Trump order strives to end "ideological indoctrination and divisive, distorted narratives" at federal sites and museums dedicated to American history.

A worthy project, if carried out responsibly

Donald Trump has issued an Executive Order regarding America’s public monuments and the Smithsonian museums. The purpose of the Order is to counter what it calls a “concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.”

I believe there has been such an effort, and have tried to document it in my posts over the years. The Executive Order provides some examples:

At Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — where our Nation declared that all men are created equal — the prior administration sponsored training by an organization that advocates dismantling “Western foundations” and “interrogating institutional racism” and pressured National Historical Park rangers that their racial identity should dictate how they convey history to visiting Americans because America is purportedly racist. . . .

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.

The person in charge of the Women’s History Museum denies that it has any such plan. And, in response to protests from sane people, the African-American History Museum removed from its website the ridiculous and offensive statement that hard work, etc. are aspects of white culture.

But it’s easy to believe an institution that would even think about promulgating such nonsense is, in fact, “replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.” Thus, a review of whether, and to what extent, the Smithsonian (especially this particular museum) needs a course correction is appropriate, in my view.

I should confess that I’ve never visited the African-American History Museum. I decided not to when I heard that it contains nothing about Clarence Thomas, surely a significant figure in black history.

My interest in black history runs deep. I have read widely about it and, in a very small way, participated in it as a civil rights protester and attorney. But I concluded that a museum that excludes Justice Thomas is too ideologically slanted to warrant a visit.

Will a review of the way this and other museums render history go too far? Will it attempt to whitewash America’s racist past?

It’s possible. African-Americans were enslaved for more than half of our history, counting colonial times. They were either enslaved or subject to Jim Crow for more than half of our history since the Founding. It is impossible to have a credible museum about African-American history (or really even a general museum about American history) that ignores these injustices. And the injustices cannot be recounted without casting America in a bad light.

A big part of the Order’s purpose is to enable individuals who visit the Nation’s Capital “to learn — not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history.” Is it possible to learn about African-American history without hearing a narrative that is divisive and unfree of distortion?

I think it is, but I don’t trust the folks who run the African-American museum to strike the balance necessary to accomplish this. I’m not sure I trust the Trump administration, either.

I’ll conclude by discussing the ideological bent of two government-supported D.C. institutions that I do visit and learn at. The first is the National Portrait Gallery, another Smithsonian museum. It has chosen to inform visitors that various prominent historical figures were “enslavers.” (Fortunately, it didn’t give James Witherspoon, one of my heroes, that appellation, even though he apparently had a few household slaves.)

To say that a southerner in colonial times owned slaves is to say nothing more than that he was successful. The northerners from that era whose portraits are on display at the museum almost surely would have owned slaves too if they had lived in the south.

I don’t see a non-ideological point in telling visitors that Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, for example, owned slaves. It’s oh-so easy for today’s students to dismiss such patriots (Pinckney was a general during the Revolutionary War, served as Ambassador to France during a very fraught time in Franco-American relations, and ran for president in 1804) on that basis. Real learning is thereby thwarted.

The other institution I want to discuss is the Library of Congress. It is run by the Librarian of Congress, whom the President appoints.

Previous librarians have included distinguished scholars like James Billington and Daniel Boorstin. Archibald MacLeish, the renowned poet, also held the post.

The current Librarian of Congress is Carla Hayden. She is both the first female and the first black to be the Librarian.

On the plus side, she is a professional librarian who served as CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore and as president of the American Library Association. On the negative side (at least from my perspective) she is not a scholar. She also seems to be something of a liberal activist, having publicly opposed the Patriot Act as harmful to libraries.

During Hayden’s early years in charge, I visited the Library on something like a weekly basis to read about important but obscure aspects and figures in American history (like Bill Otis’ great-great-grandfather.) In doing so, I would check to see what exhibits and lectures the Library was offering.

A large percentage of exhibits and lectures were focused on race and ethnicity. There was virtually nothing about what I’ll call mainstream U.S. history (“dead white males”) though, to be fair, there was an excellent exhibit on baseball, supplemented by a good panel of leading sportswriters.

I visit the Library less often these days. Perhaps it has become more balanced in choosing topics about which to inform the public. If so, I haven’t noticed.

Hayden took office, with congressional approval, in 2016 (the last year of the Obama presidency). Her ten-year term is almost over.

I hope the White House replaces her with a leading scholar who will restore ideological balance to the Library of Congress. I hope the person it selects does not over-correct by eliminating altogether exhibits and programs that cover unpleasant aspects of American history .