October 13, 2025 • 43 mins
This Columbus Day—more aptly, Indigenous Peoples’ Day—we’re talking about the mounting efforts to rewrite American history in real time.
From pushing pro-slavery cartoons into classrooms, to pressuring the Smithsonian polish up and whitewash the past, to scrubbing Harriet Tubman and Jackie Robinson from federal websites.....
There's a lot to unpack.
Click here to catch up on all the new members-only episodes, which are released weekly.
From pushing pro-slavery cartoons into classrooms, to pressuring the Smithsonian polish up and whitewash the past, to scrubbing Harriet Tubman and Jackie Robinson from federal websites.....
There's a lot to unpack.
Click here to catch up on all the new members-only episodes, which are released weekly.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Just before the weekend, Trump announced that Indigenous People's Day
is once again Columbus Day, point blank period. I think
now would be a good time to unpack this move
and many many others from the Trump White House that
have decimated the Biden administration's policies and brought in their
(00:24):
opposite in every way. I'm your host, Marie Beacham, and
on this episode we will be talking about Columbus Day
and Indigenous People's Day, and the National Parks and Harriet
Tubman and Jackie Robinson and basic facts about slavery and
(00:46):
all of the other things that have been up for
debate this year since Trump returned to office. I'm getting
over a sickness. You might hear that in my voice. Apologies,
but I have a lot I want to talk because
there have been so many developments this year alone in
terms of the fight for defining history, defining what is true,
(01:11):
what is good, what deserves to be shared in classrooms, curriculum, museums,
and what doesn't. The censorship efforts have been so super
abundant that I bet you haven't even heard about half
of these things. The Trump administration has made such a
comprehensive effort to make revisions to what museums have been saying,
(01:35):
what's acceptable in curriculum, what's acceptable in college campuses, and
oh boy, have they gotten to work. I've really struggled
with what to do with this episode. Do I just
give you a fire hose of information and say, look
at all these bad things that are happening. Bet you
didn't know that good thing you know now? Because that
doesn't seem very helpful, very productive. And I don't want
(01:57):
to be alarmist and make you panic and make you
feel completely overwhelmed. But on the other hand, if you're
trying to look up every headline and gather all these
different things, that in itself is an overwhelming experience. So
I thought, you know what, how would I do a
special episode and bring together the information so you are informed,
(02:17):
so it can be simple. Hopefully I can make it digestible,
and maybe we can tie a bow on it and
send you off with some sort of encouragement or call
to action. I don't know. I haven't gotten that far.
But we have a lot to talk about, So let's
get right into it. Starting with the proclamation issued by
President Trump on October night, So just a few days
(02:39):
ago today, our nation honors the legendary Christopher Columbus, the
original American hero, a giant of Western civilization and one
of the most gallant and visionary men to ever walk
the face of the earth. Oh my goodness, what a
way to euligize a man. We are just laying it
(03:01):
on thick. Okay, this Columbus Day, we honor his life
with reverence and gratitude, and we pledge to reclaim his
extraordinary legacy of faith, courage, perseverance, and virtue from the
left wing arsonists who have sought to destroy his name
and dishonor his memory. Then this goes on to describe
(03:23):
Columbus in very glowing terms, speaks highly of the ban
he is, and his courage and his fortitude and his
faith and his resolve, and it says, let's celebrate his legacy.
Let's celebrate the great nation of Italy and our special
bond rooted in timeless values. Yeah. So there you have it.
It's Columbus Day. Forget about Indigenous People's Day. I have
(03:46):
a hard time putting to words how I think we
should make sense of these things, because, on the one hand,
my initial response is just to laugh and be like
this is pretty ridiculous. This to me feels like a
step backwards. Think about how when I was growing up
and I was in school, and I'm pretty young, so
I wasn't in school all that long ago. Back in
(04:07):
the day when I was growing up, the approach was
pretty much, let's just flatten it out to a simpler story,
let's shave down the hard parts, make it more palatable.
