The Order directs the Vice President, who is a member of the Smithsonian Board of Regents, to work to eliminate improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology from the Smithsonian and its museums, education and research centers, and the National Zoo.
What was happening at the zoo?!
More generally, how do you decide what is "improper, divisive, or anti-American"? I'm sure some will say that it's improper, divisive, and anti-American to sanitize race out of the presentation of our history and culture.
Does the order step down from that abstraction and get specific as it discusses enforcement of the Trumpian vision?
The Order directs the Administration to work with Congress to ensure that future Smithsonian appropriations: (1) prohibit funding for exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values, divide Americans by race, or promote ideologies inconsistent with Federal law....
These are capacious abstractions. I can already hear the argument that that confronting racial inequity is a "shared value" and that it is needed to bring us together and is therefore not divisive. It all depends on who's applying these standards. In this case, it's going to be J.D. Vance. Maybe he'll do a brilliant job (but even if he does, it will not be permanent).
The Vice President will work with congressional leaders to appoint members to the Smithsonian Board of Regents who are committed to advancing the celebration of America’s extraordinary heritage and progress.
History — as presented in a taxpayer-funded museum — must be a "celebration." That's Trump's vision: The visitors should be made to feel good about America, not ashamed.
The Order also directs the Secretary of the Interior restore Federal parks, monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties that have been improperly removed or changed in the last five years...
The Confederate generals will rise again.
... to perpetuate a false revision of history or improperly minimize or disparage certain historical figures or events....
Is he only against false revisions? I'm sure those who removed monuments and other things will be able to argue that their actions were based on truth and that restoring them is not about truth. Who are the truth-seekers here and who are the propagandists, the mood manipulators?
When were monuments ever about truth?
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36 comments:
"...how do you decide what is 'improper, divisive, or anti-American'?"
"I know it when I see it." --Justice Stewart
Those are valid questions. It raises the corollary set of questions, the ones that should have been asked and debated publicly before the destruction of monuments commenced. After all, the Destroyers never bothered to explain the context or meaning of the things they destroyed.
And perhaps sparking a conversation is exactly what Trump's order is meant to do.
I was reading a narticle on the finding of new artifacts showing her likely birthplace on Maryland's Eastern Shore and I followed this with a search that led me to a Smithsonian Magazine article. The Smithsonian just had to spend time on how climate change is affecting the swampy lowlands of this area, like there is something that can be done to "stop the oceans from rising".
My reference to Harriet Tubman diappeared.
Let me tell you about the National Zoo. We took the kids and one was a baby. There was NO place to change a diaper. No tables or anything in the restrooms. I changed the diaper on the ground. I wrote a letter to the National Zoo after that horrible experience.
Begley, you are mentioned in a Robert Bryce article today.
Start by razing the Hirshhorn Museum, the Smithsonian's soul-killing modern and abstract collection. It's mostly escalators inside anyway. A typical "exhibit" was a pile of flourescent lights in cheap cases leaning against a corner wall. A first-time visitor might mistake this for a custodian's oversight, but of course it was an "art installation." Though, in fairness, it was the opposite of divisive: a very diverse audience, old and young, was making jokes and laughing at it.
A reminder that the Smithsonian described rational thinking and hard work as 'white values'.
I think a good start would be for history museums to just present the facts without contextualising it in an activist point of view such as critical race theory. Any contextualising should be in understanding the prevailing standards or attitudes of the time.
Of course choosing which facts to present can shape a narrative but an attempt should be made to be balanced.
What Mike said!
- Krumhorn
Class-disordered ideologies under the Diversity umbrella. #HateLovesAbortion
Thanks, Danno.
I want the whole world to learn about footnote 6.
‘More generally, how do you decide what is "improper, divisive, or anti-American"? ‘
Marxi… er, Progessives have made their march through every institution in America over the last half century, so this will be a somewhat difficult task. Perhaps an initial focus on the last decade to start and go from there. Remove the existing taint and police EVERYTHING the anti-American shitbirds do from here on out.
Politicizing the Smithsonian? Anybody here remember when the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum set up a display of the 'Enola Gay' that presented the destruction of Hiroshima as essentially a war crime on the part of the U.S.? That was way back in 1994. The Smithsonian lost its political V-card a long time ago.
The Atlanta History Museum hasn't been redone since the Summer of Floyd. I'd look there to see how race was done before DEI and white people bad infused everything.
"I'm sure those who removed monuments and other things will be able to argue that their actions were based on truth and that restoring them is not about truth.... When were monuments ever about truth?"
Some of those monuments have been destroyed, in one case melted down intentionally to make a new, comrade-approved sculpture of Modern Virtue. I don't recall being asked to approve that, nor was I consulted on the wisdom of removing any of these in the first place. It's on the same level as torching Tesla dealerships. Maybe we should re-erect the Confederate and Revolutionary Generals and add statues of obese, blue - haired antifa warriors around them, to commemorate their restoration - you could make them out of recycled pig iron. I'd approve that - a second coming, the South will rise again !
Dave Begley said...
