I don't agree. It's an interesting historical story, and historical material has always been welcome on HN. There's much to be intellectually curious about there, and no need to be provoked onto an ideological track.

For those who do feel provoked, the appropriate response is (1) not to comment, and (2) to look elsewhere for things that do gratify your intellectual curiosity. There are 29 other threads on the front page, and hundreds more within a single click.

What political agenda is the OP pushing? Please be specific.

It does apply to articles, but classifying this one as "ideological or political battle" is quite excessive. I thought it was intellectually interesting, quite apart from current political affairs, and I'm sure a lot of other readers will as well. They should be allowed to discuss the article in an intellectually curious way [1], without getting drowned out by other people's political reflexes [2].

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

What about this particular article makes it flamebait or narrative-pushing?

It's a feature for the art section and far as NYT articles go...mild.

How is a story that tells the story of someone who was a slave and the brother of a famous American author "flamebait", "political", or "ideological"?

Frankly, take a look at the juxtaposition of your comment to the GP. They're insinuating even printing this story is somehow the mission of American Democrats - more directly that American Democrats are responsible for printing the story of international slaves. If that were even remotely true then that's absolutely shameful. The world had slaves for a long time across multitudes of generations, societies, and cultures. We should know their history lest we be damned to repeat it.

What about the article is flamebait?