The Smithsonian Already Celebrates America's Accomplishments
But slavery was actually really bad
Celebrating America's accomplishments doesn't require us to downplay her sins. We must do both.
This week President Donald Trump announced an effort to redesign Smithsonian exhibits on slavery. In a social media post, Trump said he told his attorneys to "go through the Museums [sic]" because "everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been -- Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future [sic]."
It's hard to believe this needs to be said, but slavery was actually really bad. Knowing that doesn't make you "woke." It just means you're familiar with the facts about slavery. And knowing those facts is important because to build a better future we must avoid the sins of our past.
Also, while it has been a few years since I've been to a Smithsonian museum, I do know that you can find lots of exhibits on America's successes. Many more than you can find about slavery, in fact.
I've combed through the coverage of Trump's Smithsonian claims and I have yet to find anyone from the administration provide a concrete example of what they're talking about. Lindsey Halligan, a special assistant to the president, had the unenviable task of defending this new policy on talk shows and struggled even on the Trump-friendly Newsmax.
"I love the Smithsonians, visiting them and taking family and friends there. And we often talk about preserving history in museums and not erasing it, but how do you balance that? We need to be able to review this while honoring even our not so pleasant past," Newsmax's Marc Lotter asked in a Thursday interview.
Halligan stumbled through her answer to the most obvious question, saying, "It's not about whitewashing, it's about full context. While slavery is obviously a horrible aspect of our nation's history, you can't really talk about slavery honestly unless you also talk about hope and progress, and I think we need to be focusing on the progress that we've made since then, and we need to stop focusing so much on the lack of progress. We need to keep moving forward as a country."
What does that even mean? To talk about slavery honestly we should talk about slavery less? Listening to the administration, you might think the Smithsonian museum exhibits are about slavery exclusively. Perhaps the Trump administration would prefer to see something like this in the Smithsonian:
Or this:
Or this:
Or this:
Or maybe even this, when they’re in the mood to give up the funk:
Which would be strange because those are already Smithsonian exhibits. So, in defense of changing Smithsonian exhibits, the administration is arguing the Smithsonian should do what it already does.
The bad parts of our history are and should be on display at the Smithsonian as well, and indeed some of us may conclude those parts are already downplayed. Personally, I’ll reserve judgment until the next time I visit.
AVC in The Dispatch
Thanks to The Dispatch for publishing my op-ed, “American Christianity’s False Loyalty Test.” I write about the tendency within certain evangelical circles to equate loyalty to Jesus with loyalty to Donald Trump. The op-ed also provided me the opportunity to share the work of AVC with The Dispatch audience. (Welcome, new subscribers!) I wrote,
As executive director of American Values Coalition (AVC), I have unfortunately witnessed this fracturing first-hand. AVC was founded in 2021 to address the problems of political extremism, hyper-polarization, and misinformation on the right side of American politics. We operate from a theologically and politically conservative point of view, as conservatives speaking to fellow conservatives about the problems on our side of the political spectrum. This from-within-our-own-tent approach has a rich history that includes Martin Luther King’s “Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther’s “Ninety-five Theses,” and the Apostle Paul’s first letter to church in Corinth. We do this, as our mission statement says, by “growing a community of Americans empowered to lead with truth, reject extremism and misinformation, and defend democracy.” To accomplish this mission, we talk about issues like journalism biases, social media algorithms, conspiratorial thinking, nationalism, political violence, the perception gap, and hyper-partisanship. These discussions are grounded in truth, our concern for our families, communities, and churches, and our desire to be more like Jesus.
Responding to Doug Wilson
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…
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