Said Nicholas Galanin, a sculptor of "Indigenous heritage" who produced a work called "The Imaginary Indian (Totem Pole)" ("a wooden totem disappearing into floral wallpaper" (image here)).
From "Taking Aim at Smithsonian, Trump Wades Into Race and Biology/His executive order faulted an exhibit which 'promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct,' a widely held position in the scientific community'" (NYT).
What are you holding with care and not suppressing? What are you interrogating and centering?
Was sculpture disappearing into the floral wallpaper of academic jargon?
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30 comments:
"Museums, monuments, and public institutions should be spaces where these stories are held with care, not suppressed for political convenience."
A lot easier to do, when so many of the monuments you don't like have already been torn down.
The thing about the Smithsonian is that they privilege myths from societies that have gone through such devastation as to make transmission of their authentic culture probably impossible over archeological evidence, which is all but banned. Archeology has its issues, but at least it tries and is subject to revision if new facts turn up. Either the Smithsonian is about science, or it isn't.
NYT NYT NYT
you really don't see it, ann?
"When we interrogate systems of power and challenge historical narratives that center whiteness and colonial dominance, we do not divide, we restore balance." The basic prog move is to set their values as default.
"History is written by the victors." If you're in a position to re-write the history, what does that make you?
("a wooden totem disappearing into floral wallpaper...")
If I'm not mistaken, isn't that Homer Simpson?
Frank Gehry should be suppressed. Good and hard.
Some democrat propagandist called it a “purge”. As someone else commented, “how can it be a purge when you are putting things back”:
The indigenous people were colonial powers, Diversitists, leftists progressed through genocide, slavery, and appropriation exercised through liberal license when they could afford it. The people who came before were either aborted, groomed, or otherwise took a knee.
"When we interrogate systems of power and challenge historical narratives that center whiteness and colonial dominance, we do not divide, we restore balance....."
How about when we interrogate systems of power and challenge their basis in complete bullsh*t, and restore the balance in common sense and accepted merits?
There are lots of "widely held positions in the scientific community" that are either incorrect or complete BS, or both. The Covid 19 "wet market" hypothesis; AGW; vaccination makes you immune and if you are not vaccinated you will die; women and "trans women" are physically equal; wind and solar power are viable, environmentally friendly technologies to replace fossil fuels...I could go on but you get the drift.
Nicholas Galanin, a sculptor of "Indigenous heritage"
Is that the same “Indigenous heritage" that Elizabeth Warren possesses?
"If I'm not mistaken, isn't that Homer Simpson?"
Or Obama?
"Taking Aim at Smithsonian, Trump Wades Into Race and Biology/His executive order faulted an exhibit which 'promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct,' a widely held position in the scientific community'"
But was the exhibit faulted for claiming that race didn't exist or for other reasons? That phrase about race not being a biological reality is in the executive order, but it doesn't fit in with the order's message.
Once widely respected as a symbol of American excellence and a global icon of cultural achievement, the Smithsonian Institution has, in recent years, come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology. This shift has promoted narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive. For example, the Smithsonian American Art Museum today features “The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture,” an exhibit representing that “[s]ocieties including the United States have used race to establish and maintain systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement.” The exhibit further 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.”
The National Museum of African American History and Culture has proclaimed that “hard work,” “individualism,” and “the nuclear family” are aspects of “White culture.” The forthcoming Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum plans on celebrating the exploits of male athletes participating in women’s sports. These are just a few examples.
At the age of eighteen, Galanin worked a desk job at the Sitka National Historical Park. When he was discovered drawing Tlingit art, on a slow day at the park, he was informed that he was only allowed to read Russian history books during working hours. So, he quit his job to pursue art. He recalls this as his last job that was non-creative.
True? Lie? Myth? It's certainly relevant to today's investigations of what government employees are up to during working hours. It also sounds like the dude isn't facing up to his "Russkimo" origins.
“… a widely held position in the scientific community.” Do the Democrats at the Times actually think this adds credibility to anything any more?
"When we interrogate systems of power and challenge historical narratives that center whiteness and colonial dominance, we do not divide, we restore balance.“
This statement is specific in anti whiteness, it is not general, in anti evil. The message is that only white people are evil, however this is unscientific when studying the Aztecs or Zulus.
