure without French debt.
I don't mean this to be offensive, but I think you believe
that the French debt caused Haiti's issue. I'm not
convinced of this by the evidence, and I think you're
taking my lack of conviction personally because it
contradicts something you believe. Or perhaps we have
different thresholds on the amount of evidence needed
before we're convinced of something.
Spooky23 wrote 3 days ago:
Youâre trying to speak as some sort of dealer of fact
about a topic, which with due respect, you donât really
understand.
âFrench debtâ wasnât just some unpaid loan. Haiti
went through a variety of trevails through a long an
vicious period of fighting for independence. At the
end, they ended up where they were not diplomatically
recognized by the US or Europe - Haiti went from a land
of plenty to a pariah, unable to trade, and the only way
out was to pay a steep indemnity, helpfully financed by
the French on usurious terms.
Debt was used as an implement of control. Iâm not sure
what youâre looking for, but those are not conditions
that will allow a nation or a economy to flourish.
RC_ITR wrote 3 days ago:
Maybe what is different between you and I is that I see
the following situation:
1) There were dozens of countries in Latin America that
had various levels of disfunction and poor organization
2) One of those countries had to pay a debt to Europe as
protection money
3) That one country is by far the poorest in Latin
America
It is my baseline that the unique thing about Haiti is
the reason it had the worst outcome. This article
supposes "No, there were plenty of other problems with
Haiti" while ignoring that fact that there were plenty of
other problems with nearly every Latin American country.
The author does this by ignoring other historians' views
on the matter (see my other comment) and most importantly
doesn't propose alternate reasons why Haiti is different
vs. other Latin American countries.
Was it the land distribution? Why did Mexico do better in
their 1910 campaign then? If not that, then what?
At least the NYT makes a cogent argument.
DANK_YACHT wrote 3 days ago:
It's ok to point out that there isn't enough evidence
for a particular argument without presenting a counter
argument. We should strive to believe the truth. If the
truth can't be determined, we should accept that
consciously rather than grasp on to an idea that fits
our predefined belief system.
There are many differences between Haiti and the rest
of Latin America. One big one is that Haiti was French,
whereas much of Latin America was ruled by Spain and
Portugal. We don't really have much evidence on how
France's colonies handle independence as they are
either still French territory or got absorbed by other
countries, e.g. French Louisiana. Perhaps something in
the Spanish model led to better outcomes for former
colonies. Another difference is that that Haitian
revolution was a successful slave revolt that resulted
in a purge of the ruling class. Compare this to America
where many of the founding fathers were members of the
colonial government, meaning they had governing
experience. Haiti's government was also unstable after
the revolution, further hindering its ability to form a
cohesive economic plan. Haiti's primary source of
domestic energy is charcoal, which has lead to near
total deforestation of the country. Perhaps that played
a role. These are just some differences off the top of
my head, and I'm not an expert in Haiti.
Again, the debt to France certainly didn't help. But to
me, it feels a little too convenient of an excuse to
lay the blame solely at France's feet.
hitekker wrote 3 days ago:
This thread reminds me of high school. A kid tries
and fails to argue with a teacher, so they resort to
trolling in order to "win". Meanwhile the rest of the
students are just rolling their eyes and hoping the
kid gets over their fragile ego.
RC_ITR wrote 3 days ago:
Listen, fragile ego or not, it's probably worth
examining why you think your high school teachers
were universally correct, especially on the topic
of colonialism.
RC_ITR wrote 3 days ago:
>Again, the debt to France certainly didn't help. But
to me, it feels a little too convenient of an excuse
to lay the blame solely at France's feet.
Just to restate 'It feels too convenient to blame the
country that forced these people into slavery, cut
them off from the world economic system and then
forced them to pay a tax to remain free?'
