Carolina QuotesNone of us can be held responsible for the wrongs of our ancestors. But if today we choose not to do the right and necessary thing, that burden we own.
Nikole Hannah-Jones Connected to the Carolinas
Source
No citation is recorded for this quotation.
- work
- The 1619 Project (2019)
- year
- 1619
no citation recorded
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“None of us can be held responsible for the wrongs of our anc…” Nikole Hannah-Jones. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-06CB29FFC3. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/06cb29ffc3
More from Nikole Hannah-Jones
the entire premise of The 1619 Project is that the legacy of slavery was not banished along with the institution of slavery in 1865, that slavery is one of the oldest institutions in our society. The English settled Jamestown in 1607. And by 1619, just 12 years later, they’re engaging in African slavery. So, that is 150 years before they even decide that they want to become their own country. And that slavery shaped everything, nearly everything, about the country that would ultimately be established.
I think that we are ill-prepared for the moment that we’re in. I think too many political reporters just have too much faith in our political systems, and there is no evidence to back up that faith. So, I just hope that before it’s too late, enough of us get an understanding that we can’t cover what’s happening in our country right now as politics as usual, and you can’t dismiss all of these scholars of authoritarianism who are raising the alarm. We’ve got to do better. We know that reporting, the press, is the firewall of our democracy, and I don’t think the firewall is holding right now.
White Americans desire to be free of a past they do not want to remember, while Black Americans remain bound to a past they can never forget.