"Thanks, Danno.
I want the whole world to learn about footnote 6."
Is there a link?
Back to Charlottesville. If Trump is only allowing “celebration” then he won’t be putting back the confederate generals, they are losers.
Trent: “ Start by razing the Hirshhorn Museum, ”
I must respectfully disagree. The Hirschhorn is worth all the sunk costs just for Ron Mueck’s “Big Man,” hyper realistic sculpture of a giant naked fat guy. When everything else crumbles into dust, Big Man will tell our descendants what we were.
JSM
Somethin' tells me it's all happening at the zoo
I do believe it
I do believe it's true
I worked for the Smithsonian, not downtown, but at an outlying environmental research center. The staff, as you might expect at an environmental lab was almost uniformly liberal/progressive except possibly the maintenance and security staff. In the course of seeking grant money, much of the research was directed toward "progressive" topics, climate change, sea level rise, ocean acidification, "sustainability" blah, blah blah. I can only imagine the non-science departments are far worse. One time a HR rep came down from the city to instruct the staff on DEI issues, and as I understand it, she left almost in a rage, and with instructions not to return (this was after I left, but I keep in close touch). The current Director, Lonnie Bunch, while very nice man, was clearly a DEI hire in the Obama administration.
This is gonna be fun to watch.
"I'm sure those who removed monuments and other things will be able to argue that their actions were based on truth..."
Who was making those arguments before they started removing "monuments and other things"? Screaming "White people bad!" and "Racism!" while rioting and tearing down statues is not making an argument.
madtownguy, I saw the bryce reference to David Begley on his substack and I'm not sure if you'll be able to see a linked piece-
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#inbox/WhctKLbVjhXRZHjrSHfgnhcJdGBwbLVdpczMXsLSZljfJQxBwSgZnpphJSVBxWdlwxCJtxl
“… how do you decide what is "improper, divisive, or anti-American"? A good start would be the content of NYT’s 1619 History boondoggle.
This racist garbage the Smithsonian produced is probably why he is doing this.
https://www.newsweek.com/smithsonian-race-guidelines-rational-thinking-hard-work-are-white-values-1518333
In footnote 6, the judge wrote, “there’s no mechanism under Nebraska or federal law that prevents Knox County from banning commercial wind farms, so long as there is a conceivably or hypothetically rational reason to do so.”
Fritz: why did the HR lady leave in a rage, when the staff was almost uniformly proggie? Was it because their scientific method (and probably aspie-ness) won out over their proggieness, and they couldn't help but point out to her the defects in DEI? Serious question.
JSM
Althouse said :"More generally, how do you decide what is "improper, divisive, or anti-American"? I'm sure some will say that it's improper, divisive, and anti-American to sanitize race out of the presentation of our history and culture" I know the left-wingers love to claim that part of these changes are to "sanitize race out of the presentation" but I haven't seen any examples of that. It's not like there was any discussion when the entrenched left-wing idiocracy running our institutions made changes to all this stuff. They were in charge and they changed things to suit their politics. Well, they're not in charge anymore and I think the Trump administration should give their views every bit of respect that they gave to the views of others.
I think identifying a person who is elected as a final decider will be a way to keep the Smithsonian in the realm of the sane or at least attaching the insane to a particular political party.
Fair enough, john mosby. All the grafitti installations in a national museum will work as well.
The Smithsonian has been dominated by Marxists for years. And it's pretty obvious to me that Marxism is un-American. QED.
The African American museum has an exhibition on Obama as the first black president, and ANITA HILL for her testimony against Clarence Thomas. Biased? Hmmm?
That museum reeks of design by committee. The history stuff is crammed in the basement as a slave ship simulation, so the entering crowds back up and can't actually see much of anything over the heads of others. The claustrophobic feel would make sense for one room, but not if you want people to understand history. [There is also scant attention given to the much larger black slave presence outside the USA; it was a part of general pre-USA European colonialism and not special to the USA.]
The highest above-ground floor (the biggest space) is packed with a bunch of pop music and movie memorabilia. The content might be accused of AI racism today, but it was designed by Obama-era human politicians and stereotype lovers.
Good luck finding people with degrees in "American Studies" or "Museum Studies" who are pro-American and not wracked with guilt, resentment, or rage at the country's history.
I always thought that rather than tearing down statues of Confederates, Southern states ought to put up statues of Southerners who fought for the Union. Maybe they should commemorate slave revolts as well (if that's the alternative, though, maybe it's understandable that they took the Confederate statues down).
Hirschhorn's money came from Uranium. The Sacklers' came from opiates. Which will prove more "radioactive" to the Smithsonian?
With Donald Trump running the Kennedy Center, is there any chance we could get a staging of that beautiful revenge musical Les Déplorables?
I visited an Indian museum in Oklahoma a couple years ago. The first three exhibits were about how badly Indians treated blacks when they encountered them.
Much of the rest was trail of tears ethnic cleansing exhibits. Nothing about why their descendants should have any pride in their heritage...just the oppressed and oppressors.
DEI victimology infects and ruins most everything in the US.
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