Critics see Trump attacks on the 'Black Smithsonian' as an effort to sanitize racism in US history

[AZProgressive]

By BILL BARROW
Updated 9:01 PM MST, March 28, 2025

ATLANTA (AP) — President Donald Trump’s order accusing the Smithsonian Institution of not reflecting American history notes correctly that the country’s Founding Fathers declared that “all men are created equal.”

But it doesn’t mention that the founders enshrined slavery into the U.S. Constitution and declared enslaved persons as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of the Census.

Civil rights advocates, historians and Black political leaders sharply rebuked Trump on Friday for his order, entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” They argued that his executive order targeting the Smithsonian Institution is his administration’s latest move to downplay how race, racism and Black Americans themselves have shaped the nation’s story.

“It seems like we’re headed in the direction where there’s even an attempt to deny that the institution of slavery even existed, or that Jim Crow laws and segregation and racial violence against Black communities, Black families, Black individuals even occurred,” said historian Clarissa Myrick-Harris, a professor at Morehouse College, the historically Black campus in Atlanta.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-black-history-smithsonian-dei-687fd306dc9c6d7611300d74fe49b8aa

[William769]

1. "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History."

Requires getting rid of donald trump.

[AZJonnie]

2. Wow, I can't believe this article was allowed by AP's editors in this form

By that I mean normally there'd be at least 3 paragraphs tacitly implying Trump and the GOP's points are totally reasonable, before 1-2 short paragraph outlining the ACTUAL facts from any experts or people in the know (and them downplaying them as much as possible).

Guessing that someone is going to be in trouble over this article, and I doubt it remains in this form for long. It'll need a lot more IQ47 regime-approved propaganda inserted in the early lines, for sure. Words like "forcibly argued" will need toned down to "claimed", that sort of thing.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Hell, not all WHITE men were created equal when this country was founded.

And all that slave labor that subsidized the economic foundation of this country ignored?!

And the Irish and the Chinese who built our transportation systems?

Will Trump now take over the museums?