This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . The next check for changes will be
You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/22/trump-slavery-bad-smithsonian
The article has changed 2 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
Previous version
1
Next version
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| We shouldn’t focus on ‘how bad slavery was’ says Trump. What’s next? | We shouldn’t focus on ‘how bad slavery was’ says Trump. What’s next? |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| Trump’s attacks on the Smithsonian are meant to convince us that truth doesn’t matter and we should blindly accept his lies | Trump’s attacks on the Smithsonian are meant to convince us that truth doesn’t matter and we should blindly accept his lies |
| Donald Trump’s critique of the Smithsonian Institution for its focus on “how bad slavery was” might seem like a joke, except that, like so many of the ignorant, mean-spirited and flat-out racist opinions and directives issued by the White House over the last six months, it’s not even remotely funny. | Donald Trump’s critique of the Smithsonian Institution for its focus on “how bad slavery was” might seem like a joke, except that, like so many of the ignorant, mean-spirited and flat-out racist opinions and directives issued by the White House over the last six months, it’s not even remotely funny. |
| What makes it even more absurd and disturbing is that the president and his minions (JD Vance, the vice-president, sits on the Smithsonian’s board) are determined to micro-manage the exhibits and wall texts on view at the 21 museums that operate under the Smithsonian’s aegis and to replace the truth about history with “unifying and constructive descriptions”. Among the proscribed images are a picture of the former NIAID director Dr Anthony Fauci (one of the president’s perceived enemies) and a photo of immigrants watching fireworks through a gap in the border wall. | What makes it even more absurd and disturbing is that the president and his minions (JD Vance, the vice-president, sits on the Smithsonian’s board) are determined to micro-manage the exhibits and wall texts on view at the 21 museums that operate under the Smithsonian’s aegis and to replace the truth about history with “unifying and constructive descriptions”. Among the proscribed images are a picture of the former NIAID director Dr Anthony Fauci (one of the president’s perceived enemies) and a photo of immigrants watching fireworks through a gap in the border wall. |
| Apparently, the purpose of removing programs that “degrade shared American values, divide Americans by race or promote ideologies inconsistent with federal law” is to present the American past as an unblemished landscape of positivity and perfection, to pretend that nothing wrong – let alone evil – has been done on our shores since our nation’s founding. | Apparently, the purpose of removing programs that “degrade shared American values, divide Americans by race or promote ideologies inconsistent with federal law” is to present the American past as an unblemished landscape of positivity and perfection, to pretend that nothing wrong – let alone evil – has been done on our shores since our nation’s founding. |
| The point is to create a national identity that mirrors the president’s own view of himself as a model of moral purity, an angelic being who has never made a mistake that merits an apology or even a moment of regret. If white America has never harmed, disenfranchised, enslaved and slaughtered our Black and Indigenous American populations, then clearly there’s no reason to take the measures – such as the establishment of DEI programs – designed to remedy the inequities and cruelties that the powerful have inflicted on the weak. | The point is to create a national identity that mirrors the president’s own view of himself as a model of moral purity, an angelic being who has never made a mistake that merits an apology or even a moment of regret. If white America has never harmed, disenfranchised, enslaved and slaughtered our Black and Indigenous American populations, then clearly there’s no reason to take the measures – such as the establishment of DEI programs – designed to remedy the inequities and cruelties that the powerful have inflicted on the weak. |
| Like many “ideas” that have been issued from the Oval Office, this one doesn’t seem to have been thought through with any clarity or even common sense. Even the most diehard Maga supporters would probably agree that slavery is, by definition, “bad”. It’s not a delusional fantasy of woke ideologues to suggest that it’s wrong to whip and shackle, to buy and sell our fellow human beings. | |
| Consequently, the only way to avoid making slavery look “bad” is not to mention it at all, not to admit that it ever existed, not to acknowledge that from our country’s inception to the end of the civil war, this crime against humanity was perfectly legal. | Consequently, the only way to avoid making slavery look “bad” is not to mention it at all, not to admit that it ever existed, not to acknowledge that from our country’s inception to the end of the civil war, this crime against humanity was perfectly legal. |
| Presumably, the history of the civil rights movement – the image of George Wallace, the Alabama governor, setting his attack dogs loose on Black demonstrators is another “bad” look for America – will also be erased from the museum walls. Why would we need to learn about the courage it took to desegregate schools and lunch counters when we have effectively censored the fact that they were ever segregated at all? | Presumably, the history of the civil rights movement – the image of George Wallace, the Alabama governor, setting his attack dogs loose on Black demonstrators is another “bad” look for America – will also be erased from the museum walls. Why would we need to learn about the courage it took to desegregate schools and lunch counters when we have effectively censored the fact that they were ever segregated at all? |
