Daily Herald opinion: ‘Bad’ move: Trump’s targeting of Smithsonian a disturbing attempt to gloss over slavery’s impact on American history
Coming off a busy week of meetings with world leaders over the ongoing war in Ukraine, President Donald Trump turned his attention Tuesday to a different battle: the war on woke.
His target? The Smithsonian Institution and its portrayal of American history.
His administration is now conducting a review of the museum’s exhibits, and Trump wants the removal of content he finds objectionable in “tone, historical framing and alignment with American ideals.”
He, of course, gets to define those ideals.
“The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future,” Trump said in a social media post. “This Country cannot be WOKE, because WOKE IS BROKE. We have the ‘HOTTEST’ Country in the World, and we want people to talk about it, including in our Museums.”
We can assume here that by “hottest” he is not referring to global warming, because that too appears to be a taboo topic.
Instead, Trump, who has repeatedly attacked diversity programs, singled out a focus on “how bad slavery was,” choosing a woefully inadequate adjective to describe nearly 250 years of forced labor that condoned imprisonment, torture, rape, murder and the sanctioned sale of human beings — Black men, women and children — with no more concern than a farmer unloading a cow.
“Bad” indeed.
Setting word choice aside, Trump’s concern about a focus on slavery ignores its profound effect on America’s past and present. The implication that the museum should gloss over slavery serves to downplay the trauma and distort history — a move that should worry any American who values truth over political posturing.
Black history isn’t the only target.
On the White House website Thursday, under a headline “President Trump is right about the Smithsonian,” the administration offers up a list of apparently concerning displays and works of art including an LGBTQ+ history exhibit, a painting depicting immigrants crossing the border illegally and a “stop-motion drawing animation” examining the career of Anthony Fauci. It also takes to task “an anti-American exhibit that defines Latino history as centuries of victimhood and exploitation, suggests the U.S. is stolen land, and characterizes U.S. history as rooted in ‘colonization.’”
As the Washington Post reported this week, a number of historical organizations are speaking out about political interference at the Smithsonian.
“Museums’ role is to tell the full story of America — our triumphs and our struggles,” the American Alliance of Museums said in a statement. “When we confront difficult chapters of history alongside our greatest achievements, we gain a deeper understanding of who we are as a nation. American exceptionalism is rooted in growth, triumph, and progress, and we can’t fully understand it without also reckoning with our history and origins.”
Suse Anderson, associate professor and head of museum studies at George Washington University, went further.
“Across the Institution, the highly trained professionals at the Smithsonian use the nation’s collections to tell a more complete American story — not just one that favors a narrow view of history,” she said. “Any political interference with that work has perilous ramifications for our shared understanding of the past and our shared imagining of the future, and it should be treated with alarm.”
Trump’s post accuses the Smithsonian of failing to focus on the “brightness” of our nation and including “nothing” about its future.
But even the darkest chapters in history have their glimmers of light. Through our studies of slavery, we learn of the brave souls who guided slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad, we better understand the contributions of President Abraham Lincoln, we see the roots of the civil rights movement and we honor those who gave their lives in the Civil War to preserve the union.
And the Smithsonian’s stated vision does indeed address the future, emphasizing its mission to provide Americans and others — through its collections — “with the tools and information they need to forge Our Shared Future.”
Those tools must include truth, no matter how inconvenient.