If something is scientific it is both general and specific. It applies to and is consistent with everything known.
Museums only work when a community wants to memorialize its common history. In Decorah IA the museum is about the Scandinavians who left home to find a new one and found happiness. The high school kids in that town want to know about that. Similarly, a holocaust museum, remember the tragedy.
So today museums don’t work because culture is not unified, we are separate within one nation. So just divide the Smithsonian into floors and let the “brilliant” academicians of each nonexistant race do what they will. Make public places sewer pits of a propaganda war. That would be fine.
What ugly wallpaper. Why not choose something with large, colorful flowers? Especially if you're trying to be political, use something Victorian. This wallpaper looks like computer code.
Oscar Wilde's last words: "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go."
The idea that 'race is a social construct' does not gel in a world where genetics can identify discreet characteristics associated with racial groups.
Like Althouse mentioning yelling at the TV in the post after this, I also yelled at the TV last week. I was vacationing at Panama City Beach for the week, and caught up on the last half of a season on Yellowstone. Hollywood loves its Indians and keeps their beliefs and traditions (as believed by script writers) high in regard. Wolves inside of you. Yeah. Have a character talk about "the body of Christ" or the "Holy Trinity" and you can be certain he is the villain-rapist-child molester to be revealed in later episodes.
"Museums, monuments, and public institutions should be spaces where these stories are held with care, not suppressed for political convenience." Very true, however missing context. The problem is the stories of this country and the people who settled it and created all it's basic institutions have been suppressed for political convenience. Unfortunately for them, the people who suppressed those stories are finding out they are unwanted.
Race "is a social construct" is one of those beliefs that marks you as a "true" progressive. It is dutifully telling O'Brien that you see five fingers. More so, it is believing that you see five fingers. If my wife gave birth to a child that looked like Obama, we would've been spending time in the social construct of divorce court.
The reading list for this exhibit conclusively proves that the exhibit is in that "intellectual" lineage which spends its time insulting both the United States and white people. That's a point of view but we don't have to put our tax dollars into supporting it and Trump rightly removed support. We don't even have try to "understand the point of view" because these are ignorant, ahistorical haters who are not trying to understand Americans or American history. There's legitimate criticism and there's bullying meanness and this is meanness. The reading list includes such titles as:
“Civil War and Monuments to White Supremacy with Art Historian Kirk Savage.” Future Memory (podcast), Monuments Lab. October 8, 2018.
“Whiteness as Property.” Harvard Law Review 106, no. 8 (June 1993
The History of White People. Painter, Nell Irvin. 2020
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (documentary). Produced by Firelight Films Inc.
Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America. 2022
“Racial Capitalism and the U.S. Colonial Present.” Yale University, Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration roundtable,
Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands.
from https://americanart.si.edu/education/learning/shape-of-power-reading-list
The sculpture iiself is mostly a boring, academic kind of cleverness. The work of Proctor, The Buffalo Hunt, is more interesting but it is there only to be trashed, not liked. It suggests to me that in the 19C the Indian was presented as appealing to the masculine in men and I think maybe this is why these New York women historians destest it.
There's a few pictures of other sculptures you can look it to get a feel for the exhibit as art.
https://americanart.si.edu/events/shape-power-conversation-monument-lab-gods-and-monsters-may-5-2025
This shows a recent sculpture which I would see far outside tribal religious beliefs or, indeed, any religion.
https://americanart.si.edu/blog/sculpture-shape-power
This is also a recent culpture. It shows a fat man with tribal art all over his body. Seems pretty insulting only one doesn't know the identity of the man or which group is being insulted - or maybe praised. It's all be too deep for me.
is race inherent or conditional, haven't they been pushing that notion for five years,
The Smithsonian can interrogate the narrative of my colonial lily-white ass.
Academics often run out of ideas pretty fast, but must publish or perish. So they publish garbage and circle the drain with rehashed ideas every generation. Revolution and rebellion is "new" so it's worthy of attention...
The world needs more application of functional ideas and less pretension.
Actually, we probably do need a Museum of Woke, to preserve the mass insanity as a cautionary note for future generations. Or maybe the Democrat Party continuing on its present course will provide, along with one designated Ivy League university whose humanities studies department shall be forever preserved in academic lucite.
Tcrosse, unfortunately, that's exactly what they want to do to your ass.
JSM
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