That's what's best for the children, and that's generally what
was done. But then in the twenty first century there's
been a big pivot and parents and adults, teachers, everyone
(04:30):
is trying to figure out a just the true full
version of historical events on their own terms, and then
b figuring out how to pass that along to the
coming generations. So it's just interesting to see how the
Trump administration is intending to reverse that and saying it
in very bold, clear language, all of the things that
(04:53):
have happened in the twenty first century to be a
little bit more honest about slavery, a little bit more
honest about colonization, a little bit more honest about racism
and oppression, and all sorts of things. The Trump administration
is saying those changes are bad, but don't worry. We're
going to reverse them. We're going to correct them, and
we're going to reintroduce patriotism. In this episode, I want
(05:15):
to run through so many of these changes because it
has been nitty gritty settle changes on websites, changes at museums,
at national parks. But even just to consider one thing
that highlights the big picture of what's going on here
is Juneteenth, because, as you know, Juneteenth has recently become
a federal holiday that happened under the Biden administration, and
(05:36):
now the Trump administration said we're not celebrating Juneteenth. Trump
doesn't like unilaterally have the power to end Juneteenth because
it's not just like the president, it's like a congress
and like other people are involved type of thing, and
that doesn't seem like a very popular move. Take away
the federal holiday, make people work. So the Trump administration
(05:57):
let Juneteenth slide, but they said we're not gonna celebrate it,
we're not gonna acknowledge it. We think the fourth of
July is the more patriotic thing, so we're just gonna
ignore Juneteenth. That's par for the course. That's unsurprising. But
what is surprising is that before Juneteenth was a federal holiday.
Back in Trump's first term, he did acknowledge junent teenth,
(06:21):
not just once, but multiple times. He acknowledged it, had
a statement to honor it, to express reverence. He was
willing to say, hey, June teenth, here's our history. Even
though the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, there was a delay
between when that happened and when enslaved people actually got freedom. Okay,
(06:44):
knowing how his statements usually go, he kind of didn't
put it in those terms, but big picture, he acknowledged it.
Then you have Biden who comes in and makes it
a federal holiday. A few years later, Trump is back
in office, and now he is just anti Juneteenth. I
think that's a good place to start because it highlights
how this isn't just a matter of debating over history
(07:06):
and truth. We're saying it's about history. Oh, we don't
agree on the history of what happened, but it's not that.
What we don't agree on is the tone the attitude
we should take toward history. Trumps previously acknowledged junteenth. You
can't argue with the facts of Juneteenth, and he doesn't.
It's just that five six, seven years ago he didn't
(07:27):
feel like acknowledging in his eyes, Acknowledging junteenth didn't threaten
the whole persona, the whole attitude, the whole patriotism thing
that he was going for. It didn't undermine his stance
on holding to patriotism steadfastly. But now in twenty twenty five,
he's taken a much harder stance on what patriotism in
(07:49):
history needs to mean. And that harder stance is I
think really unfortunate. I have a whole timeline of events
throughout the year, of actions that the Trump administration has
taken toward this end of rewriting history. Now it's hard
to even understand the vocab here because like even the
(08:12):
very first thing that I would say pertains to this
big movement of I want to call it revisionist history.
I think that's a fitting term. I'd say. The first
thing was January twenty ninth, he had just taken office
in his executive order titled ending Radical Indoctrination in K
twelve Schooling. I think that's one significant because this is
where they had introduced the term of we need to
(08:36):
bring back patriotic education, and they say it's really a
terrible tragedy that education has been so divisive, it has
been so race based. It says things like we have
taken innocent children and indoctrinated them, and we need to
stop that. What we need to bring back is a
happy story of American history, unifying themes, talking about character
(08:58):
and moral excellence and mayor detocracy. That's the backbone of America.
That's the only thing that should be allowed in classrooms.
Bring back patriotism. In this executive order, Trump also mentions
the seventeen seventy six Commission, which is a throwback. It
was actually during Trump's first term when he was taking
issue with again what he called divisive concepts that he
(09:21):
really really did not like the sixteen nineteen project, which
the New York Times thing it was huge. Nicole Hannah Jones,
a historian, talked about how slavery played an essential role
in all of American history. It's saying, the oppression of
African Americans is the thread that runs throughout all of
American history, and so it's basically saying, we can't separate
(09:45):
our history from oppression. Trump disagreed, and so he had
as people create the seventeen seventy six Commission. Saying, no,
the origin of the country had nothing to do with slavery.
It had everything to do with our independence, our freedom.