Damn just say what you mean at a certain point (I
won't put the words in your mouth but...)
selimthegrim wrote 3 days ago:
[1] (I clarified here that a cartel of Haitians of German origin
controlled the ports which added up to 80% of Haitian trade)
URI [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31471067
next_xibalba wrote 3 days ago:
The larger point, to my reading, is how NYT has published
ahistorical, ideology first products and presented and pushed them as
history. Even in the face of criticism from historians who are
experts in the covered subject matter.
refurb wrote 3 days ago:
They are just copying the kinds of clickbait though see all over
the internet and highly upvoted on HN.
People love it when their biases are confirmed.
RC_ITR wrote 3 days ago:
Like how an article titled 'The NYT is wrong about Haiti' is
upvoted by hundreds of people who (likely) have never been to
Haiti? And maybe 1-2 people who had ever heard of the economist
who wrote it before?
refurb wrote 3 days ago:
Pretty much!
I pretty much assume everything I read online is a lie unless
proven otherwise.
cyanydeez wrote 3 days ago:
Right! Being wrong is the larger point
watwut wrote 3 days ago:
The primary criticism was that historians did not get enough
credit.
coldtea wrote 3 days ago:
>NYT has published ahistorical, ideology first products and
presented and pushed them as history
Well, isn't that the whole business of the NYT since forever, only
with "history" usually replaced with "news", and "ideology first"
sometimes being "the government says so"?
overtonwhy wrote 3 days ago:
Oh the larger point is an attempt to discredit the newspaper of
record for the USA. Thanks for clarifying that you're trying to
spin colonial slavery as a good thing because of "liberal media
bias".
lp0_on_fire wrote 3 days ago:
That "newspaper of record" doesn't need a lot of outside help to
discredit itself given the state of it in the last decade and a
half.
fortuna86 wrote 3 days ago:
How was Tucker Carlson tonight, did he own the libs to your
satisfaction ?
lp0_on_fire wrote 3 days ago:
I don't have cable and don't watch Tucker, but good attempt
at a burn nevertheless.
sangnoir wrote 3 days ago:
> The larger point, to my reading, is how NYT has published
ahistorical, ideology first products and presented and pushed them
as history[...]
That reads like a misrepresentation of TFA: the author conceded
that the historical facts reported by the NYT are accurate, but
they disagree with the tone and conclusion.
The author's angle is a weird one: author thinks that the
article(s) should be read as an academic paper (no reason given),
and then lobs criticism at it for not being a good academic paper.
mensetmanusman wrote 3 days ago:
You can use any series of truths to weave a lie, this has been
known since antiquity.
sangnoir wrote 3 days ago:
"Ahistorical" has a specific meaning, which does not apply
here.
darth_avocado wrote 3 days ago:
The NYT article was not âahistoricalâ, something that the
author points out was the facts were mostly correct.
The problem here is the narrative that is built based on the facts
is not accurate and conclusions werenât scientifically drawn.
tablespoon wrote 3 days ago:
> The problem here is the narrative that is built based on the
facts is not accurate and conclusions werenât scientifically
drawn.
Yeah, I think you always have to read things like the NYT with an
eye towards their demonstrated institutional biases. I think
they can be trusted to get the facts right (even if that fact is
"ABC made claim XYZ," when XYZ turns out to have been wrong), and
I don't really see a better alternative for getting facts about
current events.
That said, I don't think journalists at the NYT are the right
people to be writing revisionist histories of events that are
very much not current. If they want to publish stuff like that,
it would better if the hired some actual historians to do these
projects (instead of just trying to use them as QC).
MomoXenosaga wrote 3 days ago:
Historians have ideology too. In fact the field of history is not
an exact science...
epgui wrote 3 days ago:
If I accept the premise that "the field of history is not an
exact science" (which, to be clear, I do), it does not logically
follow that this makes historians particularly ideological.
Both may certainly be true (which I believe), but it's not a very
good argument.
uoaei wrote 3 days ago:
I get the feeling your definition of "ideology" is a very
specific, politically-motivated one, and not the one that most
philosophers and social scientists have concurred is an
appropriate default definition over the last 50-70 years.
