The Nottoway Effect: It’s Time to Burn Down America’s Historical Lies (YouTube Video Transcript)

(00:00:00) Your YouTube transcript will appear here (00:00:01) Hey folks, if you're applauding the (00:00:03) recent burning of Nawway Plantation in (00:00:05) Louisiana, and who isn't, and what it (00:00:07) represented, a fantasy of white luxury (00:00:10) built on the brutalization of black (00:00:11) people, and let us not forget the (00:00:14) absolute eraser of their history, then (00:00:17) let's be consistent. Let's talk about (00:00:20) why places like Mount Vernon and (00:00:22) Montichello and Montpillar and countless (00:00:25) similar shrines get a pass. (00:00:29) The places are fundamentally the same, (00:00:30) aren't they? Forced labor camps, (00:00:33) meticulously preserved to perpetuate a (00:00:35) mythical past of glorious white history. (00:00:39) Otherwise, why go the standard defense? (00:00:42) These are the homes of the founding (00:00:44) fathers who supposedly created our (00:00:46) nation. The difference is just branding (00:00:48) between Nawway and Mount (00:00:50) Vernon. This is a terrible moral (00:00:53) calculation. So it's implicit in (00:00:55) everything that Mount Vernon or (00:00:57) Montichello or Colonial Williamsburg or (00:00:58) Mont Pillar just go down the list does. (00:01:01) And the t-shirts with their logos that (00:01:03) people wear without any sense of irony (00:01:06) is this outrageous presumption that the (00:01:08) lives of Washington and Jefferson for (00:01:10) example are (00:01:12) inherently more valuable than the (00:01:14) countless enslaved people whose forced (00:01:16) labor made every moment of their (00:01:19) privileged lives possible. (00:01:22) They mattered (00:01:24) more. But the burning truth, they (00:01:29) weren't the founders. They didn't matter (00:01:32) like too many people think they do on (00:01:33) the right and on the left. They didn't (00:01:35) create our country, the America that we (00:01:39) actually live in, or the ones at least (00:01:40) that we aspire to live in. It's not the (00:01:43) one that they envisioned. They don't (00:01:45) deserve the unending celebration, the (00:01:47) countless documentaries, all of the (00:01:49) goofballs who dress up like them for a (00:01:53) living, and more importantly, not the (00:01:55) difference that demands, we segregate (00:01:58) their history from the horrors that it (00:02:00) was built on. (00:02:02) So even at sites praised for (00:02:04) acknowledging black history, which is a (00:02:06) pathetically low bar when you consider (00:02:08) how black history drove these places, (00:02:11) you get at best a segregated slave life (00:02:14) tour or a token exhibit, maybe even a (00:02:17) web page and a few trad style Instagram (00:02:20) posts. No Whitney plantations of these. (00:02:22) We can count on one hand the number of (00:02:25) places who do this the right way. these (00:02:30) places. The rule to which Whitney (00:02:32) Plantation is the (00:02:34) exception is performative, curated to (00:02:38) soften the brutality, a cozy, gauzy (00:02:41) aesthetics like living in a Ken Burns (00:02:43) documentary. Q sentimental (00:02:46) music like Mount Vernon throwing in a (00:02:49) reference to the beautiful uniforms of (00:02:51) Washington's house servants to distract (00:02:54) from the chains keeping them in (00:02:56) position. By the way, that photo of the (00:02:58) smiling man in his prison uniform, (00:03:00) that's straight from Mount Vernon's (00:03:02) Instagram. They want you to see this (00:03:05) nice clothes. He's smiling. What's this (00:03:08) picture really (00:03:09) about? What story are they really (00:03:12) telling (00:03:13) there? And Montichello, which gets (00:03:16) celebrated by all kinds of white people (00:03:18) for doing it the right way, for being (00:03:20) the gold (00:03:22) standard. Let's take a look. If you show (00:03:25) up today, it costs you a minimum of $42 (00:03:27) for an adult to get in. That gets you (00:03:29) the 30inute highlights tour that covers (00:03:32) the first