| To whitewash (pun intended) history, to prevent students and museumgoers from learning the truth is not only a grave insult to Black and Indigenous Americans but a problem for us all. Because the fact is that the past explains the present, and without history, there’s no way of understanding how we arrived at the current moment. | To whitewash (pun intended) history, to prevent students and museumgoers from learning the truth is not only a grave insult to Black and Indigenous Americans but a problem for us all. Because the fact is that the past explains the present, and without history, there’s no way of understanding how we arrived at the current moment. |
| Students whose teachers hope to supplement their education with a trip to the Smithsonian will leave the museum understandably perplexed. Does Donald Trump want them to conclude that the majority of Black people traveled to our shores, first class, on the ship that brought his ancestors here from Bavaria? If there was no slavery, why was the civil war fought? Did Indigenous Americans elect to have their land stolen, to be massacred and forced on to reservations, to see their children taken away and sent to harsh and punitive boarding schools? | |
| In my experience, people in general – and children in particular – know when they are being lied to. More than likely, kids will sense that something about the museum exhibit they just saw doesn’t add up, that an essential part of the story has been left out. | In my experience, people in general – and children in particular – know when they are being lied to. More than likely, kids will sense that something about the museum exhibit they just saw doesn’t add up, that an essential part of the story has been left out. |
| But maybe that’s really the point. The attack on museums, like the assault on education, is meant to convince us that the truth doesn’t matter, that there is no truth, that the wisest course is to blindly accept and repeat whatever lies an authoritarian government chooses to tell. | But maybe that’s really the point. The attack on museums, like the assault on education, is meant to convince us that the truth doesn’t matter, that there is no truth, that the wisest course is to blindly accept and repeat whatever lies an authoritarian government chooses to tell. |
| There’s some disagreement about who first said: “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” Some claim it was Winston Churchill, others attribute it to George Santayana. But does anyone doubt its veracity? | There’s some disagreement about who first said: “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” Some claim it was Winston Churchill, others attribute it to George Santayana. But does anyone doubt its veracity? |
| Perhaps the most nightmarish explanation is that our current administration actually wants us to repeat the most loathsome events of our common past – and to be assured that every act of brutality will disappear from our collective consciousness. There’s a terrifying kind of freedom in knowing that our most odious deeds will be erased from our historical memory, that what we do now will have no consequences – indeed, no reality – in the years to come. | Perhaps the most nightmarish explanation is that our current administration actually wants us to repeat the most loathsome events of our common past – and to be assured that every act of brutality will disappear from our collective consciousness. There’s a terrifying kind of freedom in knowing that our most odious deeds will be erased from our historical memory, that what we do now will have no consequences – indeed, no reality – in the years to come. |
| According to the “historically accurate” museum exhibits and history books of the future, there will have been no slavery, there was no discrimination, there were no massacres of our Indigenous population. There was never a time when hard-working, law-abiding immigrant families were separated, when yet more children were stolen from their parents, when, according to the current estimate, 80,000 people – most of them entirely innocent – were imprisoned, when thousands more were kidnapped off the streets and deported from a country they had labored so hard to benefit. And none of this will be mentioned, none of this can be said or written on a wall text, lest we allow the unpatriotic ideologues to make America look bad. | According to the “historically accurate” museum exhibits and history books of the future, there will have been no slavery, there was no discrimination, there were no massacres of our Indigenous population. There was never a time when hard-working, law-abiding immigrant families were separated, when yet more children were stolen from their parents, when, according to the current estimate, 80,000 people – most of them entirely innocent – were imprisoned, when thousands more were kidnapped off the streets and deported from a country they had labored so hard to benefit. And none of this will be mentioned, none of this can be said or written on a wall text, lest we allow the unpatriotic ideologues to make America look bad. |
| Francine Prose is a former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences | Francine Prose is a former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences |
| Francine Prose is a former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences | Francine Prose is a former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences |
Previous version
1
Next version