Everyone carries ideology with them. It is the source of
subjective interpretations and judgments. And unfortunately for
your position, we have more or less come to the consensus that
all language and communication is fundamentally subjective:
this means that no statements or actions are without ideology.
UncleMeat wrote 3 days ago:
"Criticism from historians" is normal for everything. Historians
criticize work that they even revere. The presence of academic
criticism is not evidence that the NYT piece is an "ahistorical,
ideology first product".
In fact, the majority of criticism from the academic community (as
mentioned in the article) is the fact that the historians that were
consulted on this piece weren't named in the text.
hitekker wrote 3 days ago:
I think the GP means that the NYT has a recent history of
peddling journalistic rags as academic papers, without the
approval of the academic experts they've consulted. One of those
fact checkers even wrote an article about how they were ignored
by the NYT:
URI [1]: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-p...
UncleMeat wrote 3 days ago:
And I'm saying that your portrayal is foolish.
From the very article you link
> Overall, the 1619 Project is a much-needed corrective to the
blindly celebratory histories that once dominated our
understanding of the pastâhistories that wrongly suggested
racism and slavery were not a central part of U.S. history.
The 1619 Project contained historical errors that the authors
should have avoided. But historians working in this area do not
consider it to be a "journalistic rag" even as they criticize
it. As I mentioned in my post, academic criticism is not
evidence that a piece is devoid of merit.
spoonjim wrote 3 days ago:
But a big part of why people arenât using stronger language
to criticize it is they doing so is a guaranteed path to
being called a racist and getting calls for your firing.
somenameforme wrote 3 days ago:
You're misrepresenting that article.
That article was not some random historian offering an
academic criticism. That person was hand-picked by the
NYTimes to "fact-check" their article. They undoubtedly chose
her because of her ideological background, thinking that she
would be okay with revisionary history. She wasn't. So they
ignored her.
UncleMeat wrote 3 days ago:
I do not believe that I am misrepresenting the article. The
reason I do not believe that is because I am personal
friends with an unusual number of historians who work in
early US history and the history of race in the US. The
quote I pulled from the article very neatly sums up their
opinion of the 1619 project.
The NYT made fairly basic and preventable factual errors in
the 1619 project. They should not have done this. This is
not new or interesting or controversial information among
relevant historians. What is controversial among relevant
historians is the conclusion that therefore the 1619
project is ideological bullshit that shouldn't be seen as
anything other than garbage. The author of the article you
link was indeed correct - factual errors became a lightning
rod for reactionaries to dismiss the work as propaganda.
But that's not actually how criticism of historical writing
works in the academic community.
I suspect that if I spoke with the author of this piece, as
I have spoken to many people who I suspect she would call
colleagues, she'd be more likely to agree with my
presentation than yours.
All historical writing is "revisionist history." This term
is not actually a slur in the academic community because
each historian is almost necessarily writing on a topic
that many historians have written on before and their work
is in dialogue with the work that came before. Presenting a
historical narrative from another perspective or through a
different methodological lens is not bad nor does it attack
or destroy the work that came before.
Braudel has claims that are outright wrong but The
Mediterranean is heralded as a triumph. Said has claims
that don't hold up today but Orientalism is a critical step
forward for the field. Heck, even fucking Foucault is seen
as essential writing for historians despite him having all
sorts of factual errors in his work. Historical writing
should seek to be based in fact. But fucking up (even very
badly) is not a reason to declare a work to be propaganda.
cpleppert wrote 3 days ago:
>>I do not believe that I am misrepresenting the article.
The reason I do not believe that is because I am personal
friends with an unusual number of historians who work in
early US history and the history of race in the US. The
quote I pulled from the article very neatly sums up their
opinion of the 1619 project.
I have no idea what you are personally told or what views
your friends, whatever their qualifications, have. The
article's author is generally favorable to revisionist
interpretations and even she has serious doubts. As a
historical matter one of the central claims of the 1619
project is false and is mostly asserted without evidence.
Now, if you produce a work with a thesis and one of the
most important (as asserted by the work itself!) test
cases of that thesis is false the credibility of that
work is clearly undermind.
