'The 1619 Project' and the Power of Narrative

SARAH BALDWIN: Hey there, this is Sarah, the host of Trending Globally.

DAN RICHARDS: And this is Dan, Trending Globally's producer.

SARAH BALDWIN: And we just wanted to say, if you like what you hear, you can get more conversations, just like this, by subscribing to Trending Globally on Apple podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

DAN RICHARDS: And if you've already subscribed, please leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts. It really helps others find us.

SARAH BALDWIN: All right, enjoy the show.

[INTRO MUSIC]

From the Watson Institute at Brown University, this is Trending Globally, I'm Sarah Baldwin. It's not every day that a writer joins the ranks of the Watson Institute. Of course, we have many writers at Watson, who come in the form of political scientists, economists, historians, policy experts, but ZZ Packer is a writer's writer. Her Two Thousand Three debut short story collection, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, was critically acclaimed. And she went on to win awards and hold fellowships at Stanford, Princeton, and Harvard, among other places.

As a Watson senior fellow for the Spring Twenty-Twenty semester, ZZ led a study group based on selections from the Sixteen-Nineteen Project, a groundbreaking set of writings and podcast series from the New York Times. They reframed slavery as the institution on which the United States economy, politics, and culture were built.

ZZ PACKER: A pirate ship, by the name of White Lion, sails into the bay, here. And they needed to trade something of value, so that they could get supplies to make the rest of their journey. And what they traded were 20 to 30 Africans. And this would be, at this place, kind of, ironically called, Point Comfort, where slavery in the British North American colonies, that would go on to become the United States, begins.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

SARAH BALDWIN: The project recently earned its creator, Nicole Hannah-Jones, a Pulitzer prize for commentary. It's also been met with resistance among conservatives and even some historians. We wanted to know how the material was received and discussed in today's college classroom. We also talked about what projects like this, creative, daring, and designed for both experts and lay readers, can contribute to our collective understanding of American history.

A quick note, we had a little hiccup in the recording, so as you'll hear, for a few questions towards the end, ZZ's audio sounds slightly different. Anyway, here's our conversation.

ZZ, welcome, I am so excited to have you as a guest on Trending Globally.

ZZ PACKER: It's great to be here, Sarah, thank you so much.

SARAH BALDWIN: I'll just jump right in. I'm really interested in your relationship with the Sixteen-Nineteen Project. How and when did you first become aware of it?

ZZ PACKER: Well, Nicole Hannah-Jones had been mentioning, something big is going to be coming for a while, on Twitter, right? And I have known Jake for, you know--

SARAH BALDWIN: And Jake's the editor in chief of the New York Times Magazine.

ZZ PACKER: Yes, Jake is editor in chief of the New York Times Magazine. And so when, on Twitter, Nicole Hannah-Jones was talking about, or saying something big might happen, and I found out, you know, I said to Jake, I said, you know, I have that historical novel. And you know, Jake said, yeah, if you want to do this, you know, give me some pieces.

and the whole period up until: 1877

And I was like, no! You can't have that one, that one might not even be in the book, you know. And so the thing was that he was really great, because I just, sort of, made some noises, saying, like, oh, my gosh, this project is so amazing, I'd love to be a part of it. And you know, I've done a couple of things with the Times Magazine, but he went ahead and said, yes, to it. But, if I have that particular piece.

And so I revised it, not per his instructions. You know, I just sort of revised it, because I was like, OK, if this is going to be in there, this is the way I want to have it in there, the way I want it to be. And then the next day he's like, no. [LAUGHS] Like he just said, I liked to how it was. You make a few changes, and that it. And he had the a few changes that he wanted me to make.

So it was really-- and then, you know, the rest of this was just, like, you know, all of these pieces from all of these other-- you know, I'm one of the writers who's a literary writer, you know, put that in air quotes, but, you know, everyone else from the scholars. You know, I know Khalil, not very well, Khalil Gibran Muhammad, he's in there, Tremaine Lee, you know, I got to know, you know, afterwards. All these other people, historians, I've read them for forever, you know, Walter Johnson, who's an amazing scholar.

You know, all of these people were cited in it. But then you had Jeanine [INAUDIBLE], you had, you know, Wesley Morris, who actually was a-- who was my counselee in college, I was his counselor. And I've just, you know, watched his career completely take off, and you know, seen him win the Pulitzer. And we cross paths now and again.

