The Smithsonian Institution is again under fire over alleged political or social commentary in the presentation of historical exhibits. I have previously criticized the Smithsonian for its stress on narratives over artifacts. There was also the outrageous exclusion of Clarence Thomas as one of the great African Americans in history. Now, the White House is demanding changes after the Smithsonian was unable to offer an exhibit on American pop culture without extraneous social or political commentary.
I have been critical of the National Museum of American History’s tendency to allocate more and more space to interpretive sections that present narratives over actual historical collections. This “less is more” approach to modern museums is not confined to the Smithsonian, but it is a shame to see so much of the collection warehoused so visitors can hear from curators on the patterns or meaning in history.
For example, many people would come to the museum to see C-3PO and R2-D2 from Star Wars, but they will find a bizarre commentary masking as a description of the items. The Smithsonian ties the movie into people fleeing from the realities of the “loss in Vietnam and revelations about Richard Nixon’s dirty-tricks presidency.” I was one of those who went to the movie when it came out, and I cannot recall anyone thinking, let alone connecting, the film to Nixon or Vietnam. It was a breakthrough technological cinematic moment. We were in awe, even if kids today mock what is now comparably low-rate special effects.
Another description, based on a 1923 circus poster, reads: “Under the big top, circuses expressed the colonial impulse to claim dominion over the world.”
In presenting another display, the Smithsonian tells visitors, “One of the earliest defining traits of entertainment in the United States was extraordinary violence.”
Some are simply weird. For example, a display of the Lone Ranger states: “The White title character’s relationship with Tonto resembled how the U.S. government imagined itself the world’s Lone Ranger.”
What? These descriptions sound like they were ripped from a paper from a curation class at Smith College.
Much of the commentary is disconnected from not just the artifacts but reality.
For me, the problem is not political bias, but the new culture of curators emerging from higher education. Just showing artifacts with neutral, factual descriptions is considered passe and pedantic. For people who are more interested in seeing original items of historical importance, they are met with displays focusing on interpretive elements and thematic narratives.
I remember when the “Castle” on the mall housed a wonderful collection of items sent to the Capitol for our centennial anniversary, including exhibits like a liberty bell made from tobacco. It was delightful to walk through the different artifacts. You felt that you had walked back in time. The last time I visited, it had been replaced with a boring collection that interpreted the evolution of the mall and the city.
I may be a throwback when it comes to such questions. As many readers of this blog are aware, I am a history enthusiast, particularly in the field of military history. I love being able to walk through artifacts and reach my own interpretive conclusions. Nevertheless, most people would agree that the Smithsonian descriptions in this exhibit are bizarre and should be changed.
Turley tries to claim that Clarence Thomas is anything other than the utter disgrace he really is and that, therefore, exclusion of him from the Smithsonian’s African American exhibit is somehow proof of liberal bias. Thomas is a joke, seemingly has no idea what a conflict of interest is–or, he really doesn’t care. Starting out as a Gullah-speaking Geechee who had to be taught English by white nuns so that people could understand him, he has come full-circle as a sell-out to wealthy people who have business before the SCOTUS, and he refuses to recuse himself. He is NOT a credit to his race or to America. Excerpted from “Forbes”, dateline 9/4/2024:
“Justice Clarence Thomas came under fire Monday as Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., revealed additional trips the justice took with real estate magnate Harlan Crow without disclosing them—the latest revelation in a series of recent controversies involving Thomas, leading to calls for him to recuse himself from cases or be removed from office and for the court to impose a binding code of ethics.
Ginni Thomas Conservative Activism: Thomas’ wife, Ginni Thomas, is a right-wing activist, which has raised considerable ethics concerns about overlap between her and her husband’s work—particularly as the New Yorker reported groups she’s been involved with have submitted briefs before the Supreme Court, including a group that has weighed in on the court’s pending case about affirmative action in university admissions.
Ginni Thomas Court Reform Opposition: ProPublica reported Thomas’ wife praised religious liberty-focused group First Liberty Institute after it vocally opposed President Joe Biden’s proposals for Supreme Court reforms—including a binding code of ethics—writing in an email to the group’s president that “YOU GUYS HAVE FILLED THE SAILS OF MANY JUDGES … THANK YOU SO, SO, SO MUCH.”
Harlan Crow Trips: ProPublica first reported in 2023 that Thomas had for years accepted trips from GOP megadonor and developer Harlan Crow, including on his private jet and superyacht, without disclosing them on financial disclosures as federal law requires.
Senate Findings On Harlan Crow: Though Thomas has now started disclosing some of his trips with Crow on his financial disclosure forms, claiming he was not previously obligated to report them, the Senate Judiciary Committee and now the Senate Finance Committee have uncovered additional undisclosed travel as part of investigations into Thomas—including spending time with Crow in Russia—and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the Finance Committee chair, alleged in August Crow is improperly claiming his yacht as a for-profit business in order to avoid paying taxes on it.
Harlan Crow Tuition: ProPublica reported in May 2023 Crow also paid two years of tuition for Thomas’ grandnephew Mark Martin, whom the justice has custody of, to attend two private schools in the 2000s, which cost $6,000 per month at one of the schools and were similarly not disclosed—even as Thomas did disclose a tuition payment a different friend made years earlier.