>>Braudel has claims that are outright wrong but The
Mediterranean is heralded as a triumph. Said has claims
that don't hold up today but Orientalism is a critical
step forward for the field. [...] Historical writing
should seek to be based in fact. But fucking up (even
very badly) is not a reason to declare a work to be
propaganda.
The difference is that those works advanced the field
even where they had shortcomings. They did so by
rigorously supporting claims and providing evidence. The
1619 project does neither.
worik wrote 3 days ago:
> The NYT made fairly basic and preventable factual
errors in the 1619 project
Like that the revolution was to preserve slavery.
That is a fundamental mistake that undermines the whole
project.
UncleMeat wrote 3 days ago:
Not according to many historians nor the author of the
linked piece.
john_yaya wrote 3 days ago:
Facts are the foundation that such writing is built upon.
If a piece of historical analysis contains a number of
basic factual errors, that foundation is shaky at best.
How can you or anyone go on to claim that the conclusion
of the piece has any value at all, given that?
UncleMeat wrote 3 days ago:
Says you?
Historians should seek to make their writing based on
as firm of factual footing as possible and make it
clear when they are making an inference due to
limitations of the archive. But historians constantly
work with material that has factual errors and they
do not tend to consider this to be a death sentence for
a particular work.
I find that a huge number of people have very strong
opinions about how historians work and have never
actually spoken to one.
The large bulk of historians I speak to, whether
tenured or tenure track or at various different
institutions, do not arrive at the same conclusion that
you do.
EDIT: We've hit the depth limit but I do not believe
that I am more qualified here. I believe that
professional historians are and that people should go
speak to a bunch of them before developing very strong
opinions about historical writing. I do not believe
that this is a clubby toxic attitude but instead is
valuing expertise and experience.
john_yaya wrote 3 days ago:
Excuse me, but there's an enormous difference between
working with erroneous source material, and making
factual errors when the correct data are already and
widely available.
And, I reject your repeated assertions that because
you have historian friends, you are somehow more
qualified to speak on the topic than one who does
not. That type of clubby gatekeeping is frankly
toxic to society and you should abandon that sort of
thinking immediately.
UncleMeat wrote 3 days ago:
I do not believe that it is toxic gatekeeping to
suggest that the people who are most qualified to
have opinions about historical writing are history
professors.
jakelazaroff wrote 3 days ago:
What is "a number"? What is the threshold at which it
becomes appropriate to distrust the entire work?
Most of the critique from the right seems to start with
the point of view that the 1619 Project should be
distrusted and works backwards from there, rather than
determining its trustworthiness based on a good-faith
reading of the work itself.
refurb wrote 3 days ago:
When I did my thesis, the attitude was a factual
error of significant magnitude brought the whole
thesis into question.
UncleMeat wrote 3 days ago:
What field was your thesis in? Would your committee
have considered the entire contents to be
propaganda?
duxup wrote 3 days ago:
I enjoyed that read although I kinda wonder about the "The New York
Times is Wrong About Hati" when the author notes that ... they're also
right in general?
>While I have some criticisms, most of the historical facts are
correct. There are places where I could nitpick, but most of the facts
are solid. I think the problems with the articles are in tone and in
conclusions. In many places, we do not have enough evidence to infer
what they conclude. The NYT claims to solve a jigsaw puzzle, then it
only shows one-third of the pieces and they aren't even connected
properly.
I read the NYT article and even not being well versed in Hati I
wondered about some of the lines the author(s) drew in the articles.
I would argue "The NYT's conclusions are questionable / at best
debatable" but I'm also not sure that makes for a good title.
Maybe this gets drowned out in the "OMG NYT" kinda responses but I
think there's a space where the information is correct, but the
conclusions are up for debate in newspapers. Granted they also should
make that clear.
I also think that the NYT article(s) could have been better, and this
critique of them is valid too... and both existing is healthy / ok.
gaws wrote 2 days ago:
> I enjoyed that read although I kinda wonder about the "The New York
Times is Wrong About Hati" when the author notes that ... they're
also right in general?