floor of the house and Thomas (00:03:34) Jefferson, the architecture and (00:03:37) slavery. It goes off every 15 minutes (00:03:40) and is the main (00:03:42) experience. You could also get a (00:03:44) behindthescenes tour, 99 bucks, it goes (00:03:47) off every 30 minutes. um and is an (00:03:50) indepth set of stories about Jefferson, (00:03:53) his family, Montichello's enslaved (00:03:56) residents. Really, they refer to (00:03:58) enslaved people as residents, like they (00:04:01) could break their lease and just (00:04:04) go. But do you want a tour that actually (00:04:07) centers the experience of the people (00:04:09) whose home it really was, who made it, (00:04:11) who paid for it? Better show up early. (00:04:14) The From Slavery to Freedom Tour, which (00:04:16) used to be the Hemings Family Tour, but (00:04:18) the From Slavery to Freedom Tour, much (00:04:21) better spin that one, is once a day at (00:04:24) 9:05 a.m. Get up early. That's it. (00:04:27) That's what you got. (00:04:30) But Montichello's new founding foes (00:04:33) special tour about Jefferson's (00:04:35) relationship with John Adams was (00:04:37) specially created for the 250th (00:04:39) anniversary about the declaration about (00:04:41) two men who I kid you not created (00:04:44) according to Monachello a (00:04:47) democracy. (00:04:48) Huh? This is going to be news to (00:04:50) historians of that period. But Jane (00:04:52) Kmenky who now runs Monachello is not a (00:04:54) historian of that period. So she (00:04:56) wouldn't know. (00:04:58) But you can get that story four times a (00:05:01) day. In the evening, you can get dinner (00:05:03) for uh for an extra 25 bucks. And they (00:05:06) say to discuss civics, maybe that whole (00:05:08) democracy thing that they totally didn't (00:05:10) do. And that dinner, which they call a (00:05:13) feast of reason inspired by the 18th (00:05:16) century, would have been paid for, (00:05:18) prepared, and served by just who. And (00:05:22) Montichello supposedly does it well. (00:05:26) And yes, these sites of generational (00:05:27) black oppression happily host white (00:05:29) weddings and parties, but some of them (00:05:31) are more sanctimonious and sneaky about (00:05:34) it than others, like (00:05:36) Montichello. Check this out. This is (00:05:40) what they say on their weddings page. As (00:05:42) a sight of conscience, we are committed (00:05:44) to engaging our guests with a deeper (00:05:47) understanding of Montichello's history (00:05:48) as a plantation. Out of respect for the (00:05:51) enslaved men, women, and children who (00:05:53) lived and labored here, we do not allow (00:05:55) private non-educational events on the (00:05:58) west lawn, Malbury Row, or elsewhere on (00:06:00) the mountaintop. In in Montichello (00:06:02) speak, the mountaintop is where the main (00:06:05) house is. However, there is more to (00:06:08) Montichello than just the main house, (00:06:09) just like there was more Thomas (00:06:10) Jefferson's plantation than just the (00:06:13) home quarter. So if you still want your (00:06:16) special Thomas Jefferson enslaver (00:06:19) ambiance, you can get married at (00:06:21) Montalto, the larger mountain right next (00:06:23) to Montichello where the library is and (00:06:25) where I had an office and which (00:06:28) Jefferson of course owned and enslaved (00:06:30) men, women, and children labored. So (00:06:35) it's very clear that Montichello's (00:06:36) respect for those enslaved people has (00:06:38) its limits. Montichello's response, (00:06:42) well, we know they worked there, but (00:06:44) they didn't live there, so it's okay. (00:06:48) It's a very strange concept of (00:06:50) conscience. So, why do these men in (00:06:53) their homes deserve that consideration? (00:06:55) All of the ethical pretzels that people (00:06:58) insist on twisting themselves into to (00:07:00) serve that vision because they founded (00:07:03) America, right? But which America? (00:07:09) not the one you're probably thinking (00:07:11) about. They founded what historians (00:07:13) increasingly recognize