The Truth about the Smithsonian

Namely, That It Tells the Truth

Illustration by Susan Griss

“America's strength lies in our ability to confront our past honestly, recognize our shortcomings, and unite to push forward. Attempting to whitewash the experiences of marginalized communities only serves to deepen divisions and hinder progress.

“. . . No matter how challenging it may be for some to realize this, Black history is American history. We must ensure stories of all Americans are told truthfully and completely, so we can remember our past and inform our future.” —Derrick Johnson, NAACP

Of the many offenses against the Constitution, the economy, free speech, and American civilization committed by Trump so far, his white supremacist crackdown on truth is what disturbs me most. It’s largely unnamed but it’s right there, undergirding all his ugly moves: RACISM. There’s the evisceration of the federal civil service, which is especially damaging to the Black middle class; there’s the dehumanization and mass expulsion of non-white immigrants from the land; there’s the onslaught of attacks on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, which constitute Trump’s reprise of the end of Reconstruction in the 19th century; there’s the imminent gutting of anti-poverty programs like Head Start, which seek, among other things, to overcome the overwhelming impacts of institutional racism.

“Wokeness” — which essentially means the understanding that racism, rooted in 250 years of slavery (and an equivalent span of anti-Native slaughter and repression), is an essential feature of American history that must be reckoned with, or else our patriotism is a fairytale — wokeness is now in the role that communism played in the McCarthy era. And just as back then, when the Red Scare’s sidekick was the Lavender Scare — homophobia, which drove gay people out of government and out of the light of day — today, it’s same thing: the penumbra of anti-wokeness is anti-queer prejudice.

Things never change, do they?

Ahh, but they do! Wokeness is far better embedded in American society than communism ever was. The recognition of racism as an historical and contemporary reality, and the acceptance of LGBTQ people as, well, people, are both far more widespread than in the 1950s. Back then, Jim Crow was legal and homosexuality was illegal. Our struggles have not been in vain — but the backlash never dies.

Which brings me to the Smithsonian Institution, the latest prominent target of Trump’s racism. Let’s admit it: Trump’s right. At least as represented by Smithsonian magazine, to which I’m a happy subscriber, the Smithsonian Institution is a woke institution. Each issue (same for its website) surprises me with extensive coverage of Black history, Native American history, women’s history, and LGBTQ history and culture. During the past year: a piece on enslaved boatmen on Virginia’s James River; a piece on Rebecca Lee Crumpler, America’s first Black doctor; an interview with the author of The Trouble of Color, a memoir about a mixed-race family over the course of 150 years; an article on female American surgeons in the British army during World War II; another on Dr. Alice Hamilton’s campaign against lead in the environment in the early 20th century; a tour of the Canyon de Chelly in the Navajo corner of Arizona; a piece about the racist reality behind Colson Whitehead’s novel, The Nickel Boys; an article about bluesman Mississippi John Hurt’s neglected birthplace; an article about Belle da Costa Greene, a Black woman who passed as white and became the first director of the Morgan Library; an article about the establishment of Indigenous People’s Day as a “woke” alternative to Columbus Day; and much, much more.

Most recently, Trump attacked the Smithsonian for an exhibit that “promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct.”

This is the same Donald Trump who didn’t seem to know who Frederick Douglass was when the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African-American History and Culture opened in 2016.

As was finally said to Senator Joseph McCarthy: “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

Dear President Trump, the so-called biological underpinnings for your racist views have been debunked: Race is NOT a biological reality beyond skin and hair color and a few medical propensites (like being particularly susceptible to sickle-cell anemia).

And by the way, patriotism without wokeness is a sham.

I urge readers of this little essay to subscribe to Smithsonian magazine (nice Passover gift, only $20!) and expand its woke base.