Clickbait headline for a piece by an anonymous researcher -- or an
anonymous group of them -- who've complained about a "lack of credit"
for the Times' source materials and have an axe (or axes) to grind
with the paper.
systemvoltage wrote 3 days ago:
I don't understand your comment, I read it twice. Are you making a
particular point? Just feels like you're saying a lot without
actually saying anything. "I like X but I also don't like X".
duxup wrote 3 days ago:
I don't know how to say it differently in a way that might help
you.
next_xibalba wrote 3 days ago:
I think you are confusing the politeness of the author with
agreement. For example:
> Did Citibank see an opportunity for profit in Haiti? Yes. Was that
sufficient to commit the US to a full-scale invasion? Not a chance.
That is a flat out refutation of the NYT's article entitled "Invade
Haiti, Wall Street Urged. The U.S. Obliged".
> the title [of another NYT article] reveals the central thesis. The
Root of Haiti's Misery. The argument is that the indemnity not only
contributed to Haiti's poverty; it's the cause.
> Since that all started before the 1825 indemnity, it was unaffected
by the debt and is therefore one really big reason why Haiti would
not have grown like the rest of Latin America.
> Maybe without the indemnity, Haiti could have formed coalitions
that ended the instability. But that's imagining a counterfactual
that we have no evidence for.
In other words, another refutation: the NYT is making strong,
evidence free claims of a causal link between indemnity and Haiti's
relative historical poverty.
> both existing is healthy / ok.
Were all readers of the NYT's Haiti series to read this article, I
would agree. But that's not the case. The NYT will reach millions,
this article will reach thousands. As such, the NYT should adhere to
a higher standard or just get out of this business of history.
colinmhayes wrote 3 days ago:
> That is a flat out refutation of the NYT's article entitled
"Invade Haiti, Wall Street Urged. The U.S. Obliged".
Is it? Did citibank not push for an invasion? Did that invasion not
happen? The title certainly omits nuance, but it wasn't flat out
refuted.
knorker wrote 3 days ago:
"Vote out Trump in 2020, said, and the US voters obliged".
This is not a matter of nuance.
hiram112 wrote 3 days ago:
It was refuted by showing that there were several more compelling
reasons that the United States invaded, including WWI i.e.
Germany controlled the majority of Haiti's economy and would have
been able to seize the island, thus the US preempted them,
similar to e.g. the British and US invading Iceland in WW2.
yunohn wrote 3 days ago:
> In other words, another refutation: the NYT is making strong,
evidence free claims of a causal link between indemnity and Haiti's
relative historical poverty.
Sure, you can believe what you want just because you want a smoking
gun amidst a complicated reality.
But itâs not much of a stretch to say that a colonised enslaved
country was in poverty and driven to more poverty due to the
coloniserâs forced âreparationsâ from their slaves.
RC_ITR wrote 3 days ago:
It's weird people are taking this substack at face value.
Here's Millet's take from his well-regarded history of the Marines
[0]:
This instability was of great concern to U.S. President Woodrow
Wilson. Unfortunately, no one in Wilson's State Department knew
much about Haiti. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan relied
for information upon Roger L. Farnham, head of the National City
Bank's interests in Haiti. This was bad because Farnham was
unsympathetic toward the Haitians and was determined to bring about
U.S. intervention in the republic. He was even able to convince
Bryan that Germany and France, who were then at war, were working
together to gain control of Mole St. Nicholas.1°
It's good this economist wants to make a debate, but he seems more
opinionated than fact-driven.
[0]
URI [1]: https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Publications/U.S.%20Mari...
duxup wrote 3 days ago:
I feel like like we're into the weeds of "is this the only reason"
or not and that's the dividing line. As even the NYT article notes
there are other reasons too.
I find that the farther you go down the rabbit hole it is more
about emphasis, and I'm certainly happy to agree the NTY's emphasis
seems off / not entirely supported.