as the first (00:07:15) republic, a failed ethnostate called the (00:07:18) United States established by the 1787 (00:07:21) Constitution. It wasn't some noble (00:07:24) experiment in liberty for all. No matter (00:07:26) how many times John Meechum says it was, (00:07:28) it was a project hijacked by a select (00:07:31) few to centralize power, consolidate (00:07:34) white dominance, and inextricably link (00:07:37) political authority to child slavery, (00:07:39) enshrining the definition of people as (00:07:42) property into national law. It didn't (00:07:44) have to happen that way. It could have (00:07:46) gone another way and a different version (00:07:48) of the United States would have emerged. (00:07:50) There was a United States before the (00:07:51) Philadelphia Convention. There would (00:07:52) have been a United States after the the (00:07:54) Philadelphia Convention. It was neither (00:07:57) inevitable nor was that Constitution (00:07:59) essential, but it was pushed through (00:08:02) with some stunning political efficiency (00:08:05) on the part of James Madison and (00:08:06) Alexander (00:08:08) Hamilton. That first republic explicitly (00:08:11) denied citizenship to black people. They (00:08:13) literally defined it only in racial (00:08:15) terms. The 1790 naturalization act (00:08:19) defined citizenship as only for free (00:08:22) white (00:08:24) people. That first republic expanded (00:08:27) slavery into new territories. Of course, (00:08:29) they would, having tied it to political (00:08:31) power. They were the architects of (00:08:32) manifest destiny and the Trail of Tears. (00:08:35) That first republic's bill of rights (00:08:37) didn't apply to the states or protect (00:08:39) liberty at all. But that first republic (00:08:41) was destroyed. It took the Civil War, a (00:08:44) war fought to preserve that white (00:08:46) supremacist ethnostate, to burn it down. (00:08:50) The real founding of the country we (00:08:52) inhabit today, our new birth of freedom, (00:08:54) came with victory in that war and the (00:08:57) ratification of the 14th Amendment in (00:08:59) 1868 and the 15th in 1870. That was the (00:09:03) realization of an American Revolution, (00:09:06) birthright citizenship for all, (00:09:07) regardless of color. Neither Congress (00:09:09) nor a president could have any say in (00:09:11) that. (00:09:13) No state could deny due process or equal (00:09:15) protection under the law. The Bill of (00:09:17) Rights applies to them, too. The obscene (00:09:19) three-fifths clause (00:09:21) gone. This was the birth of the Second (00:09:24) Republic, the successor state to the (00:09:27) first one. The moment the United States (00:09:30) could finally begin to wake up from the (00:09:31) nightmare that was the first republic, (00:09:34) the men of Mount Vernon and Montichello (00:09:36) and Montpielar, their direct descendants (00:09:38) and relatives and ideological heirs, (00:09:41) fought to preserve the first republic in (00:09:43) the Civil War. George Washington himself (00:09:46) was the literal symbol of the (00:09:48) Confederacy. That is not a (00:09:50) coincidence. Those founders would have (00:09:53) disowned the nation envisioned by the (00:09:55) 14th Amendment. (00:09:57) So, did the Second Republic immediately (00:10:00) usher in some sort of wonderful vision (00:10:02) of liberty for all? Of course not. This (00:10:04) is America. It's still going to do its (00:10:05) America thing. The heirs of the (00:10:07) enslavers, the First Republic's (00:10:08) loyalists, never stopped fighting. They (00:10:11) won in courts. They won in Congress. And (00:10:13) crucially, they won the story battle (00:10:16) through books, films, monuments, (00:10:18) textbooks. They wo lost cause narrative (00:10:21) and then the patriot myth. These (00:10:23) tapestries of lies for white people to (00:10:25) cling to. twisting facts and erasing (00:10:28) truths. That propaganda became what we (00:10:31) in public history call heritage history, (00:10:33) which is all about the heritage and (00:10:35) nothing at all about