Harlan Crow Real Estate: Thomas and his family also sold a string of properties in Savannah, Georgia, to Crow in 2014 without disclosing that as required, ProPublica reports—including the home where his mother still lives—which Crow told the publication he purchased so he could eventually build a museum dedicated to the justice.
RV Loan Forgiven: Thomas never repaid a “substantial portion” of a $267,230 loan from wealthy friend Anthony Welters, which he used to purchase a luxury RV, a Senate Finance Committee investigation found, raising questions about whether the loan was properly reported on his taxes. If Thomas never paid the principal on the loan, it would have created a “significant amount of taxable income,” the committee noted, which wasn’t reported on his financial disclosure to the court in 2008, the year Welker said the loan was “satisfied.”
Koch Network Summits: Thomas attended at least two donor summits for the Koch network—the right-wing political organization founded by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch—and participated in a dinner with high-level donors, without disclosing his appearance at the summits or a private jet trip he took to and from the event in 2018, ProPublica reported in September.
Koch Brothers: ProPublica also reported Thomas cultivated a relationship with the two Koch brothers (David died in 2019) through repeated trips to the Bohemian Grove, a private retreat for wealthy men; the report noted the Koch network has brought cases before the Supreme Court, including having staff attorneys represent the plaintiffs in an upcoming case this term.
Sokol, Huizenga and Novelly Gifts: ProPublica reported that during his tenure on the Supreme Court, Thomas has accepted gifts including at least 38 “destination vacations,” 26 private jet flights, VIP sports passes, helicopter flights, private resorts stay and a “standing invitation” for a private golf club—which ProPublica noted was “almost certainly an undercount”—particularly from former Berkshire Hathaway executive David Sokol, late billionaire H. Wayne Huizenga and Apex Oil CEO Paul “Tony” Novelly, none of which were disclosed on Thomas’ federal disclosure forms.
Horatio Alger Association: ProPublica’s reporting built off a previous New York Times report that Thomas—a longtime member of the Horatio Alger Association, which was created to “dispel the mounting belief … that the American dream was no longer attainable”—has for years accepted gifts from a “[broad] cohort of wealthy and powerful friends” who belong to the group, including people with business before the Supreme Court, receiving such benefits as luxury trips and a Super Bowl ring.
Ginni Thomas Leonard Leo: Leo, a conservative judicial activist who’s spent billions on efforts to reshape the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, told then-conservative pollster Kellyanne Conway to give Ginni Thomas “another $25k” through a nonprofit group he advises—which then filed a brief with the Supreme Court—but conceal that the payment was for her, the Post reports, telling Conway, “No mention of Ginni, of course.”
Ginni Thomas 2020 Election: Thomas pushed efforts to overturn the 2020 election results as her husband was hearing cases on it, including sending text messages to then White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, which fueled calls for Thomas to resign or face impeachment over the perceived conflict of interest.
January 6: Ginni Thomas has also confirmed she briefly attended the rally on January 6 that preceded the attack on the Capitol building and publicly criticized the House January 6 Committee, and the justice has come under fire for failing to recuse himself in a case concerning former President Donald Trump’s records being turned over to the committee—in which he was the only justice to dissent and believe the records should have been withheld.
Ginni Thomas Funding: The Post reported in March that a conservative group Ginni Thomas formed in 2019 had raised nearly $600,000 from anonymous donors funneled through a right-wing think tank that filed an amicus brief at the Supreme Court during the same time, and ethics experts said Clarence Thomas should have recused himself from that case if his wife was paid by the group.
Financial Disclosures: Thomas has made a series of other “errors and omissions” on financial disclosure reports, which the Washington Postreported includes reporting real estate income for decades from a company that shut down in 2006 and has in the past had to amend his financial disclosures multiple times, including after failing to report his wife’s income in the 2000s.”
These are just his financial issues–not his asinine rulings, like wanting to roll back marriage equality– between same-sex couples, but not going so far as to roll back anti-miscegenation rulings because that would outlaw his marriage to a white woman. Clarence Thomas belongs in a jail—not in a Smithsonian museum honoring African Americans.
The curators need to be reminded of the admonition of the great philosopher, Joe Friday:
“Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.”
Pefect. Short and TRUE!
What Article or Amendment to the Constitution authorizes the Federal government to fund and run museums? Is that not education? Are we not in the (alleged) process of disbanding the Department of Education for the precise reason that it exercises powers not authorized by the Constitution? I tire of the namby-pamby approach to alleged attempts (I’ve seen more than enough of this to doubt their seriousness) by this administration to scale back Federal government to something that would be at least remotely recognizable by the Founders. Stop dancing around meaningless reforms to institutions that should never have existed, and flush them permanently down the metaphorical toilet. That way, when the other team of idiots regains power, they will at least need to work harder to resurrect all of their favorite Federal h0r$3$h1t.
I imagine the Smithsonian is quite similar to the museums in Vietnam today.
During my two visits back there it became glaringly plain that there was more propaganda than fact to be found in those museums.