Having said that I'm always skeptical about "real reasons for war"
as even in modern times that's up for debate.
debacle wrote 3 days ago:
Haiti needs a stronger national identity, but it is so often victim of
first world saviors that I think it will continue to struggle.
Most of the immigrants (to the US) that I've met from Haiti do not
speak favorably of the country and have no intention of ever returning.
richwater wrote 3 days ago:
This exactly mirrors how I felt reading that NYT piece.
tonguez wrote 3 days ago:
âThe New York Times Is Right About Xâ would be a news headline.
pilgrimfff wrote 3 days ago:
Great piece. Fair and even-handed in its criticism of the NYT article.
everybodyknows wrote 3 days ago:
> The New York Times is trying to expand from the paper of record ...
Do people still think of the NYT that way? The Washington Post seems
to me to have the better claim nowadays. Not a great claim, but
better.
fleddr wrote 3 days ago:
It's more like a Tumblr blog.
causi wrote 3 days ago:
If journalists littered their work with citations, they argue, it would
disrupt the narrative and alienate the audience.
That's a very 20th-century take. There's no reason why any article
couldn't have a little "show version with citations" button tucked away
somewhere.
gaws wrote 2 days ago:
> There's no reason why any article couldn't have a little "show
version with citations" button tucked away somewhere.
The Times' piece was a magazine-style narrative, not a historical
white paper. A mile-long bibliography at the end of the story is
unnecessary for a package made for a normal audience.
uncomputation wrote 3 days ago:
Why not just links? I feel like the full potential of hyperlinking is
still not realized. To be able to integrate the source/referent of a
statement in the same usage of that statement without any additional
words is truly new in written history and still we write like âyou
can find the source here: big_linkâ. Someday I wanna write up a
manual for writing with hyperlinks in mind.
bragr wrote 3 days ago:
News sites are reluctant to add outlinks because it drives
pageviews and engagement away from their site. They'd much rather
you click on a link to another one of their pages.
stjohnswarts wrote 3 days ago:
I think classical numbering is fine, no need to inject author's
name or the article anywhere else. A link to the bottom of the
article to approximately the location of the source is plenty
sufficient.
leononame wrote 3 days ago:
It's a lot of work. That alone is reason enough for a lot of
newspapers. But I also kind of agree. While truth and sources are
important and I would like newspapers to list sources and citations
more often, the narrative is an important element.
The author of the original article mentions that a publication they
read would not be intelligible without citation because you lose the
context. I don't think just switching citations on and off is a
viable form of marrying good narrative and academic standards.
SllX wrote 3 days ago:
The narrative is the thing most in need of scrutiny no matter what
news youâre reading, if you are reading for the supposed
informational value.
Paper and ink are not the constraints they once were and news sites
clearly have bandwidth to spare given all the crap they try to
force the majority of their readers to download to read one
article. Hyperlinks are a core function of the web and for the New
York Times, the web is their primary medium now.
kevin_thibedeau wrote 3 days ago:
They have full time fact checkers on staff. The work is already
being done.
causi wrote 3 days ago:
It's a lot of work.
How so? When I was writing papers in college I'd read my sources,
bang out the text, then for every citable claim I'd ctrl+F my
sources and cite them. For a journalist who's presumably taking
notes while writing an article it should be even faster. This only
seems hard if you're writing articles based purely on vibes and not
information.
corrral wrote 3 days ago:
Citation always felt like the most onerous part of writing papers
in high school. I hated it. It seemed to take forever. Even with
auto-formatters.
The culprit was MLA. Chicago-style (which I was allowed to use in
most college classes) or just a very-casual "here's the link" are
easy.
Fucking MLA. No idea why it's what they teach in secondary
school. It blows, well-developed alternatives exist, and it's not
even anywhere near being some kind of universal, preferred
citation style in all of academia.
causi wrote 3 days ago:
I couldn't agree more. I'm sure kids today have browser
extensions that can streamline the process.
vehemenz wrote 3 days ago:
Honestly, you don't even need that much.
