Eliminating 'Woke' From the Smithsonian Is a Far More Difficult Job Than the White House Thinks

The Smithsonian is actually several museums encompassing American history, art, and the institution's gem, the Air and Space Museum. 

I lived in Washington, D.C., in the 1980s and visited the mall several times, where most of the Smithsonian's museums are located. This was before the virus of political correctness turned the museums into self-conscious parodies of American history. Creating an exhibit simply to demonstrate "diversity" is the antithesis of being faithful to the truth and sensitive to all sides of a debate.

But yanking out the tentacles of "wokeness" institution-wide is a monumental challenge that requires years of careful study. It involves examining all sides of what's being portrayed or what the exhibit is trying to say and putting it in the context of history and contemporary sensibilities. 

This first attempt by the White House to weed out "woke" from the Smithsonian needs far more fleshing out than it has so far demonstrated. The Smithsonian complex includes 17 museums (including the National Zoo). It's the world's largest museum and research complex and includes numerous research and education centers.

It's still a testament to scholarship and teaching, even with the relatively few surrenders to race and ethnic diversity.

Greater pains need to be taken in deciding what stays and what goes. That said, some of the decisions are no-brainers.

• The National Museum of the American Latino characterizes the Texas Revolution as a “massive defense of slavery waged by ‘white Anglo Saxon’ settlers against anti-slavery Mexicans fighting for freedom, not a Texan war of independence from Mexico,” and frames the Mexican-American War as “the North American invasion” that was “unprovoked and motivated by pro-slavery politicians.”

The museum is under construction, so removing this idiocy is a simple matter. 

• The American History Museum features a display that refers to the founding of America as “a profound unsettling of the continent.”

Such drivel should be removed for stating the obvious.

• The American History Museum’s “Upending 1620” exhibit claims Pilgrims are a “myth,” instead framing them as colonizers.

These three examples are low-hanging fruit. But other exhibits on the chopping block deserve more scrutiny than simply removing them because they portray America in a bad light.

• The National Museum of African Art displayed an exhibit on “works of speculative fiction that bring to life an immersive, feminist and sacred aquatopia inspired by the legend of Drexciya,” an “underwater kingdom populated by the children of pregnant women who had been thrown overboard or jumped into the ocean during the Middle Passage.”

If there was ever a wrenching, compelling story to tell that gets so little attention, it's the Middle Passage. The trip from Africa to the New World resulted in an uncountable number of deaths, and the reality that mothers threw their infants overboard rather than see them grow up in slavery. 

This particular exhibit is based on a concept created in the 1990s, but the imagined world of Drexciya resonates strongly with black Americans and needs to be shared with all Americans.

Slavery is wrong. From its beginning in the New World in 1619, it was recognized as a moral failing and evil. Why remove exhibits that remind us of that fact just because some Americans believe otherwise?

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And then there's this wrongheadedness from the White House.

“As President Trump promised, the Trump Administration is committed to rooting out Woke and divisive ideology in our government and institutions,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in an email. “Taxpayer money should not be used for things that pit Americans against one another. Our Smithsonian should exhibit history accurately, honestly, and truthfully.”

Is he kidding? American history is divisive. It has always been divisive. American history is itself an argument, depending on our personal history and perspective.

There is no one interpretation of American history, not when so many voices come from different directions. Do you really think a black person sees American history the same way a white person does?

Trying to create one view of American history is an exercise in futility and a dangerous oversimplification of the facts. Names, places, and dates are incontrovertible facts. But what about gleaning motiviations from historical figures? What about interpreting the decisions of presidents? There's a "why" to questions of history that are answered differently depending on your viewpoint.

Points of view differ among historians of goodwill and sound scholarship. Closing down arguments by eliminating points of view we might disagree with is not seeking the truth. 

Please be careful in eliminating scholarship that Donald Trump may disagree with in the name of cleansing wokeness from the Smithsonian.

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