And so all of that was just this phen-- I didn't even realize it at the time. I knew that it was important, of course, that's one of the reasons I wanted to be, you know, a part of it. But then also, when you saw it came out, it was just another level. So I was just so honored and pleased, those sound like understatements. But proud, you know, to be a participant in it.

SARAH BALDWIN: Yeah, as well you should be. I'm wondering, in what way can this project, sort of, be a response to people who say, oh, my god, enough with slavery, it's in the past. Like how can this project help people understand that slavery, everything goes back to slavery.

ZZ PACKER: Well, I think that's a great question. But it also, sort of, makes a point in and of itself. I mean, you know, the project is showing how everything goes back to slavery. You know, I'm a person who's-- this has been something I've been working on and with, sort of, in some ways, for my whole life. But like, you know, definitely since, you know, after college and grad school, and such. But I learned things from it.

I mean, the idea of Cameron Cruz's article on traffic, you know, traffic being such that, you know, they're trying to-- at first, slavery was keeping everyone who was African-American in close quarters, in proximity towards the whites, who were the ruling elites and the slave masters, et cetera. And then the opposite was the point of it later. So that, then, when you had these roads, and systems, and the traffic, the highway system, was based off of these other paths. That is directly a result of slavery.

So you know, when I grew up in Atlanta, you know, and we were in one section. And you know, not a poor section, but just a middle class African-American section of Atlanta. And we were on one end of the martyr line, you know, and there are these white people and other people in Buckhead, who are on the opposite end, or in Buckhead, that just wasn't even the line or whatever. You know, I would wonder why this was and this all went back to slavery.

And Linda Villarosa's piece, you know, there's the idea of, you know, the medical system and even, you know, the whole field of gynecology, all being related to-- not just related to slavery, but born out of slavery. So when we have issues like-- that we're having right now, with the pandemic, you know, all of this, like the core morbidities that are in these populations, are related to slavery. And that is related to slavery, which is related to reconstruction, which is related to Jim Crow, which is related to the red lining and such in the 50s and 60s, which is related to then, you know, peel backs from these affirmative action programs, as such, that were designed and implemented in the 70s. And then the Reagan revolution, quote unquote, in the 80s. And then all of that, those series of actions and reactions, all go back to slavery.

And so the idea that people want to say, oh, we can't look at it anymore. You know, when I say people, I mean certain white scholars, and certain white pundits, and such, you know. And then there are a couple of naysayers who are African-American as well. But you rarely recognize your house's foundation, you don't have to think about your house's foundation. Because the point of the foundation is just for it to be there and everything else is built on top of it.

And so, you know, one of my friends, Matt Johnson, made this point in Pym, it's a novel, and it's, you know, based off of Edgar Allan Poe's Pym. But one of the points is that, you know, if you have a foundation, the point of it is for you not to notice it. And so slavery operates that way in the American psyche.

But in America's history, you know, because we were founded upon it, you know, it's hard to see it, you know? You know, it's hard to see that, like, everything else, the whole edifice, is resting on top of it. And if you want to solve the ills of America, you have to, kind of, go back to it, and try to figure things out, and try to address the problems that we have today, and how they came from those problems of yesteryear.

SARAH BALDWIN: So what do you think the push back is about? I wonder, do you think it's-- and maybe it's a lot of different things, depending on who's pushing back, but, you know, is it missing the point? Is it defensiveness? Is there a more nefarious agenda?

ZZ PACKER: I think that there are several different push backs. I know that sometimes they all get conflated into one. But you know, I remember when some stuff started coming out, I mean, I remember, I was the one who was telling Nicole Hannah-Jones, I was like, did you read the push back there was, like, from the Worldwide Socialist Web? And she was like, no, I didn't even see that one.

And you know, that was a lengthy one that went on for, just-- I printed it out. I have it here somewhere, I think the printout was, like, 30, 40 pages. You know, and so for them, the push back, and this is, maybe, the least nefarious one, but also the least cogent one, but theirs was just simply, OK, you know, you're ignoring class. You know, and it was, sort of, like, well, no, this is actually part and parcel of class.

And if you think about how white Yeoman farmers were kept from voting for and being activist for policies that would have been in their best interests, had they united with, you know, African-American farmers after emancipation. You know, you see how, yeah, that was a product of slavery. You know, and it was a product of a, sort of, white supremacist agenda. And so you can't talk about class in America without talking about slavery. So they had other issues that they brought up, but mainly theirs was one of class.

