The director of the Nationwide Museum of African American Historical past and Tradition (NMAAHC) is at present on depart, in keeping with an inside electronic mail obtained by the Washington Put up. The e-mail revealed that Kevin Younger, who has served as director of the museum since 2021, has been on private depart for an “undetermined interval” as of March 14 and that Shanita Brackett, the museum’s affiliate director of operations, has been appointed to serve in his place.
Now, in keeping with the Put up, the interior electronic mail circulated almost two weeks earlier than President Donald Trump introduced the signing of one more one in every of his government orders, which he claims promotes unity, however, truly, they solely reinforce white nationalism on the expense of non-white folks and, definitely, on the expense of Black historical past.
Final week, we reported that Trump’s newest bid to rewrite American historical past by taking a metaphorical white-out pen to all references to systemic racism (*gestures towards actually all of American historical past*) focused the Smithsonian Establishment and, particularly, the NMAAHC. Trump claimed his order was geared toward correcting a “concerted and widespread” effort over the previous decade to rewrite American historical past by changing “goal details” with a “distorted narrative pushed by ideology moderately than reality,” including that it casts the “founding ideas” of america in a “damaging gentle.”
In different phrases, the president who wouldn’t know an goal truth if it crossed over the Southern border illegally is working actually laborious to drive establishments of studying to faux the Founding Fathers weren’t largely comprised of slave house owners or slavery advocates who believed “the negro race” was an inferior race, and that the systemic racism they fostered hadn’t persevered by two and a half centuries of legalized slavery, 100 years of second-class citizenship for Black folks, and — so long as we’re counting — one other 60 years of racist elected officers working at making America regress once more.
Trump stated his EO required the removing of all “improper ideology” — which, to him, simply means something he and his MAGA minions ideologically disagree with — and he claimed the African American Historical past museum, particularly, portrayed American and Western values as inherently “dangerous and oppressive,” which they demonstrably have been to non-white folks all through recorded historical past.
Although the announcement of Younger’s unexplained departure got here almost two weeks earlier than Trump introduced his newest unilateral choice to rewrite historical past beneath penalty of defunding, it’s fairly troublesome to imagine one factor had nothing to do with the opposite. Nevertheless, the official phrase seems to be that the 2 occasions are unrelated, and it’s value mentioning that the NMAAHC wasn’t the one focused museum.
From the Put up:
There isn’t any proof that the announcement is related to current pressures positioned on the Smithsonian. (Reached by The Put up, spokesperson Linda St. Thomas declined to remark.) Nonetheless, Younger’s indefinite absence from one of many Smithsonian’s most visited establishments leaves two of the three museums singled out by Trump’s order with out everlasting leaders on the helm. One, the Smithsonian American Artwork Museum, eliminated its director final summer season. The third, the forthcoming American Girls’s Historical past Museum, named a brand new chief final yr.
So, Trump desires to MAGAfy Black historical past, girls’s historical past and the artwork world, which has already been demonstrated by his hostile takeover of the John F. Kennedy Heart for Performing Arts.
Trump’s and MAGA’s “improper ideology” has at all times been all about indoctrination and propaganda whereas they declare every part else is indoctrination and propaganda. They’re not anti-censorship, they usually definitely aren’t anti-big authorities as we now have not seen a federal administration wield this a lot energy and compelled affect in trendy historical past. Sadly, we’re solely starting to see the extent of the fallout.
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