July fourth, seventeen seventy six, the date we all know
and love. That's when the real story starts. So that
was back in his first term, and then when he
(10:07):
returned to office in January, he said, good news, guys,
I'm bringing back the seventeen seventy sixth Commission, and we're
going to make this patriotic education that I wanted to
introduce last time. We're making it happen. That was the
first action. Then you go down to the line. Not
a whole lot happened for a good couple months, But
(10:28):
then people got to slew thing and they noticed a change.
That change was to our girl, Harriet Tubman. This is
as reported by CNN and by quote. A large image
of and a quote from Harriet Tubman have been removed
from a National Park Service web page about the Underground
Railroad following several prominent changes to government websites under the
(10:52):
Trump administration. When you compare the web page between January
twenty first and March nineteenth, it shows that the large
image of Trubman, who is the railroad's most famous conductor
for helping scores of people escape slavery, has been swapped
with a series of five commemorative stamps showing Tubman alongside
other people, and those stamps tout black and white cooperation.
(11:16):
The Washington Post was the first to report on the changes,
and you can see that the focus of the text
changed significantly. The new page does not mention slavery until
the third paragraph and cuts a reference to the Fugitive
Slave Act of eighteen fifty entirely. Previously, the article started
with a description of enslaved people's efforts to free themselves
(11:39):
and the organization of the Underground Railroad. The article now
starts with two paragraphs that emphasize, quote, the American ideals
of liberty and freedom. One historian and author of a
book about the Underground Railroad told CNN that Tubman's reduced
presence on the Underground Railroad page is quote both offensive
(11:59):
and absurd. He went on to say, to oversimplify history
is to distort it. Americans are not infants. They can
handle complex and challenging historical narratives. They do not need
to be protected from the truth. This' got a little
bit of chatter online, so maybe you did hear about it.
I saw videos poking fun of the fact of like,
(12:20):
oh yeah, we had to do away with Dei. And
if there's anyone who is all about di, it was
Harriet Tubman talk about a Dei higher sure like a
black woman. She was probably just because of her identities
that you know, she got to be in that role,
and a lot of people were just poking fund saying
this is ridiculous. You can say that Dei has gone
too far in the twenty first century. You cannot say
(12:44):
in good faith that honoring a black woman who freed
enslaved people somehow falls under the category of wokeness. Okay,
even as I say that, though I'm like, okay, this
isn't a fair characterization, because the whole argument that the
Trump administration is making is that they want to change anything.
(13:06):
Where the narrative is essentially that oppression and racism were
fundamental to American history. They want to say, no, they
weren't fundamental to American history. They're not woven into the
fabric of American history. They're a stain on American history.
Sure there's been racism, Sure there's been discrimination, there's been prejudice.
But that's not who we are at our core. That's
(13:26):
not who we've always been. That's what people on the
right want to make clear. So they can say, sure,
let's talk about Harriet Tubman, but then they want to
sideline her and say it's not all about her. There
were white people who were doing what she was doing too.
Do you see how we've always been able to see past,
you know, racial divides, and it's always been a matter
of character and merit. They're saying, yeah, let's give Harriet
(13:49):
Tubman her flowers, but we have to give the flowers
to the white people who have done it too. Again,
it's all about the attitude. One that you might not
have heard about is that a similar thing was done
with Jackie Robinson's web page, and I quote in March,
the Pentagon seemingly took down a page about Jackie Robinson,
the trailblazing baseball player who became the first black Major
(14:11):
League baseball athlete in the modern era. Basically, Jackie Robinson's
page was just quietly removed, and then when people noticed it,
they quietly restored it. Why would they do that, Why
would we take down the history of Jackie Robinson? Who
seems like a pretty universally beloved character, clearly a hero
(14:34):
breaking through barriers, incredible achievement in the face of terrible adversity.
Shouldn't we be celebrating that as the most American thing?
Why would the Pentagon take the page down. Well, it's
because they were doing this broad effort. It wasn't just
that they were specifically saying, let's be done with Jackie Robinson.
