(AFP) – US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized top museums for their “woke” focus on subjects including “how bad Slavery was,” his latest attack on the cultural institutions in a country that fought a civil war over the issue. “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future,” Trump wrote.
He was referring to the Smithsonian Institution, an independent organization that operates 17 museums, galleries, and a zoo located across the country, which receives public funding, and which he has previously accused of espousing a “corrosive ideology.” The transatlantic slave trade from Africa to the Americas spanned three centuries and has been referred to as the United States’ “original sin.” The country’s South fought to maintain slavery in the 1861-1865 Civil War, but lost. Since then, African Americans have fought for their civil rights, including in the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, which forced a new national reckoning on the darker parts of US history.
“The Museums throughout Washington, but all over the Country are, essentially, the last remaining segment of ‘WOKE’,” Trump wrote in the Truth Social post, using his shorthand for leftist social justice movements. For months now, Trump has disparaged cultural institutions, which have worked to bring more diversity to exhibits and programming in recent years, highlighting women, people of color, and queer culture. Last week, the White House posted a letter to its website saying the administration plans to target eight major museums for “comprehensive internal review” in an effort to “celebrate American exceptionalism” and “remove divisive or partisan narratives.” The targeted institutions include the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the National Museum of the American Indian, the letter said.
“Now museums are being targeted because they speak too openly about the horrors of slavery,” wrote prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump on X in response to Trump’s post. “If telling the truth about slavery makes a museum ‘too woke,’ then the problem isn’t the history, it’s the people who want to erase it,” he continued.
In 2017, during his first term, Trump visited the National Museum of African American History — which opened the year before and which depicts the slave trade, among other historic subjects. “This museum is a beautiful tribute to so many American heroes,” Trump said after his tour, according to US media reports from the time. “It’s amazing to see.”
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