There are plenty of other citing styles that are non-obtrusive,
including those that use footnotes and/or hyperlinks.
stjohnswarts wrote 3 days ago:
Yep the human brain is amazing at ignoring these, I never had a
problem with it reading anything that I've read in the past and it
helps if you wanna go into further depth later when you want more
info/context.
causi wrote 3 days ago:
Sure, which is the version I'd probably read all the time. I'm just
saying you can worship at the altar of the pageview and offer
citations at the same time with no downside, aside from less
ability to bullshit the reader.
easterncalculus wrote 3 days ago:
Ironically, like media outlets often says about people online, it does
not matter how good the rebuttal is if 5,000 people see it and millions
read what it disproves. The damage is already done.
hiram112 wrote 3 days ago:
This has increasingly been the M.O. of all the "activist" media
outlets in the US for the past 5 years. Issue exaggerated if not
outright fraudulent explosive headlines and articles - Russian Pee
tapes, bounties on American troops, Capital police officers
bludgeoned to death by rabid mobs, etc. - then months later, quietly
issue a "correction" on page 10, long after the false narrative has
been thoroughly disseminated into the public's version of reality.
And if that wasn't shady enough, in the days of online content, these
outlets often don't even bother with admitting they were wrong. They
simply edit the original stories - silently and without public notice
- and pretend it was never written in the first place.
The NY Times was caught red-handed doing this with their 1619 content
several times already.
MomoXenosaga wrote 3 days ago:
The history of Haiti can't be distilled in a single article. You'd
need a 500 page book for the abridged version.
But realistically very people would give enough of a shit to read it.
easterncalculus wrote 3 days ago:
Definitely, I completely agree. That goes for any nation really.
The difference to me is that one article is making a pretty serious
claim, and the other is casting some doubt on it - the burden of
proof is still on NYT.
Splendor wrote 3 days ago:
> While I have some criticisms, most of the historical facts are
correct. There are places where I could nitpick, but most of the facts
are solid. I think the problems with the articles are in tone and in
conclusions.
The softest of takedowns.
potatoz2 wrote 3 days ago:
I agree, and it seems like most commenters (so far) seem not to have
read the âtakedownâ. What the author mostly criticizes is that
the NYT is not providing enough evidence, not that things are clearly
wrong.
UncleMeat wrote 3 days ago:
Sadly, the author's title produces the same sort of response that
NYT's title does. Nuanced analysis is blown over by people reacting
to titles.
baggy_trough wrote 3 days ago:
The NYT is a very powerful propaganda organ and must be read with that
in mind.
Overtonwindow wrote 3 days ago:
Tangentially related, but I canât help but think what Haiti could be
today had they elected Wyclef Jean. Regardless of his abilities as a
politician, as an international celebrity, he couldâve brought unity
and investment to Haiti.
If youâll forgive me, I donât think he couldâve done much worse.
krisboyz781 wrote 3 days ago:
This is why some of you should just stick to tech and refrain from
even speaking on such subjects. Your lack of knowledge is astounding
and you're a fucking idiot. This is ridiculous
kelvin0 wrote 3 days ago:
The President is usually controlled by the 'Oligarchs' which are a
few ultra wealthy families that have controlled the Economy. Anyone
attempting to do otherwise then following their lead ends up Dead, or
deposed by some coup d'Etat.
charia wrote 3 days ago:
I think one thing to keep in mind is that Wyclef famously used his
celebrity to raise money for Haiti after the earthquake and it was
shown that much, if not most, of the money raised was used by Wyclef
and his family/friends for personal spending.
That behavior suggests that Wyclef might have continued the same
corruption that other Haitian politicians engaged in and maybe taken
it a step further by leveraging his celebrity to also pocket money
brought in as outside investment.
Again, maybe he couldn't be worse since other Haitian politicians
would have and did engage in similar corruption, but it'd be a
stretch to say that it's anything we should consider as "what if"
that would had the real potential for positive change in the country.