the history. And (00:10:37) that set the script of lies pedled uh (00:10:40) about the founding fathers at their (00:10:42) estates and (00:10:44) gardens. These sites are not neutral (00:10:47) historical grounds. They are active (00:10:48) weapons in an ongoing narrative war. (00:10:51) They spin disinformation on site and (00:10:54) online on a daily basis. And they enable (00:10:57) their far-right allies safe places to (00:10:59) weave their own historical fantasies (00:11:02) without being (00:11:03) countered. And they all spin the lie (00:11:06) that the first republic was the loving (00:11:08) parent of the nation that we became, not (00:11:10) its enemy. They legitimize the idea that (00:11:13) the words and intentions of those first (00:11:15) republic founders, men who would have (00:11:18) abhored modern America should still (00:11:20) dictate our lives. They enable the first (00:11:23) republic's contemporary heirs to insist (00:11:25) on the relevance of an oppressive failed (00:11:27) state. And they continue for profit to (00:11:31) white people to gain from the stolen (00:11:34) labor and brutalized memory of black (00:11:37) people. But the battle isn't over. Those (00:11:40) who seek to restore that first republic (00:11:42) are hard at work today every single day (00:11:44) in real time rebuilding brick by brick (00:11:46) and the historical narratives pushed by (00:11:47) the current regime align with that and (00:11:49) they perpetuate that. They perpetuate (00:11:51) the lies cemented at these sites. Just (00:11:54) look at the 1776 commission report and (00:11:56) all of the new guidance now in place (00:11:58) across the federal government that is (00:11:59) drawn for it and you will find more (00:12:01) consistency with that vision at these (00:12:03) places than you will find difference. (00:12:06) They all insist that we still live in (00:12:08) the first republic. That's when America (00:12:10) was great after all and its history (00:12:13) should control our present and future. (00:12:14) Step back into the past and then bring (00:12:16) that past raging back into the present. (00:12:19) Effectively erasing the revolutionary (00:12:22) vision of the second republic's (00:12:24) founders. So when we think about the (00:12:27) power of Naway's destruction, let's (00:12:29) extend that critical gay, shall we? (00:12:32) Let's apply the notway effect to Mount (00:12:35) Vernon, to (00:12:37) Montichello, to Mont (00:12:39) Peelar. It's time to metaphorically burn (00:12:42) their legacy to the ground. Torch their (00:12:45) lies online and on site on Tik Tok, on (00:12:48) Instagram, and on tours, on YouTube, and (00:12:51) outside of their gates. Expose those who (00:12:53) segregate or erase others in their (00:12:58) storytelling. This isn't about rewriting (00:13:00) history. It's about correcting it. It's (00:13:02) about fighting for the memory and vision (00:13:04) of the real founders, those of the (00:13:05) second republic, people like Frederick (00:13:07) Douglas, who gave us the framework for (00:13:10) the nation that so many of you are still (00:13:12) struggling for us to fully become. The (00:13:15) fight against the First Republic's (00:13:16) hateful memory is a fight for our (00:13:19) future, to destroy that hate. (00:13:23) So to arm yourself for this fight and (00:13:25) truly understand the stakes, ditch the (00:13:27) textbooks that fed you the old lies and (00:13:28) dive into the work of scholars who are (00:13:30) excavating the truth. Read Nisha on the (00:13:33) abolitionists and the revolutionary (00:13:35) promise of the second republic. Let (00:13:37) Martha Jones school you on birthright (00:13:39) citizenship. Understand how the lost (00:13:42) cause was manufactured and maintained (00:13:43) with Karen Cox. Journey with Clint Smith (00:13:46) as he reckons with the legacy of slavery (00:13:48) literally etched into the American (00:13:50) landscape. And for an unvarnished, (00:13:52) unapologetically black perspective on (00:13:54) our history, turn to Michael Harriet. (00:13:57) Their words are matches.