During the visit to the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” the Hoa Lo Prison there was one particular display that caught my eye. It was a photograph of an Air Force Pilot who was a long serving POW by name of Norman Gaddis. The Tour Guide, a very nice fellow, came up to me and began to explain what the display was all about with lots of mention of the kind and gracious treatment of the POW’s. After politely listening to him I suggested there was a second version of events that perhaps he was not aware of and I offered that to him.
It was the version offered by Colonel Gaddis who was a member of my Church back home and his version involved the brutal treatment and torture inflicted upon the POW’s that was not mentioned in the Museum.
Sometimes the simple truth is something governments like not to own to or be reminded of by history or museum exhibits. The Hoa Lo Prison had on display a Guillotine that had been used on the Vietnamese by the French when Vietnam was a French Colony. The tour guide got really evasive when I inquired if any American POW’s had been executed on that device.
The Professor tells it like it is….museums should put on the exhibits and make them as factual as possible without any gratuitous commentary and let us the viewer learn from what we see and take of that experience what we will.
An example, upon viewing a piece of scrap iron from the WTC post 9-11….all I needed to know was that it was in fact a part of one of the Towers that fell that morning. That was sufficient to cause me to reflect upon that day, the events of it, and the cost in lives and what it evoked in response.
The excesses committed in the name of the radical Leftist Agenda should be considered crimes against humanity and not merely shrugged off.
Conservatives built a literal Noah’s ark as an exhibit of the Bible. Recall “Freedom Fries” because France didn’t support some stupidity of the Bush the Lesser administration?
Conservatives are supporting the restoration of the terror campaign started by those fighting against the civil rights movement in the form a aggrandizing monuments to the generals who fought to keep people in chains and frightened for their lives in forced labor camps. Those same people supported hangings, setting Black churches on fire, and knocking peaceful protestors down with fire hoses and vicious dog attacks. All to stop Black people from sitting at lunch counters, sitting near the fronts of buses, having access to the same quality of education, same access to housing, to medical care, to the voting booth.
Maybe the Left would not have to pull so hard if the Right hadn’t gone on so many murder rampages and trying to steal everything that wasn’t nailed down.
Greetings MAGA chucklemonkeys,
Elmo, your big hero from DOGE, has just announced he will form a new political party.
I guess this will pose a bit of a dilemma for you chucklemonkeys.
Who will you go with ?????
Decisions, decisions !!!!!
Will you stick with your orange cult leader ???
Or will you follow your hero Elmo ????
Speaking of Elmo, he may no longer be your big hero. Am I right ????
There has been very little fanboy worship of him and DOGE here lately.
He was your big hero for a few weeks., but now not so much I guess.
Oh, how the cult turns on members who stray from the leader.
WINNING!
I’m sure you know about the 22 Amendment, the ” orange” man is in his last term. My concern is our two party system is in the swamp, and taking on water, with NO leadership to call for help with the bailing.
Would you just shut up already. Jesus, you’re such a bore.
In what strange world do you live ?
In what world do you think there are any two men much less two great men that agree on everything ?
Trump is wrong about many things.
Musk is wrong about many things.
Either are head and shoulder above any consequential democrat.
In the current disputes between Trump and Musk – both are right.
Trump has gotten the best deal possible.
And Musk is correct that we MUST do more – much more
Presuming Musk starts a political party – and that party is successful and wins say 10% of house seats,
and lets assume Falsely that ALL those house seats come at the expense of Republicans – in what world do you seem Musks representatives supporting Democrats for control of the house ?
But worse still for Democrats – is lets say that Musks party draws 1/3 of its support from moderate democrats.
That would be the end of the democratic party.
John,
Thank you for those thoughts. Well said.
I agree John. Yes the Republicans need to cut even more, but this is a start. Most of all, when you compare it to bidens spending spree.
At this point I could be persuaded to favor a party started by Musk over the current GOP and Trump. The biggest reason might be lack of political baggage. All political parties ultimately acquire an immense amount of favor and compromise based baggage that they are forced to drag along every step of the way, and that baggage always takes precedence over alleged governing philosophy. Musk would at least have a chance to get something done (if we trust what that something is) before accumulating much of that. Also, regarding head-to-head competition with Trump, Musk does not to be nearly as consumed with assuring himself that he got completely over on his adversaries (the so-called “Art of the Deal”) as is Trump. That quest leads Trump to say things that he does not mean. Now, all politicians do that, but Trump campaigned on not being a typical politician. When those statements are mere fluff, no real harm is does. But when Trump emphatically promises to do “X”, his supporters love that idea, then it turns out that “X” was nothing to Trump but a throw-away bargaining chip to achieve “Y”, that is a serious problem, and that is where we seem to be at the moment, MAGA optimism notwithstanding. My personal opinion is that the man’s charisma and the blind enthusiasm by some of his admirers will not carry him through too many more major compromises and abandoned goals. We shall see.