Then you had the ones who are the Gingrichs, you know, Ted Cruz still is coming out with some stuff. You know, and those are what I call, or think of, as, you know, the National Review, kind of, push back against this. And theirs is basically, I mean, it's going to be hard for me to try to summarize what it is, because, to some extent, it's as irrational as racism itself. So trying to encapsulate it is, sort of, an exercise in, you know, I don't know, like, twisting oneself into puzzles and circles that make no sense.

But you can imagine, like, from what I gather, it's this, America, when we want to think of America, in terms of founding fathers, et cetera, et cetera, and we want to ignore, you know, some of the egregiously bad movements of the Trump administration, that kind of thing. When we try to think of, like, what American exceptionalism looks like, as-- you know, at its conception, you know, then that story and that narrative means that you have to look at slavery as something that wasn't ill back then, you know, we fought a war about it, you know. Even though we're the ones who still believe in having Confederate monuments, et cetera, et cetera, we, quote unquote, fought a war over it and it's over. And like, why should we address this anymore?

You know, and that's, you know, I think, my most anodyne, sort of, polite version of their argument. I think, at heart, it is that they don't want to be, not just reminded of what slavery did. Because, in a way, if they really could go back to having, you know, slavery, I'm quite sure they would. You, know, I don't think that there's like any prob-- and people have made-- they've made many noises towards this. I mean, the closest you can come to it is having underclass today that's African-American, and they're fine with that.

So I think the most, like, sort of, harmless, I would say, that it is, like, promoting a form of American exceptionalism in which slavery cannot have a-- like, look like an original sin even. It has to look as though it's just a boil that has been lanced, you know, on the body politic of America. And that is, at best, their argument.

And I would say the more truthful way of encapsulating their argument is just simply that they don't want to be accused of being racist. America can't-- if it looks like it's racist to everyone else, then this picture of American exceptionalism is not-- this is false. And so that's what, I think, their point of view is.

And I think there are the other ones, the ones that are a little more nuanced than either of those two that I mentioned, like the Worldwide Socialist Web or the National Review, push back against the project. And those are questions which are hard to categorize, because they are more like, hey-- and the historians, themselves, a lot of them even made this, kind of, argument. They're like, hey, you know, to say that American history has not been a march of progress towards bettering these ills is to then create an incorrect narrative of what's happened in America.

And we can see that's an incorrect narrative by just the fact that Nicole Hannah-Jones has founded this project, you know, we can see this by the fact that we have Michelle Cinder out there as a journalist, questioning the president, we can see this because there are African-Americans, you know, in every echelon of society doing something. And so we can't, then, erase those positive milestones of the past, is what I think they would say. And what I would say, and I think what Jake Silverstein and Nicole Hannah-Jones very eloquently, sort of, got around to, is to say that, this is a way of piecing together the past that hasn't-- in places that people haven't seen or haven't looked at, these certain areas.

And so to do so is going to require that the historian come to this with questions that are not asking merely, you know, what happened, but why did this happen, and what parts are hidden? And I think that's a different kind of question. That's, kind of, more of a People's History Of The United States, Howard Zinn, type of question, you know?

And so-- and I think, then, that they misread the proposal of the project. Like, Tiya Miles, who is one of the ones who is the interstitial, sort of, commentators, and had, you know, lots of very short, really incisive, kind of, I don't know if we call it inflection points within the narratives? But Tiya Miles is someone I've known for just a little bit.

And I was asking her, I was like, well, what do you think that these, you know, what do you think of all the push back, you know, what you think? She's like, oh, people are just misreading that this is a proposal, it's proposing to look-- it's not to say that, like, this is not truly history, it is truly history. But it's also proposing asking different sets of questions, you know. And so I would think that those are kind of the three major camps of the push back.

SARAH BALDWIN: Well, speaking of proposal, and I love that you frame it that way. And speaking of the inception of this country, the project is, kind of, proposing that, instead of July 4th, Seventeen-Seventy-Six, we consider a day in August, Sixteen-Nineteen, as the country's birth date. And I wonder, do you think it's possible or even desirable to commemorate both?

ZZ PACKER: I think that both, probably, should be. You know, I think that-- Nicole Hannah-Jones wasn't saying-- and I don't want to put words into her mouth, because she's written, herself, eloquently, about this. But the idea is, why do you choose one date over the other, any other possible set of dates anyway? You know, you choose them because you feel as though something momentous has happened on X date, you know.