(14:55):
It's that Pentagon officials were told, you need to look
for any celebration of firsts, the first black pilot to
do this, the first black general to do this, the
first black senator, congress person, the first black you name it,
and remove any reference to these firsts. They're saying. The
(15:18):
idea was, we've taken it too far with identity, and
if we're celebrating the first person to do that and
the first person to do that, then we're just obsessing
over race and we're allowing it to create further divides,
and so let's just do away with it. We don't
need to talk about firsts. Let's just be colorblind. Let's
see pass skin color. And so then our poor Jackie
(15:39):
Robinson gets the axe because that's too divisive. He's clearly
a first, the first black major League baseball player, and
you can't tell his story without talking about him being
a first, So they get rid of his story. And
again I'm trying to like not caricature this and be like,
how would they do that to Jackie Robinson, but instead say,
here's the core idea. To even ignoreledge firsts is to
(16:01):
acknowledge discrimination. If you say these are the firsts, the
firsts of their race, to make it the first of
their class, to make it the first of whatever. What
you're saying is something preceded that first that was discriminatory.
There was a time before inclusion, and that time before
is a moral misstep. That's putting it lightly. And it
(16:24):
seems that the current administration doesn't have a category for
acknowledging America's moral failings, and they feel that to do
so would be unpatriotic, and so they just erase them.
And that is exactly what got cranked up in March.
So in March, Trump releases a new executive order called
(16:45):
Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History. Here's how this
one opens, and I quote, over the past decade, Americans
have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our
nation's history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven
by ideology rather than truth. This revisionist movement seeks to
(17:07):
undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting
its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light.
So are you hearing this. You know he's saying, we
had history right, we have the facts right. And it's
only been in the past decade that we've seen revisionist movements.
The way people have revised history is by making it
(17:29):
too negative, so it continues. Quote. Under this historical revision,
our nation's unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and
human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or
otherwise irredeemably flawed. Rather than fostering unity and a deeper
(17:50):
understanding of our shared past, the widespread effort to rewrite
history deep in societal divides and fosters a sense of
national shame disregarding the progress America has made. And then
it gives some examples of ways that quote the prior
administration advanced this corrosive ideology. Then with this, they announced
(18:13):
that they'll be coming through materials at the Smithsonian museums.
They'll be scrutinizing the materials. They're really concerned with the
National Museum of African American History and Culture, and they
just get to work. Now some of the things that
they take issue with. Again, I'm like a broken record here.
I've also taken issue with they talk about how the
(18:33):
National Museum of African American History and Culture quote proclaimed
that hard work, individualism, and the nuclear family are aspects
of white culture. And they say, that's pretty terrible to
say that hard work is an aspect of white culture.
I completely agree. I've also take an issue with the
fact that they released those materials. But here's the thing
(18:55):
that wasn't on display at a Smithsonian museum. That's not
like an exhibit at the smith Sonian, that's not etched
in the wall at the Smithsonian. That was something that
the Smithsonian had posted to social media back in twenty
twenty and it received a lot of backlash, rightfully so,
and it was removed. So this thing that the Trump
administration is referencing about, like the radicalization of the Smithsonian,
(19:17):
isn't something that is ongoing. It's something that the Smithsonian
released saying white people are one way and people of
color are the other way. And I said, that's really terrible.
I've written about that exact thing. I'm like, I can't
believe the Smithsonian posted this and shared this. That's like
racial essentialism at its finest. That's pretty racist. And I
was part of the backlash, but they walked it back,
(19:39):
they undid it. That was five years ago, and now
in this executive order, we're citing that as an example
of why we need to do a complete overhaul of
the Smithsonian Museum. That doesn't quite make sense. We're taking
things removed from their social media five years ago and
saying this is why we are going to undermine their
(20:00):
authority altogether, strip them of their privileges, and make them
pay for it by completely changing the way they present
history to the public. That's what I think is pretty excessive.
And that's like what I want to say with all
of this stuff, the Glumbus Day thing, the whole how
are we portraying history? The Oh, we're focusing on race,
(20:22):
focusing too much, focusing not enough, all of this. I'm
trying so hard to not just vent to you and
be like, can you believe it. This is so terrible.
I'm trying to say, I get it. I get their
starting point. I get what they are trying to correct
for on most things. On somethings, some things I don't get.
But on a lot of these things, I get what
they're trying to correct for. And what it just becomes
(20:42):
is a completely terrible, heavy handed over correction that is
far worse than the thing that it's replacing. That's the
irony of it all. Like you can, you can point
out that the Smithsonian posted something to their social media
that was really bad five years ago. They removed it,
they apologized for it. They're like, yeah, you guys are
so right. We were wrong with that one. That's good.
