“Our goal is neither criticism nor celebration; it is to understand”
The A.H.A. message is:
The Executive Order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” issued on March 27 by the White House, egregiously misrepresents the work of the Smithsonian Institution. The Smithsonian is among the premier research institutions in the world, widely known for the integrity of its scholarship, which is careful and based on historical and scientific evidence. The Institution ardently pursues the purpose for which it was established more than 175 years ago: “the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” The accusation in the White House fact sheet accompanying the executive order claims that Smithsonian museums are displaying “improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology.” This is simply untrue; it misrepresents the work of those museums and the public’s engagement with their collections and exhibits. It also completely misconstrues the nature of historical work.At the Bulwark, Grand View University history professor Thomas Lecacque also wrote in response:
Historians explore the past to understand how our nation has evolved. We draw on a wide range of sources, which helps us to understand history from different angles of vision. Our goal is neither criticism nor celebration; it is to understand—to increase our knowledge of—the past in ways that can help Americans to shape the future.
The stories that have shaped our past include not only elements that make us proud but also aspects that make us acutely aware of tragedies in our nation’s history. No person, no nation, is perfect, and we should all—as individuals and as nations—learn from our imperfections.
The Smithsonian’s museums collect and preserve the past of all Americans and encompass the entirety of our nation’s history. Visitors explore exhibitions and collections in which they can find themselves, their families, their communities, and their nation represented. They encounter both our achievements and the painful moments of our rich and complicated past.
Patriotic history celebrates our nation’s many great achievements. It also helps us grapple with the less grand and more painful parts of our history. Both are part of a shared past that is fundamentally American. We learn from the past to inform how we can best shape our future. By providing a history with the integrity necessary to enable all Americans to be all they can possibly be, the Smithsonian is fulfilling its duty to all of us.
Trump is mad about the Smithsonian American Art Museum exhibition “The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture” because it “claims that ‘sculpture has been a powerful tool in promoting scientific racism’ and promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct, stating ‘Race is a human invention.’” This is about as honest as the Trump administration has ever been. “Museums in our Nation’s capital,” the order preaches, “should be places where individuals go to learn—not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history.” Apparently, that shared reality is centered on the idea that race is a biological fact. This is not true historically or scientifically or in any other way outside the miserable, backwards swamp logic of white supremacy. . . .In the Guardian, Wellesley College professor Kellie Carter Jackson wrote:
The risk is not that Americans will be misled on particular matters of fact, but that they’ll lose their respect for the idea of the truth—will capitulate to the cynical lies. This, in turn, engenders a cultural atmosphere that is inhospitable to dreams and ideals and hopes. It would be to give up our birthright of earnest optimism and our sense that we can always improve our lot and that of the world.
Trump’s executive order is not about restoring the truth. Quite the opposite. It creates false narratives and myths that promote the supremacy of whiteness. This executive order has the potential for harm because erasure is violence; it robs the public of the truth. Because there is no way to explain slavery and segregation as not “inherently harmful and oppressive”, Trump would rather not explain it at all. . . .And author David M. Perry in Foreign Policy:
It was impossible to separate the story of Black military service and valor from racial discrimination and violence. Similarly, one cannot separate out the “good” from the “bad” in creating an honest narrative about the United States. Accordingly, the [National Museum of African American History and Culture] holds a special place in America, one where the complexity of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are recognized as founding fathers and slaveholders. There is no abolitionist movement without slavery. There is no suffrage movement without women’s denial. There is no civil rights movement without racism and oppression. These are the facts. Museums exist to collect, preserve and exhibit the past as it happened. Archivists and curators care deeply about their mission to be accurate and authentic.
…the United States has already entered a multiyear cycle commemorating the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, but it’s about to intensify as the calendar turns to April, taking the country from celebrations of Paul Revere’s ride (April 18-19, 1775) to the signing of the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776). The executive orders targeting the Smithsonian strongly suggest that the Trump administration will bleach the story of American history in a way that tries to claim legitimacy for our current post-constitutional order.
The ritual anniversary moments intensify national mythmaking, moving the story to the formation of the nation, with the new authoritarians controlling any and all official narratives in ways that emphasize not the rebellion against a British king, but a submission to the new American one. As historical claims go, trying to make Trump into the culmination of the American Revolutionary War is no more intellectually serious than those executive orders, but mythmaking doesn’t have to be true to be effective.
As historians, as Americans, as teachers and students, we’re going to need to engage these false narratives not just with fact-checking, but with better, truer storytelling of our own. And we don’t need to make myths to claim patriotism for our side. Looking clearly at the past—whether recognizing the truth about the local historical concentration camp or the much bigger story about the long struggle to put ideals about multiracial democracy into true practice—is patriotic.