And so the idea isn't that-- I'm never one of the ones who's saying, oh, forget Seventeen-Seventy-Six, I'm not going to say that, by any means or stretch of the imagination. But the idea would be, what are these moments that actually were these seminal moments in American history, that actually, we could consider to be a certain founding, you know, the beginning of a certain founding story, you know? And because America is this confluence of several, if not multitudes, of stories, you know, the idea that there's only the one in which we talk about the revolution, or the [INAUDIBLE], or these any of these dates, is the, kind of, story that presents a particular narrative. And that goes back to that, sort of, foundational, like, founding fathers narrative that I spoke of.

And that's one set, you know, of dates, you know? And I'm not saying that those dates are wrong, or like talking about them is wrong or anything. But then that eras-- but the prominence of those dates, then, actually, acts as an eraser for other dates.

And so if you're an African American, not just if you're African-American, as I am, but since so much stuff is based on slavery, since so many of our policies and our ways of thinking that are just ingrained, this is not just-- I'm not trying to excuse it and say it's not just a white thing. But when something becomes so ingrained that it's an everything everything. That like, you know, you come to this country as an immigrant, and then you're automatically coded in these ways that don't even look like racism, they're just part and parcel of your-- then you have to think, well, what is the date that's important for that?

You know, so when Nicole Hannah-Jones, you know, has, you know, Sixteen-Nineteen as that date, this is the proposal for the start of that narrative.

SARAH BALDWIN: Yeah, it's more both/and. And I would argue that it enhances everybody's humanity, to be inclusive in the way we look at what happened and why things are the way they are.

ZZ PACKER: I think so too. I think that's one of the, you know, reasons why I, kind of, applaud having, you know, not just having African-American studies just for African-Americans, you know what I'm saying? And that's why I feel as though it's very necessary for everyone to be studying this. And studying this not in a way of saying, oh-- we have this idea, I mean, I think, you know, the university model has changed in this way. But our general way of thinking about education is that, when something is studied, that just means it's important. And because some things occupy a certain space and other things don't, almost de facto, those are the things that are considered more important than these other things that aren't studied.

So the idea is that, OK, you know, let's bring this here, so that everyone can study it. And so that we can have this way in which this history that before was, kind of, like, oh, OK, this is just reserved for African-Americans. No, it has to be part of American history. So I feel as though the Sixteen-Nineteen Project was trying to make it such that every American who could get the New York Times, our newspaper or whatever, could then be a part of this history. And it isn't just, sort of, for those who are at university classes, or those who are taking our race theory class, or those who are taking a class on a particular aspect of African-American history.

SARAH BALDWIN: Right, it takes it out of the, sort of, safe confines of Black History Month, which is, you know, when everyone gets together and studies in this really contained space of time something that is everybody's history.

ZZ PACKER: I'm in complete agreement. I feel as though, Black History Month, you know, is excellent, we have Black History Month. Great, it was expanded from Black History Week, and now it's a month. But then the idea that it's, somehow, cordoned off from, you know, American history, it's just a-- you know, it involves several fallacies. So I feel that we have to find these other channels and ways of making history accessible and making history be something that we think about in our daily lives. And not just reserve for one month or not just reserved for history classes.

So I think that-- and I've noticed that there are the articles-- not to say that before the Sixteen-Nineteen Project that this didn't happen, but I've noticed, since the Sixteen-NineteenProject, there are articles that will, kind of, unabashedly bring in whole texts and blocks of text about the historical background, that leads to what we have today. And I just love that type of writing, and it's usually only able to be done in long form journalism. But I've seen it now, sort of, creep out into, just even articles that you'll be reading. And this happens with, you know, especially since the coronavirus pandemic, to bring people up to speed on what's happened, what is the coronavirus, how has it happened?

So now, that whole aspect of history being part and parcel of our present day life, you know, is now becoming more acceptable and, hopefully, it'll continue to be.

SARAH BALDWIN: I'm also interested in the course you taught at Watson, you called it, The Sixteen-Nineteen Project: Governing Narratives. And you wrote that those who govern the narrative often govern the nation. I think that is playing out in terrifying ways in this moment. But even generally, I think that's interesting. So I wonder, what were you setting out to do with your students, by centering this notion of narrative, by making it it's central theme?

ZZ PACKER: Yeah, I mean, even as much as I'm just, like, interested in history, and do tons of research, and policy, and all that stuff, I am, primarily, even before being a nonfiction writer, a fiction writer. And so the idea of a narrative, to me, I felt as though I couldn't come at this from, you know, my, sort of, secondary and tertiary loves of policy and history. You know, the only way I could come to bear with this, you know, over this project was to discuss it in terms of narrative, which I do feel as though I'm, you know, expert about and knowledgeable about. And I love narrative, so this is a thing that I wanted it to be the focus.

