OUTLANDISH ATTACKS ON THE MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY

By Ruth A. Sheets

Last Tuesday’s column by Heather Cox Richardson on Substack was difficult to read because it presented many false claims about the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History (NMAH), stated by Trump and his minions.  I worked 4 years at the Smithsonian, and found it to be a remarkable place, fairly trying to present an honest overview of our past.  I served as a volunteer weekend docent at the Museum of Natural History.  I guess Trumplandia hasn't gotten to that museum yet; they describe evolution there!  (OMG!  How can they stand knowing the truth!  Oh wait, they can’t!) 

It is clear the truth about American history is not what Trumplandia, in its ignorance and fear of reality wish to know.  If NMAH were telling the full truth about White America, and had enough space to do it, those whiny white boys and girls of Trumplandia would learn of some real horrors. 

• the tortures and murders committed from the beginning, against Native peoples because white men wanted their land and shaped the law to do whatever they could to get it, even driving whole communities from their land and holding massacres regularly. 

• The museum would show enslavement as a business proposition with torture chambers for any enslaved persons who didn't do exactly as their "masters/owners demanded, including amputations, beatings, and tortures that my brain just can't contemplate and my fingers can’t type here. 

• It would show the massive rapes committed by white men on enslaved women, Native women, and nearly any other women white men could get hold of without being accused of rape, even their own wives. 

• The museum would show the white male use of religion as a cudgel against women and poor folks to make them believe that being treated like slaves, like dirt or ignored altogether was god's will and tolerating it would get them into Heaven, along with their abusers, of course. 

• They would see how the people of Hawaii, Cuba, the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, and other locations were beaten into submission and white men put in charge of those people's lives.  Now Cuba is being blamed for American unrest?  Are you kidding me! 

• No, the United States was not where the beginnings of the end of slavery happened; it was Britain, then Spain.  Brazil kept enslavement after us, but we only had it "officially" dumped after a horrific war led by white men, half of whom thought slavery was god's will and doing massive harm to Black and Native people somehow drove out their savagery or something.    Whitelandia still can’t all agree that people of color are worthy American citizens.

• The museum would have the myriad of inventions by Black Americans, examples of the architecture designed and build by Black Americans, the foods that came from the creativity of Black women trying to figure out how to use everything they could to survive.  There would be the evidence that often white men claimed those inventions and innovations as their own.  It would also show the effective Native farmers’ use of the land in contrast to the ways white farmers along with drought caused the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. 

Some of this information is in the Museum of African-American History and the Museum of the American Indian.  I am guessing the Museum of American History for Trumplandia is supposed to be the white male museum.  Well, white male American history is incomplete, violent, sometimes has some courage, some invention, some creativity, but a whole lot of violence and dismissal of everyone who is not rich, white, and male, pretending that white men did everything by themselves; of course, they didn't and the "supporters" were not just enslaved persons, handmaids, and apprentices.  They were full actors in the history of America!

I thank Historian, Heather Cox Richardson for spotlighting this.  It took a long time for me to read the disgusting lies being told about NMAH’s curator/director who knows far more about America's history then the entire Klan of Trumplandia combined.  Then Republican Reps. Mace and Boebert had to prove their anti-woman Bonafides to please their master, Donald Trump.  The writers of the ridiculous anti-Smithsonian report got all the buzzwords in:  slavery, transgender, founders (about whom they know nothing), and demonstrated their racism, misogyny , xenophobia (all of which they protest the museum shows when it is they who exhibit them every day).  These are trigger words for the ignorant MAGAs who want so badly to believe they are superior to everyone else when they are just mediocre whiny white people who have privilege but can't stand anyone else having anything.      

Signs are being produced that will be posted outside the National Museum of American History.  They will tell everyone to go to other museums to get “the truth.”  I hope the employees and visitors to NMAH will look at those signs and be reminded of the utter ignorance, power-grubbing nature of those who forced them to be posted.  I hope people will just laugh out loud when they see them.  That might be the best way to handle this childish toddleresque sign-posting.  JUST LAUGH OUT LOUD IN FRONT OF THOSE SIGNS, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM!!, EVERY DAY, then march right into the museum to learn about us, the American people! 