Splendor wrote 3 days ago:
You couldn't be more wrong.
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y%C3%A9le_Haiti
Overtonwindow wrote 3 days ago:
Thatâs unfortunate, but I donât see that he was prosecuted for
anything. I still think he wouldâve been a better choice
pessimizer wrote 3 days ago:
Because you like his songs?
Overtonwindow wrote 14 hours 34 min ago:
No I donât listen to his music at all, just the superstar
power. I think Haiti needs someone with a global image. To draw
attention to the country. Haiti is going to be corrupt for the
foreseeable future, I anticipate everyone involved is going to
be corrupt at some level, but his star power could have been
used for good.
sudden_dystopia wrote 3 days ago:
The NYT is wrong about all kinds of stuff. This shouldnât come as a
surprise to anyone that they engage in quite a bit of data/mis-info.
Whether purposely or via sloppy reporting, the effect is the same.
hdesh wrote 3 days ago:
Unfortunately this is true. Someone has written a whole book[1] about
this. There[2] is a podcast interview of the author of that book. NY
Times' anti-India and anti-Hindu bias is also widely documented[3].
[1] [2]
URI [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Gray-Lady-Winked-Misreporting-Fabrica...
URI [2]: https://kushalmehra.com/2021/07/18/the-gray-lady-winked/
URI [3]: https://rameshrao-89399.medium.com/understanding-the-new-yor...
selimthegrim wrote 3 days ago:
Anti-which Hindus? BJP is âsole spokesmanâ for Hindus now like
Muslim League claimed to be for Muslims? Also with regard to India
existing before 1947, you should remind yourself why Ambedkar had
âIndia, that is Bharatâ¦â put into Indian Constitution.
hammock wrote 4 days ago:
If a newspaper were to simply present the facts and let the reader come
to their own conclusion, that might be viewed as dangerous.
pid-1 wrote 3 days ago:
Have you ever tried presenting any facts to anyone?
The word "fact" is very very sloppy.
leononame wrote 3 days ago:
I don't think this could be remotely possible. Just by deciding which
facts to publish you already present an opinion.
I see this sentiment floating around a lot, but I think it's a bit of
a naïve approach. Just by deciding which news to publish a newspaper
already has a bias.
hunterb123 wrote 3 days ago:
It would be a step in the right direction. You can always compare
outlets from many sides to find omission of facts / topics.
You can also do that to highlight the spin, but wouldn't it be nice
if there was no spin in the first place?
pessimizer wrote 3 days ago:
> It would be a step in the right direction.
The argument is that it's not possible, not that it wouldn't be
desirable if it were. The way to get all of the unbiased facts
not intended to illustrate a narrative is to be omnipotent.
Otherwise, you're getting filtered information from someone
telling you what they saw. The reason they leave out what color
socks they were wearing at the time they saw it is because
they're filtering the information down to what they think is
relevant to their narrative.
hunterb123 wrote 3 days ago:
Your interpretation is not possible. But the general idea of
exposing facts more than speculation and slants is possible.
I believe GP was more suggesting the latter than the former.
havblue wrote 3 days ago:
I'm not sure if simply presenting the facts is a viable business
model for most news organizations. User attention and advertisements
are what they sell, not information.
sudden_dystopia wrote 3 days ago:
Dangerous to people that feel threatened by a feee thinking populace,
ie authoritarians.
30944836 wrote 3 days ago:
That's not really possible, given that the mere omission of facts, or
the placement of facts next to each other influences the conclusion.
Besides which, people think in stories, and presenting just a list of
facts isn't going to be read by anyone.
hunterb123 wrote 3 days ago:
That's a separate issue which should be a concern but shouldn't
prevent you from wanting to correct the other issues. You can
compare different outlets to see ommission of news.
The spin, speculation, and lack of sources are the other issues.
I would read a list of facts over a story. I hate fluff. Most
people don't even read the story, they read the title and possibly
the first/last paragaph.
DIR <- back to front page