(21:05):
They walked it back. That was a bad thing. It
was a blip, though it was a blip. And now
they take that and they're saying that the Smithsonian Museum
needs to reconsider all of its materials and that they
will threaten funding, and federal funds are about two thirds
of the Smithsonian's budget. They will pull funding if they
(21:26):
find any quote, improper ideology, if there's too much focus
on race, if there's too much focus on divisive topics,
if there's too much negativity about history, and it's just
these general broad strokes that says the President, the man
on top. He has the final say on history, and
if he doesn't like something about history, he has the
(21:49):
right to censor it. Here's what Donna Brazil writes for
The Hill talking about this whole debacle. President Trump's new
executive order, titled Restoring Truth Insanity to American History does
just the opposite. It's a declaration of war on American history,
demanding that Smithsonian Institution, museums, and other facilities whitewashed the
(22:10):
truth about racism and other ugly chapters of our past
and present. It's an unprecedented act of political interference in
the Smithsonian, which is the world's largest museum, education, and
research complex, with twenty one museums, fourteen education and research centers,
and the National Zoo. The executive order instructs Vice President j. D.
(22:31):
Vance to quote remove improper ideology from Smithsonian properties. But
what is an improper ideology? The terms aren't defined, meaning
they can refer to anything Trump doesn't like. She goes
on to write, I love America and believe I'm lucky
to live in the greatest nation on Earth, just as
millions of my fellow citizens do. But that doesn't make
(22:52):
me blind to the fact that my African ancestors were
brought here in chains, brutally enslaved, and then treated as
second class citizens long after emancipation. The Smithsonian must not
ignore this. The Smithsonian should not pretend that racism, sexism,
and other forms of prejudice never existed or no longer exist,
just because that bothers some people. Doing this would turn
(23:16):
the institution into a purveyor of lies and propaganda, like
the governments of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. This
has nothing to do with diversity, equity, and inclusion. It
has everything to do with truth. She talks about the
practical issues too, with the White House essentially trying to
put a muzzle on the Smithsonian. Like she says, should
(23:39):
the African American Museum say that people of all races
were enslaved and that slavery had nothing to do with racism.
Should it deny that slavery was the root cause of
the Civil War? Should it portray slavery in a positive
light a beneficial institution that educated Africans. She's just pointing
out that by the Trump administration's rules in which we
(24:00):
can't talk about the first person to do this or
do that because it would mention race. And we can't
talk about the negative aspects of history because that would
be unpatriotic. And we can't make any distinction based on race,
and we can't talk too heavy handedly about racism because
that makes people feel bad. She's saying that just doesn't work.
When your job is to talk through history. We can't
erase all of those pieces. What we're left with is
(24:22):
just scraps of the truth that's not the truth. I
also think this part's really good. The job of the
Smithsonian is to tell the American story accurately, the good,
the bad, and the ugly, and not to paint a
fairy tale version of the past and present. Since it
was created in eighteen forty six by an Act of Congress,
the Smithsonian has been run on a non political basis
(24:44):
by historians, scientists, and other experts. It would be expensive, chaotic,
and harmful to require the Smithsonian, museums and other facilities
to overhaul their exhibits and change the way they tell
the story of our country. Every time a new president
enters the White House. He would also insult the public's
intelligence to feed them a politicized and sugarcoated version of
(25:07):
the American story. I thought that was really good, really
really good, A good response to a very bad thing,
which is also what this next thing is because around
the same time, Trump took to social media and he
was saying that the Smithsonian is too woke. He said
(25:27):
it is quote out of control, and he said that unfortunately,
we are too focused on quote how horrible our country is,
how bad slavery was, and how unaccomplished the down trodden
have been. Can you believe that sentence, that statement, we
are too focused on how bad slavery was? I mean,
(25:49):
I oof. I think a really really good response to
this came from Clint Smith. I really respect him as
an author, and he came out with an article with
The Atlantic. I think the title says it all. It's titled, actually,
slavery was very bad. And in that article he said,
(26:11):
the president's latest criticism of museums is a thinly veiled
attempt to erase black history. And in this article, where
he's going to unpack the Smithsonian and Donald Trump's attacks,
he says, before continuing, it is important to pause a
moment and state this directly. Donald Trump, the current president
of the United States, believes that the Smithsonian is failing
(26:31):
to do its job because it spends too much time
portraying slavery as bad. I'm only like halfway through my notes,
and I'm drowning in these revelations, so I'll pick up
the pace to hurry through some of these next ones. Basically,
the White House said that they're going to review all
of the Smithsonian's things to ensure alignment with Trump's direction,
(26:54):
and they mention the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of
the nation's founding is coming up, and so we really
got it tightened up the messaging here. They're like, before
twenty twenty six, we got to really make sure that
we just do a little PR management for America and
make sure we just think she's great, She's never done
anything wrong. Hire a good PR firm, Wipe all the
(27:16):
dirt anyone has on her. That's what the Trump administration
is saying we have to do. And apparently the Smithsonian
has too much dirt on America, not only the Smithsonian
but also the National Parks. Just last month, according to
The Washington Post, the Trump administration has ordered the removal
of signs and exhibits related to slavery at multiple national parks.
