He was trying to sidestep the core of the 1619 project by picking out one essay and elevating it. It a rhetorical technique. Acknowledge the other sides points quickly. Then move on to your views/arguments and drill down and linger there as long as possible. Ezra Klein does this a lot. He says things like “I agree there is reason to be concerned with X (your stuff) but what I really want to focus on is Y (my stuff). Rajiv did the same thing with CRT. Basically he said sure there are reasons to be concerned but let’s talk a lot about the backlash. Those people are the real problem.
He was trying to sidestep the core of the 1619 project by picking out one essay and elevating it. It a rhetorical technique. Acknowledge the other sides points quickly. Then move on to your views/arguments and drill down and linger there as long as possible. Ezra Klein does this a lot. He says things like “I agree there is reason to be concerned with X (your stuff) but what I really want to focus on is Y (my stuff). Rajiv did the same thing with CRT. Basically he said sure there are reasons to be concerned but let’s talk a lot about the backlash. Those people are the real problem.