In the dark room, the faded colors of red, white and blue are comparatively bright, and it seems as if light is emanating from the flag itself. I blink a few times as my eyes adjust to the magnificence of the Star Spangled Banner, 34 feet long and 30 feet wide, pockmarked with the bruises of war and 200 years of history.
I’ve visited the National Museum of US History many times throughout the years, every one of which included a stop at the Star Spangled Banner exhibit.
The exhibit, and more broadly, the museum and institution it is a part of, is a testament to the rich and diverse history of the United States. It fills me with a sense of pride – the same pride I get from standing amidst the 50 flags surrounding the Washington Monument, and as I bask in the views from the National Mall. It is a pride not only for my country, but the foundations it was built on.
Yet amid this feeling of pride is a solemn remorse, for, reading between the stars and stripes I see bloodstains – cracks along the foundation. I am reminded that my country was built on slavery, genocide, and discrimination, along with ideals of democracy and freedom.
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U.S. President Donald Trump believes that the Smithsonian, the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex, puts too much emphasis on the remorse, and not enough on the pride.
In the “Letter to the Smithsonian,” as posted on the White House website, Trump announced on August 12 his plan to review Smithsonian museums and exhibits in order to “celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.”
Earlier in the year, on March 27, Trump issued an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” It was stated on the White House website that historical accounts were “distorted,” and claimed that the Smithsonian is influenced by a “divisive, race-centered ideology.”
Trump called out specific exhibits, such as “The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture” in the American Art Museum, refuting the understanding that the US had racist policies and rejecting that “race is a human invention.”
He also highlighted planned exhibits in the upcoming Women’s History Museum about the impact of transgender athletes, and more recently cited pieces such as a painting of refugees crossing a border wall, and an infographic that discussed “the aspects and assumptions of whiteness” (which had already been removed five years ago), as evidence that the institution is “out of control.”
In targeting these specific exhibits, Trump makes it clear that he wants to locate and remove any historical account that contradicts with his personal values. And ironically, he is using the claim that the Smithsonian’s narratives are one-sided to back up his unprecedented moves against the private organization.
According to CNN, there has indeed been several changes to the institution since it has been under pressure from the government which funds two-thirds of its budget.
Namely, a symposium for the “Shape of Power” exhibit was altered so as to have little publicity, and two artists intended to speak at the event cancelled, for fear that the event was being censored. Another change includes the removal of certain poems at a National Museum of African American History and Culture event due to their inclusion of topics such as racial justice.
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The motivations behind the current administration’s criticism of the Smithsonian may boil down to the fact that President Trump believes the sole purpose of the institution should be to celebrate the nation and its history, and that discussing the more negative parts lessens national pride. It is here, where the deep controversy lies: at the crossroads between celebration and commemoration.
This issue that Donald Trump has brought to light isn’t a new one. The question of how much emphasis should be put on the dark periods of history has been asked many times, and the upheaval in the Smithsonian, along with the censorship that comes with it, represents the collision of different answers people have come up with.
The President has very strong beliefs when it comes to national pride. While others believe that there is an important distinction between what we as a nation should be proud of, and what we should not, for Trump it is more simple. As his tagline, “Make America Great Again,” indicates, Trump believes that it is not necessarily what makes America great that people are losing sight of, but simply that yesterday’s America was great.
Discussing and educating people about the wrongdoing in the United States’ past — the very same past Trump is trying to bring us back to – poses a threat to his idea of American exceptionalism. For when people discover the horrors that helped make America, how long will it take for them to realize that it isn’t all that great?
What Trump struggles to realize is that it is not pride that an emphasis on the nation’s misdeeds diminishes, but the delusion that the United States was — and is — perfect. While the purpose of the Smithsonian is in part a celebration, not everything about the U.S. should be celebrated.
The issue also urges us to define the purpose of the Smithsonian, and its role in shaping the public view. Is the purpose of the Smithsonian to inspire pride or to teach history? Can it be both?
My childhood experiences with the institution says so. I was able to feel pride for my country while at the same time acknowledging the crimes it committed. Indeed, a lot of my pride came from the fact that my country was able to acknowledge its own wrongdoing and pursue a future that learned from the past.
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The purpose of museums is to preserve history and present it to the public. In large part, the reason we preserve, study, and teach history is so we can better understand the things happening today in context, and to ensure we don’t forget it.
I interviewed Ann Bennett, the Executive Director of the Howard County Historical Society, on the recent upheaval at the Smithsonian. She explains how we can use our understanding of history to better analyze what is happening now.
“We can study prejudice, violence and social injustice, and we can recognize that took place back then and it’s still happening in different ways today. And we can combat it today. That’s the benefit of having a modern lens and a modern audience, we can see that both things are true. We can’t ignore the painful truth, but we can balance it out with that wider human perspective.”
Preserving history is a way for people to spot a return to darker times before it’s too late to light their way out. For a president who is fiddling with the dials of a time machine, it’s no wonder he considers sharing this history is bad news.
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One of Trump’s most significant complaints is that the Smithsonian puts too much emphasis on slavery — even though it was legal for over half of the nation’s history, and in the years leading up to the Civil War, nearly a third of the South’s total population were enslaved. It must not be forgotten that so many Americans, and the nation itself, became rich by exploiting humans as if they were livestock. It is impossible to tell an accurate story of the U.S. without addressing slavery.
Bennett expresses her views as to how we might discuss slavery and how the past can be used as insight for the present.
“[I]f we understand the human nature of [slavery] — the trauma, the suffering, the institutional structure or the laws that enabled that to take place during the American Civil War, we can start to make analogies, and comparisons, and recognize some of those same ugly histories, that ugly truths in our own modern society.”
By omitting parts of history in what we present to the public, we run the risk of missing those warning signs, and allow society to sink back into the ways of thinking we ought to move away from.
And this is to say nothing of the people these crimes have been committed against, and their ancestors who still bear the generational burden that comes from years of denial and hatred. Disregarding their pain in this way is the most severe form of adding insult to injury.
When we erase parts of history, we also erase people, along with their cultures and identities. “We have to preserve everyone,” Bennett points out. She adds that there’s no limit to the amount of stories we get to tell. “The more people who step up to the table, the more the story grows.”
She makes the point that we should all be focusing on.
“It’s everybody’s history. There’s not one true narrative. There’s not one story called ‘America.’ It’s all of our stories coming together that should be taking the center stage at the Smithsonian.”
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The administration’s pressure on the Smithsonian is all part of their political agenda. Anyone who has learned the extent of racism in American history wouldn’t easily accept the vision of America that Trump is trying to promote. Omitting the stories of transgender people from the Women’s History Museum makes it easier for people to believe Trump’s rhetoric that promoting trans rights is a form of extremism. And not sharing the perspectives of the immigrants that helped build our country allows people to turn a blind-eye on Trump’s inhumane immigration policies.
By claiming the Smithsonian is distorting history, Trump seeks to do just that.
It is no longer a question of whether something can both be a place of celebration and mourning. It is no longer about whether teaching the dark parts history makes the stars and stripes shine a little less bright. It is about whether we are willing to fight for the very things they stand for.
