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?