REWRITING AMERICAN HISTORY WITH REPUBLICAN CONSENT

By Ruth A. Sheets

Trump proves daily that he is an ignorant would-be tyrant, and he is well on the way to achieving that goal.  He knows nothing of history, yet wants to dictate what it should include.

Russell Vought of “Project 2025” fame, knows nothing of history either.  He’s just  a whiny white boy who is too rich for anyone's good and who has been sponsored and coddled by a bunch of racist, misogynistic cowards at the Heritage Foundation who are too scared of anyone who is not rich white and male.  OK, they are terrified of them too; they could turn on him and his kind in an instant.  It has happened throughout history.  So, Vought, Miller, Bessent, and a collected crowd of scared white men and the women who love them want to get their Baby Donnie to  make history less scary, less filled with ways white men have oppressed and abused people, less information about outstanding women, and people of color, and white men who don't buy the scared white male BS.  The Trumpers are not a large group, but want everyone to think they are all-powerful, so we will be cowed into submission. 

Trump’s next target is the Smithsonian Institution, often fondly referred to as “our nation’s attic.”  Trump and his buddies who know nothing of history, science, art, and this nation, want to have oversight for all exhibitions, displays, etc.  What!  They would be lost in the jargon of science, history, art, and the rest.  Those whiny rich boys would bring nothing positive to the museums or anywhere else they plan to try to control, just lies, inaccuracies, and their personal fears, resentments, and ignorance, none of which anyone in this country needs or wants on display in an honored institution. 

Smithsonian Secretary Bunch and the rest of the amazing people you work with, don't give in!  Ask the American people to help to support your work more now that Trump and his fascist crew are trying so hard to rewrite American history, and thus a part of the history of the world. 

When I worked for the Smithsonian, I loved working with the designers of exhibitions and giving tours of their fine work.  I can't imagine what a tour of Trump's history would sound like, a lot of lies, disinformation, and would not be worth the effort.  I am trying to imagine Trump as a tour guide of his brand of history and realize he wouldn't get past the first display because he wouldn't have a clue what was there.  He and his buddies like to whine about whites being discriminated against when that is so rare as to be nearly invisible, but Trump wants that insignificance to be more than visible, actually prominent, even if they have to make it up. 

The Smithsonian crew are going to have to be very creative to get around the ignoramuses of Trumplandia.  The residents of Trumplandia, toddler men and a few women know so little it is embarrassing.  Their ignorance is the reason only fools and the incompetent, serve as secretaries and department heads in our current government.  For Trump, ignorance is bliss.

However, Republicans in Congress, mostly white men, like the Trump takeover of our national entities like the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian, and say "sure, Mr. Sir, whatever you want, we care nothing for this nation, our oath of office,  and the people who elected us, just the money we can collect in gifts (bribes) and we are getting a lot right now, so, it’s all good,  whatever you want, we’re behind you, can you feel our presence back there?" 

CELEBRATING FREEDOM THIS SUMMER

By Ruth A. Sheets

Believe it or not, 2023 is nearly half over.  Wasn’t it just yesterday we were celebrating the new year 2023?  Summer ushers in a time of year different from any other in our culture.  School is over and kids have time to play, think, read, and do a lot of other things without school requirements  shaping their days.  There is summer school, but it is and should be very different from programs during the year.  Families consider vacations and what they will do if they can afford to take one together.  Even if it’s only an illusion, summer means “freedom” to many.

It is totally appropriate that we get to formally celebrate freedom twice as a nation in the summer, Juneteenth and Independence Day.  Technically, Juneteenth is a day or two before the solstice, but for most of us, it’s summer.  On June 19^th, we celebrate when the last of the enslaved people in Texas in the defeated Confederacy were informed that they were free (as they should have been for about 2-and-a-half years since Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.  From that point, no one in the South could say they didn’t know that slavery was over.  OK, many white southerners “pretended” they didn’t know, but that’s another, very important  tale.