I will add that I think the biggest obstacle Musk would face in doing this is not what I have seem cited elsewhere – his political naivete. I think that is actually in his favor. I think where he will fall down is that he seems to need to control everything, at least at the top level. Obviously he can delegate, but I’m doubtful that extends to ultimate, top level authority. That is what he would need to do in this proposed new party. Since he is not eligible to become President, he would need to “lead from behind”. and I am unconvinced that skill is in his repertoire.
Your comment set very low goals very itself, and failed to achieve them.
Greetings MAGA chucklemonkeys…
Well here you are again, Bolshevik Biden Birthing Boy, the very epitome of Marxist Useless Idiot! Here again to prove you’re just as sharp as your recently retired Oval Office House Plant?
You here to give us another rendition of BBBBBBUUUTTTT…. MUH TRUMPPPP!!!! Or something else?
I usually avoid personal ridicule in my comments but this comment gets honorable mention for ridiculousness in its attempt to be witty.
No decisions needed. Both Musk AND Trump are eternal icons of the era no matter what anyone says … even them, or any anonymous mouseketeer..
Time for your TDS meds, my friend.
All this winning by Prez Trump is driving you nutty. O-well. I will laugh while you cry.
Does it matter?
The Republican party under Trump is far better than the Democrats.
The America party under Musk will be far better than the Democrats.
The Democrats have nothing to offer the American people other than hate.
If anything, sane, normal, traditional Democrats may leave the party for the America party, furthering the demise of the Democrat party.
How marvelous!
Best to not feed the troll…
The Left has made a fetish out of cancelling the dissenters that the right can never match. Your Elmo is one. In addition your elitist bigotry is sickening. See to your own evil.
Officials in Texas are casting blame on the National Weather Service (NWS) for failing to forecast catastrophic flooding that has killed 24 people. In addition, there are 25 young girls from a Christian summer camp still missing.
“The original forecast that we received Wednesday from the National Weather Service predicted 3-6 inches of rain in the Concho Valley and 4-8 inches in the Hill Country,” said Texas Emergency Management Chief W. Nim Kidd at a press conference Friday.
Sudden thunderstorms dumped more than 15 inches of rain on the area, causing heavy flooding from the Guadalupe River.
Dalton Rice, the city manager for Kerrville, Texas—who also spoke at the press conference—said that the catastrophic flash flooding happened because the skies “dumped more rain than what was forecasted” on two of the river’s forks.
NWS was among the government agencies targeted by the Department of Government Efficiency in its effort to gut the federal bureaucracy, losing approximately 600 staffers.
After the cuts, the agency—which was already understaffed—began to prepare to offer “degraded” forecasting services, facing “severe shortages” of meteorologists, according to an internal document obtained in April.
In May, all five living directors of the NWS issued a letter warning that Trump’s cuts “leave the nation’s official weather forecasting entity at a significant deficit … just as we head into the busiest time for severe storm predictions like tornadoes and hurricanes,” the directors wrote. “Our worst nightmare is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed that there will be needless loss of life.”
Trump, Musk and DOGE have the blood of children on their hands.
WT@? 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
“Trump, Musk and DOGE have the blood of children on their hands.”
Any fool knows that there are scads of excellent weather forecasting services, including: AccuWeather, The Weather Channel, Weather Underground, Forecast Advisor, Windy, countless weather apps, and scores of local forecasters.
And if they all got the forecast wrong, then news flash: Weather forecaster got it wrong.
And they all get their data from the National Weather Service.
Do you really think all those online weather sources have their own satellites ????
Do you really think they launch multiple weather balloons daily ????
The NWS is the only source of raw weather data, and they have warned that they are unable to provide complete data. They have warned that they are now offering “degraded” services because of the staff cuts.
Dude MAGAs are really stupid. Never underestimate how dumb they are.
I find the dumbest people are bigots who judge whole groups who they mostly don’t know a thing about.
“And they all get their data from the National Weather Service.”
False, The raw data for weather forecasts comes from myriads of sources – including colleges and universities.
That raw data is not particularly dependent on govenrment funding and more importantly government analysis.
Even the data from Weather Satelites – shich tend to be Government only because the government resists allowing competition,
though even that is changing, is still available to all.
The private re-insurance industry – the people who insure the insurance companies do their own short term and long term forecasting – specifically related to natural disasters that might cost them money.
Do you really think that private investors put hundreds of billions – even Trillions into insuring the insurance companies against national disasters and rely entirely – or even party on the NWS ?
If you do you are a moron.
I mentioned Weather satelites earlier – In the era of the space shuttle one Weather Satelite over the Carabean that was critical to huricane forecasting was failing prematurely – The US govenrment initially refused to change the Shuttle schedule to get a replacement into space.
So the re-insurance industry got together to fund a completely private weather satellite and pay for a private Launch.
This was before SpaceX.
Interestingly as the reinsurance industry was starting to seriously design and build a weather satellite, The US govenrment suddenly found the money and a newly emptied spaceshuttle slot – because god forbid there should be a private weather satellite.
There is very very very little that only government can do. And that is all that government should do, and weather prediction is not in that list.
There is unfortunately far too much that the US government does – that it should NOT do – and weather forecasting is on that list.