So all of the ways in which metaphors are created contribute to how narratives are pieced together. Like we're always spinning narratives, like, me, you. But when we have a party spinning a narrative, or we have a particular ruling group spinning narrative, or we have an undergroup, an underclass, spinning its own counter narrative, then we have ways in which, you know, the war is not a physical war. It's a war of ideas and words. And whoever can, sort of, master those-- master is, sort of, a loaded word itself, but whoever can, you know, take whatever discourse has come before it, and either use it or change it and reframe it, is the one who can gain a temporary foothold, in terms of-- I hesitate to say power, but in terms of getting their narrative heard.

You know, and so I wanted to just bring students attention to this. That like, we talked about the dates before, and Seventeen-Seventy-Six being the start of one particular set of dates that we want to talk about. And there's this other set of dates that we want to talk about as well. So who, then, decides that, you know? And how do they come up to decide that, and what are these set foundational documents that, like, decide certain things and create a, sort of, myth, you know?

And if, you know, if you have a people that yet doesn't have a myth, or that the myth is, sort of, within their own local circles, and that doesn't become part and parcel of the, sort of, national narrative, then you have problems. But you have these problems-- I'm not going to say this just is only an American one, this is every, you know, nation, culture that, you know, that exists. And so it's always this, sort of, you know, internecine battle between, you know, how can someone get hurt. If you're Rohingya, you know, and, you know, Myanmar since Burma, how, then, can you be heard, if you're corralled into these camps, you know? What do you say, if you're someone, if you're Gandhi, like how do you get someone to listen to you, you know?

And so I felt as though for the students to look at that and learn that this is what the Sixteen-Nineteen Project came out of, but that it's ever expandable to their own lives and how they go forth in the world. And to me, it was very interesting, because, you know, I've never really been around Brown students. I was just like-- and I'm not saying this because I'm doing this for Watson and [INAUDIBLE] radio, but I was, sort of, like, OK, I need my kid to go to Brown.

Because there was some of the most-- just, they're really, sort of, just, eloquence in a particular way, and being able to explain, you know, what they, you know, thought of, not just the class, but of the ideas. It wasn't just that they were incredibly learned, it was they're incredibly thoughtful, and engaged, and just able to be eloquent and articulate in ways that, sometimes, even eluded me. So I was, just, sort of, blown away by their ability to engage on such a deep level.

SARAH BALDWIN: That's really cool. I was going to ask you how, you know, how eye opening in the material was for them. But it sounds like they were right on board with you and certainly learning from you, but, kind of, aligned with your message.

ZZ PACKER: Well, I think, also, because some of them came from so many different-- this was the idea for the study group, that might not, necessarily, be considered a class, they came from so many different backgrounds. Some were in poly-sci, some were in economics, some were in [INAUDIBLE]. But a lot of them, they just, I would ask, if they were in poly-sci, or history, or something like that, I would ask, well, why did you take it? They were just like, oh, I'm just interested in this. You know, I wanted to look at what this was and how it was going to-- I'm concerned with it. And I'm thinking about narratives, I'm thinking about history, I'm thinking about the ways in which political narratives changed, or enact political change.

And there might be others, like some of the-- like a biology major or something like that. So I was just, sort of, like, they're all coming from these very varied backgrounds, and concentrations, and they're bringing all of that to bear. And that's, kind of, what narrative does, you know?

You know, there's never just a, like, oh, there's a field of expertise and then that's just the only thing that goes into the narrative. I mean, there are ways in which it's partly rhetoric, it's partly, you know, the subject matter, it's partly the teller, and the arena in which it's told, who was in the audience. You know, all the ways in which the Brown students, themselves, came to the study group, sort of, mimicked, in a way, the way narrative operates. So I think that's why I was just very pleased with it.

SARAH BALDWIN: I think we have to wrap up, but I've just enjoyed this conversation so much. And I hope you keep producing things for us to read and think about, and I hope you'll come back to Watson.

ZZ PACKER: Oh, thank you so much, Sarah. This has been amazing, and just so much fun, and I appreciate it.

SARAH BALDWIN: Thank you, ZZ.

This episode of Trending Globally was produced by Dan Richards and Babette Thomas. Our theme music is by Henry Bloomfield, I'm Sarah Baldwin. You can subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app. If you like what you hear, leave us a rating and review on iTunes. It really helps others find the show.

For more information about this and other shows, go to watson.brown.edu. Thanks for listening and tune in in two weeks for another episode of Trending Globally.