Two weeks after Juneteenth, we celebrate Independence Day where We the People (as our Constitution names us) celebrate America’s freedom.  That was the day the Declaration of Independence was formally signed by John Hancock, the President of the Continental Congress and the Secretary, Charles Thompson, on behalf of the Congress itself.  The members of Congress would have the opportunity to sign the document a month later, but that was not a requirement, it was the members personally committing themselves to the goal of independence for “The United States.” 

The Declaration would have been a minor footnote of history had people of all 13 states not stepped up, along with foreign supporters, to drive the British armed forces from those states.  The fight lasted until 1783, more than 7 years after the Declaration was signed, and many people died to attain that goal.  That is a lot of commitment.

The founding legislators were all white men, but far more than just white men worked to gain American independence.  Women of many backgrounds contributed significantly as did Black Americans, and members of several indigenous communities.  The French and others from foreign lands helped out too.  In short, it was truly a group effort. 

Eleven years later when a group of men from all the states sat together in Philadelphia to try to hammer out a constitution to govern what was even at that time, a very mixed group that called itself America, they began the document with “We the People.”  They did not write “We the rich, white, Christian, straight, male People.”  Some may have been thinking that, but the truth is, they didn’t say it which means “We the People” does include more than that one particular group and over the years, our Constitution has expanded to be more inclusive.  For our nation to be truly great, the full diversity of America needs to participate in all aspects of American life, including governing. 

There are many right now who want to make the United States a “Christian” nation, Christianity being favored over all other groups.  That was definitely not what the founders wanted.  Some of the founders were Christian, John Adams, for example, but even he did not want this country to establish Christianity in any of its forms as the religion of America.  

Several of the founders, like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin  were Deists who believed in God, not a particular religious understanding of God.  Others, like George Washington considered one’s faith to be personal and not to be imposed by anyone on anyone else.  If the founders, those sacred men whom contemporary conservatives claim to revere didn’t want an established religion, what makes today’s “Christian nationalists” so determined to make it happen? 

White supremacists right now promote fear, fear of “white people being ‘replaced’” in this country.  They are, of course, vague as to what that means, but they hang it out here so white Christians, in particular will forget what Jesus taught about loving our neighbor, and will silence, even do harm to those who don’t look like themselves.  They don’t want people who don’t live as they do to participate in this society either.  Crimes against the LGBTQ community, for example, have increased significantly each year since 2020 when some politicians began targeting members of that community as though they are worthy of being harmed.  A large percentage of the people standing against women’s bodily autonomy and the rights of other groups are white “Christian” men, to many, the privileged class.  Our current Supreme Court conservatives act as though there is a privilege for white, straight, Christian men and their corporations, and seem to be trying to make our Constitution agree with them.

This Independence Day, we need to re-commit ourselves as a nation to the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” for all Americans, not just a certain set of Americans.  We also must remember that the writers of the Constitution wanted us to work to “form a more perfect union.”  We don’t have to shift our thinking very much to work for those things.  There are have always been people leading the way if we would pay attention.  At the time of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution there were people who already stood for equality and knew that slavery was not only wrong, but harmful to this nation, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Benjamin Rush, and probably every Black person in this country enslaved or free among them.  It’s too bad a lot of Americans were not listening.  Are we paying attention now?

I argue along with many others, that diversity and democracy are what made this nation strong from the time of our Revolution to the present, even though we got off track when it came to people of color and women.  We have the tools to do better in shaping our union, again, if we choose to. 

We have 2 chances to formally celebrate diversity and democracy this summer:  Juneteenth and Independence Day.  So, let’s go all out and celebrate FREEDOM!  We have an opportunity to concentrate on the many things We the People have in common.  But in addition, we must appreciate the contributions We the People make in all our diversity to this nation.  Our marvelous diversity can take us all into a brighter future, that is, if we stop allowing ourselves to be overwhelmed by the forces that would rather divide us than unite us.  Make these Juneteenth and Independence Day celebrations joyous and vehicles for uniting We the American people.