Universally the best predictor of the quality fo decisions – is NOT IQ, or pretty much anything else you might think of,
It is “skin in the game” – the extent to which the quality of your decisions helps or harms YOU.
As Adam Smith noted 250 years ago.
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages”
Contra you left wing nuts – YOUR standard of living derives very little from Government.
YOUR quality of life is delivered to you buy private actors who give you what you want in return for your giving them what they want.
We need government to reduce the impact of force or fraud on that process, to neutrally adjudicate disputes over free agreements
and to provide for national security.
nothing else.
Again observed by Adam Smith 250 years ago.
“Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things. All governments which thwart this natural course, which force things into another channel, or which endeavour to arrest the progress of society at a particular point, are unnatural, and to support themselves are obliged to be oppressive and tyrannical.”
What those on the left regard as tyranny is actually called freedom.
And what the left seeks is tyranny.
Yep. I trend to rely on NWS for my 7 day forecast, my wife uses AccuWeather. Those differ, and each is occasionally significantly wrong. Frankly, I think NWS is incorrect more often than AccuWeather, but the difference has not been enough to make me change browsing habits. NTM that reviewing both allows us to make slightly better educated guesses (and that is what it is) on what the local weather will be like 3 days and further out by comparing the two. Now, if 3 – 7 day local weather forecasts involve that much guesswork, should we discuss the the overwhelming assumptions and vagaries involved in predictions of future climate?
Wrong…. Look up the history of that area.
“And they all get their data from the National Weather Service.” “The NWS is the only source of raw weather data . . .”
That is laughably false. As just two examples: Weather Underground has some 250,000 *private* weather stations. Starlink’s *private* satellites are used for weather forecasting.
Yet again, just making stuff up.
For now, do not live near rivers nor near flood plains. Maybe the future…
Aside from the tremendous difficulty in forecasting even ordinary weather accurately – we never get one in 100 year events right,
Which should not be surprising. One in 100 years events are rare and unpredictable.
The 600 that were laid off had philosophy degrees, African studies, gender studies etc degrees. None were meteorologists. The admin is looking to import actual meteorologists.
The NWS has done a schiffty job its entire history.
And those of you on the left think it is possible to predict climate decades in advance when rain can not be predicted days in advance.
Regardless With the exception of the needs of the military – Weather forecasting is NOT the legitimate role of government
And why should we trust Government Weather Forecasts anyway ?
Does anyone lose their job if NWS gets it wrong ?
In the real world you either get things right or your done.
If DOGE cut NWS – they did not cut it enough.
You moron. It’s call weather and if you knew anything about that area. It’s known for sudden flooding. Try reading up, that way you won’t sound so dumb.
How many people have to look at radar and weather charts and other forecasting instruments to get it right? There is nothing but bloated personnel in all our institutions and governments. They are just attempting to protect their jobs by fearmongering. In any case none of the cuts have taken place to have affected this storm. AI will soon replace meteorologists anyway.
Time for this taxpayer-funded museum to be a museum of “stuff.” Not political writing posing as facts. Identify items with some nouns or proper names, a date or dates and a location — period!
Try going thru some of the exhibits and videos in the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Debunked lies and false narratives are presented as fact. BLM, George Floyd, Obama, etc, etc.
They are fabricating ‘history’ to fit the left’s narrative.
The dishonesty as you move thru some of these exhibits is disturbing, really.
Not to mention the utter disrespect shown to Justice Clarence Thomas, and toward other prominent ‘conservative’ blacks. It’s atrocious.
Thomas set the black civil rights back decades. He is awful on all issues. No sane person would honor him.
Thomas set the black civil rights back decades.
Another Soviet Democrat Kluxxer, enraged that Thomas set back their Kluxxer Leaders, Biden and Byrd, by refusing to bend the knee in supplication and stay on the Soviet Democrat Poverty Plantation.
No blue blooded Kluxxer Soviet Democrat would ever honor a self made black American who beat them and their Kluxxer racism.
The last thing the left wants is truthful black history
Essential black history: Tribal chiefs abducted and sold their countrymen starting the British slave trade; greed is good, it has been said.
Um, no, that did not happen. Governments in Africa did not “abduct and sell their own countrymen“.
Governments in Africa did not “abduct and sell their own countrymen“.
African kingdoms abducted and sold their own African slaves who viewed them as lesser than themselves hence not their own countrymen.
African Kingdoms that Actively Participated in the Transatlantic Slave Trade
https://talkafricana.com/west-african-tribes-that-thrived-on-the-slavery/
When the Slave Traders Were African: Those whose ancestors sold slaves to Europeans now struggle to come to terms with a painful legacy
By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani
Sept. 20, 2019
Records from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, directed by historian David Eltis at Emory University, show that the majority of captives brought to the U.S. came from Senegal, Gambia, Congo and eastern Nigeria. Europeans oversaw this brutal traffic in human cargo, but they had many local collaborators. “The organization of the slave trade was structured to have the Europeans stay along the coast lines, relying on African middlemen and merchants to bring the slaves to them,” said Toyin Falola, a Nigerian professor of African studies at the University of Texas at Austin. “The Europeans couldn’t have gone into the interior to get the slaves themselves.”
The anguished debate over slavery in the U.S. is often silent on the role that Africans played. That silence is echoed in many African countries, where there is hardly any national discussion or acknowledgment of the issue. From nursery school through university in Nigeria, I was taught about great African cultures and conquerors of times past but not about African involvement in the slave trade. In an attempt to reclaim some of the dignity that we lost during colonialism, Africans have tended to magnify stories of a glorious past of rich traditions and brave achievement.
https://wsj.com/articles/when-the-slave-traders-were-african-11568991595
Just maybe these fools should look up the nightmare from O-dumber bombing Libya.
After this so called leader was murdered. The new leadership, restarted the (black) slave trade.
Yes folks a black American Prez did that.
The savagery and barbarism and slavery of the natives both in Africa and North and South America has bee completely whitewashed (pardon the pun). They of course accuse the white man of covering over and distorting history. Common sense would tell you that the colonists were the ones in the weaker position and couldn’t settle or got into the slavery trade without native cooperation.
Can you cite any of the lies? Do yo deny slavery happened? Do you deny Jim Crow? Redlining? Sunset towns? The Tulsa Massacre?
Slavery existed in Eridu and Uruk, the first cities, where writing was invented about 3,200 BC, and slavery has existed ever since essentially everywhere.
The West didn’t invent slavery; it inherited it.
Where the West stands out is by being the first civilization to decide slavery was wrong and set out to end it.
Those who are upset by slavery would show true moral courage by going where slavery still exists, in black Africa, and work to end it.
But you won’t–not profitable.
*. Will anyone remember in 100 years?
It’ll be just another nameless, faceless 3rd world among many.
“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past”
– Emmanuel Goldstein
Museums today are too often the personal museum of the mind of a pencil-necked geek
“The Smithsonian ties the movie [Star Wars] into people *fleeing from the realities of* . . .” (JT, emphasis added)
Adventure stories and thrillers such as The Scarlet Pimpernel, James Bond, and Star Wars present life as uplifting, colorful, interesting. Their heroes are bold and admirable. They provide spiritual fuel.
Critics, suffocating in their drab lives, always use the same smear: Such stories are “escapism.” Their critique is a self-confession.
“For me, the problem is not political bias, but the new culture of curators emerging from higher education.”
For me, the problem IS political bias.
I hope President Trump cleans house there too.
Jonathan: You are like the Archie McPhee wind up toy. Fox News publishes a story today entitled “Trump White House calls out Smithsonian for pushing ‘one-sided, divisive, political narratives'”. Then Fox winds you up and you parrot the Fox and Trump propaganda in your column. You are right there with Fox and Trump when it comes to the “culture wars”
Every totalitarian regime tries to control all the levers of power. That includes cultural institutions. Those institutions must reflect the regime’s ideology. We saw that play out under Hitler’s Nazi regime. Arts and cultural institutions were synchronized with Nazi ideology to extol the virtues of Aryan superiority. The modern art of Matisse, Picasso and other artists was taken off art museum walls and replaced with heroic depictions of old German white culture. Gays were hounded and prosecuted.
The DJT regime is following the Nazi playbook. DJT started his purge by firing the board of the Kennedy Center, becoming its new Chair, replacing the board with his cronies who will determine what performances are “permissible”. Gay and Black themed productions are now “verboten”.
Now DJT also turned his sights on the Smithsonian. On 3/27 DJT issued another EO targeting the Smithsonian, accusing it of promoting “divisive narratives” and “improper ideology”. In the same EO DJT also attacked the African American History Museum as well as the American Women’s History Museum–all in an attempt to “whitewash” American history.
With respect to the Smithsonian WH official Lindsey Halligan blasted the Museum for its exhibit which explores America’s pop culture–the exhibit that got your hair on fire. Halligan said: “American taxpayers should not be funding institutions that undermine our country and promote one-sided, divisive political narratives. The Smithsonian Institution should present history in a way that is accurate, balanced, and consistent with the values that make the United States of America exceptional”. Translation: By “balanced” Halligan means no more exhibits that point out how racism has been part of US pop culture and how white colonialism and imperialism have shaped that culture. Halligan wants exhibits that reflect America’s WHITE “exceptionalism”. All this sounds like something we often heard from Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Reich Minister of Public of Enlightenment and Propaganda. His job was to synchronize all aspects of German culture with Nazi ideology known as “Gleichschaltung”.
Fortunately, the Smithsonian is not part of the executive branch, so DJT can’t simply fire the Museum’s Board of Regents like he did with the Kennedy Center. But given DJT’s track record of lawlessness and abuse of power he will deploy every form of coercion and intimidation to force the Smithsonian to conform to the regime’s approved ideology.
What is sad is your endorsement of of the dear leader’s attempts to sanitize American history and culture–to eliminate any mention of slavery, Jim Crow and the other institutions that promoted white supremacy. For DJT the role of African Americans in building this country should be excised–along with all the contributions made by women, both white and black. That’s what Halligan means by American “exceptionalism”. Only the contributions of old white men should be promoted and displayed at the Smithsonian and other museums in DC.
On the road to fascism means having to distort and revise history to conform to the dear leader’s chosen ideology. In the case of DJT it means to extol the virtues exhibited by mostly white billionaires who “built” this country. Everyone else are just bit players!
Get your own blog, loser. Nobody reads your crap here.
You , anon, get the time out for responding.
“Every totalitarian regime tries to control all the levers of power. That includes cultural institutions.”
You really don’t want to go there on this story.
It was the Nazis who used art and museums as propaganda vehicles — just as do your “curatorial activists.”
*. ^^ Spewing.
Don’t read Dennis anymore. If anyone comments just know you’re an idiot for talking to AI as a human.
HAL
It’s amazing to see how truly deranged and brainwashed most Democrats are.
Your brains are pumped full of lies, spin, and misinformation….
You are being propagandized, emotionally manipulated as Useful Idiots…
Trained to regurgitate the lies and false narratives on behalf of The Party.
Dennis is a good Useful Brainwashed Idiot.
And the thing is, these people are in the Matrix, in a Bubble of Delusion, and they cannot see beyond it.
Very scary indeed to think of people like him holding positions of power over people.
The Democrat party has lost its way. It is consumed by corruption, hatred, pure evil and must be toppled, destroyed, never to rise again.
Have you seen what is going on in NY. People are dressing up in black going into the streets and screaming… Total loons.
DM – Your clinical-level obsession with your President should qualify you for regular appearances on “The View.” Their regular TDS-suffering members are suitable brethren for you, and the emotional bonding might be of therapeutic value.
Dennis – Why should my or your or anyone else’s tax money be going to support political indoctrination of ANY kind ?
Now that we have ended funding for PBS ad NPR and PP,
Time to end funding for the arts, humanities, goverment research unrelated to national security – and yes, the Smithsonian.
I love the Smithsonian. But I would have government sell it in a second.
A private Smithsonian can propogandize as it pleases.
BTW recent reports have Kennedy center fund raising setting records.
“Every totalitarian regime tries to control all the levers of power. That includes cultural institutions. Those institutions must reflect the regime’s ideology. We saw that play out under Hitler’s Nazi regime. Arts and cultural institutions were synchronized with Nazi ideology to extol the virtues of Aryan superiority. The modern art of Matisse, Picasso and other artists was taken off art museum walls and replaced with heroic depictions of old German white culture. Gays were hounded and prosecuted.’
And YOU are so stupid that you confuse trying to END totalitarian control of culture with actually controlling it.
WE are our culture – the Smithsonian nonsense Trump is trying to end IS totalitarian efforts to manipulate culture by government.
What Turely and Trump are complaining about is EXACTLY the efforts of the left to use the levers of power to control culture.
AGAIN WE are our culture – not the smithsonian. It is NOT the role of the Smithsonian to DIRECT our culture or values but to REFLECT them
As Turley correctly pointed out – no one thought Star Wars was political commentary on Vietnam or Nixon.
Such nonsense from the Smithsonian PROVES that those of you on the left ARE the ones trying to distort culture to reflect YOUR stupid ideology.
It is YOU an th Smithsonian that are following in Hilters footsteps.
And you are so lacking in self awareness that you can not see the obvious.
Dennis – You left wing nut idiots are the ones trying to rewrite history.
My first date with my then girl friend and now wife was to the opening of the first Star Wars movie.
Until Turley’s artical I never heard such and absurd claim regarding Star Wars as the Smithsonian is shilling,
and YOU are stupidly defending.
Trump did not ask the Smithsonian to push a MAGA agenda – though if anything the National Museuml absolutely should be celebrating the greatness of the nation, not pissing all over it.
My wife and I are rewatching Ken Burns 9 part Civil War documentary.
620,000 americans DIED in the fight to end slavery – 2% of the population – no war in US history has been so bloody – or even close. There were 2M casualties in the Civil War. Nearly every family in the country was touched directly by death or injury.
Slavery was the original Sin of the United States – NOT because slavery in the US was so extensive or abnormal – there were nearly 10 times as many slaves taken to the Caribean as in the US and nearly 30 times as many taken to south american.
And the same number taken to the mideast as taken to the western hemisphere.
What was unique about slavery in the US is that
” our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
Slavery violated the foundational values of our country.
Slavery made hypocrits of americans – and even our founders knew that.
And we paid heavily in blood and treasure for that sin.
We do not need lectures from left wing nuts
Regardless the many imperfections of this country – including slavery do not alter the fact that America is EXCEPTIONAL.
The 15-21M illegal immigrants who came here over the last 4 years is proof
Please name anywhere else on earth that millions of people a year go to such extraordinary efforts to get into ?
But as is typical of the left – your ideology is a self contradictory mess.
Jezzzzzzzzzzz dennis.
What a bunch of Hog-wash.
This post is right out of the Maoist cultural Revolution . Mao split the country into communists and fascists, Nothing in between. America is based on Western values. you have to look far and wide to find better values in its respect for human beings and their rights and the prosperity that has come as a result. A country wanting and in effect needing to continue its values is not a fascist take. Every country aspires to it. These people are rewriting history (communists) & bringing out just our faults so as destroy the country and ease in a woke (communist) dictatorship. A fifth column propagandized by our education system. Woke is but Communism American style & the country will not have it. The long march through the institutions must be reversed.
K U D O S to JONATHAN TURLEY . . . for no other prominent should has spoken nakedly truthful of such an over reach emanating from what had been an exemplary American institute.
“. . . the new culture of curators emerging from higher education.” (JT)
Those propagandistic “curators” are open about using museum exhibits as Trojan horses, to smuggle in their anti-Western, anti-American ideology.
They call themselves “curatorial activists.” Their goal, in their own words, is to “resist masculinism and sexism, confront white privilege and Western-centrism, and challenge hetero-centrism and lesbo-homophobia.”
*. I’m currently making a headphone tour of this museum. In this way people have a choice. Listen to communist propaganda or think about the attributes of art and artifacts historically placed within events of American history. 5 dollars.
Regret to report that the interpretive comments at the Frist Art Museum in Nashville are infected with same type of infantilized, intersectional commentary.
A local museum here on the West Coast promotes the travails of “native Americans,” when they were neither native nor American but actually nomads from China who arrived long before 1789, when Americans came into existence.
These communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs) are incoherent and illogical, if not completely insane, in their attempts to pass lies off as truths.
They’ll present any fabrication and falsehood to implicate Freedom and Self-Reliance and promote state enslavement and sustenance.
..WOW……Huge Kudos on refreshing review… ‘Spot on’ to the Core, TY Prof. Turley…. I experienced absolute Shell Shock the last time I went to the Am. History Museum on the Mall… The new woke theme park was unbearable.. hard to stomach…. I also wandered around with No Relief from any of the Smithsonianites, incl. the Info Desks, looking for the exhibit of the original computer.. which for years the sprawling ‘Twilight Zone’ type assembly of metal boxes and zillions of tubes and lights, fascinated all.. we could marvel at the amazing advancements of IT in just a few short decades.. I was met with blank stares & puzzled looks from all wearing a Smithsonian uniform.. all had no clue what I was talking about…. re: the whole room that disappeared… Please, White House, Go For It..! Restoration of raw real History badly needed at the Smithsonian!
According to the Smithsonian’s curators: “Under the big top, circuses expressed the colonial impulse to claim dominion over the world.”
True story: A man claimed he saw a resemblance between a halo and sex. Because both encircle something.
He was a schizophrenic.
If Clarence Thomas is African American, so is Elon Musk and Zorro Mamdani.
. u r unequivocally Nuts.
Clarence Thomas is NOT American.
You just wrote that.
Clarence Thomas et al. are not American.
They are African-American.
And, of course, we all know there is distinctly no Africa-America anywhere on the planet.
How can this be?
Was America coveted and stolen from Americans?
Surely these acts would have been Deadly Sins.
Ahhhh hey fool. Mr Thomas was born in America, not Africa.
When I was 9 years old my father took my brother and me to DC and one of the places we visited was the Smithsonian. While we were waiting in line to get tickets, the guy behind us molested me. I had no idea what he was doing and I kept edging away but the guy was undeterred. My dad was standing in front, very anxious about the tickets since he didn’t have much money. I was a severe introvert and I didn’t know how to tell my dad what was happening and anyway he wouldn’t have known what to do. I’d be happy to see the Smithsonian razed to the ground.
When did the Smithsonian charge admission (My dad was standing in front, very anxious about the tickets since he didn’t have much money)? Except for a few special exhibits, for example, if I remember correctly the Aeronautics and Space Museum showed a movie which charged admission. When I was growing up in the DC area, the museums were somewhere where anyone could afford to go.
You are exactly right.
The Smithsonian does not charge an admission fee.
Unfortunately, the MAGA morons live in a bizarre fantasy world completely divorced from reality.
They simply make sh!t up to fit their weird obsessions and fantasies.
Except the Smithsonian Museum in New York City, the Cooper Hewitt, does charge people for entry.
https://www.si.edu/visit/museums
It appears that demwits like yourself can’t even do an iota of research and simply look things up like I just did. 🤦♂️
Dannyboyo2
But the Anon at 1:22 specifically claimed he went to the Smithsonian in DC, which does NOT charge admission.
So obviously this story from Anon is false. He is lying.
So your dimwitted attempt at obfuscation and deflection is apparently what passes for logical argument in the MAGA cult.
Find some totally irrelevant fact and twist yourself into a pretzel to try to justify an obviously false story from a fellow cult member.
Very weird logic, but apparently this is what the MAGA cult does.
You are compelled to come to the rescue of your fellow cultists, no matter how absurd the claims that are made.
The cult brainwashing is very effective at completely eliminating the ability to think rationally.
@Anonymous
We know you posted both comments, you don’t mask your tone well (particularly when you are impersonating people from other countries). At least you tried. 🥲
MAGA morons. God, are you tiresome. Get new material.
Low IQ. from the left
Communism is all-pervasive.
Communism is also utterly antithetical, anti-American, illicit, and unconstitutional.
Why have all vestiges of communism not been totally eradicated like smallpox, polio, measles, mumps, and rubella?