(27:37):
According to experts familiar with the matter, one of the
things that they ordered the removal of is a famous photo.
This photo is known as the Scourged Back, and you've
probably remember it from history class shows Peter Gordon, who's
an enslaved man, and it shows that his back was
terribly ripped up from being whipped after he attempted to escape.
(28:00):
It's a really famous portrait from that era and a
very visceral portrayal of the horrors of slavery. Not only
is it a visceral portrayal, but it's an undeniably true portrayal.
Because it's just a photograph. You can't say that it's
like incendiary, you can't say that it's biased, you can't
say that it's misleading. It is a photograph of the
(28:21):
physical harm done to a man who was trying to
make his way to freedom. But if the whole regime
is that we shouldn't focus on how bad slavery was,
it makes sense that that photo would make for bad
press for America. Just shy of her two hundred and
fiftieth birthday. But it wasn't just that photo. They also
went on to say, we have to actually review all
(28:42):
of the National Park Service stuff, all of the signs,
and just like the Smithsonian, it's all under review. According
to the Post, the National Park Service materials are being
evaluated specifically for the possibility that they might quote proportionately
emphasize negative aspects of US history or historical figures without
(29:05):
acknowledging broader contexts or national progress. And they said that
this could unintentionally distort understanding rather than enrich it. That
is quite the SoundBite. But to say that we need
to remove the materials because there's not enough context around it,
something like a photo like with the scourged backphoto. Not
enough context, please please, there's no context that which I'm
(29:31):
getting into the ranting territory. I need to rein it in.
That is horrific. One effort that I thought was pretty cool, though,
is that there are these little like bootstrapsy efforts to
preserve what the Smithsonian institution has right now. So there
are these historians and citizens who are coming together and
(29:53):
they're documenting all of the Smithsonian Museum right now so
that if changes roll out, they have an archive to
show the before and compare it to the after, and
at least that these moves by the current administration wouldn't
go unnoticed. I thought that was pretty cool. And they
took inspiration from a different effort, which is called Save
our Signs. And that's because with the whole National Park
(30:16):
Service thing and the way that all signs are being
reviewed and evaluated for if they're too negative about the past,
then parks visitors are compiling photos of the signs in
their current and truthful, accurate form. So again, if some
revisionist history wipes through, we have a record and maybe
the truth could be still preserved restored. I don't know.
(30:39):
I thought that was that was good and then okay,
we're laying in the plane. Last piece of bad news.
In the last few weeks, the Department of Education announced
that they're teaming up with a lot of very political organizations,
very conservative organizations, and they're going to lead civics programming
(31:00):
and this is how they're going to implement their patriotic education.
Some of them include Turning Point USA, Moms for Liberty,
the Heritage Foundation, Praguer, you Ugh Breguer, you Breger, you
I have a bone to pick with Prager. You Their
materials on Columbus Day are appalling. It's a conservative think
(31:20):
tank organization. Their express goal is to make education more
patriotic and shine a different light on events throughout history.
I spent a really strange morning watching the materials, giving
them the benefit of the doubt. I had heard terrible things,
but I was like, let me watch it for myself.
I watched that Christopher Columbus video and I was like, oh,
(31:40):
this is awful. Basically, the whole idea is these kids
time travel back to Christopher Columbus and they're like, some
people say we shouldn't celebrate you anymore. And Christopher Columbus
is like, well why is that And they're like, well,
they say you abused people and he did terrible things.
And he's like, well, I'm very hard working. And there's
also the fact that slavery is better than killing. To
(32:01):
be a slave is better than dead, is it not.
And they're like, oh, yeah, a good point, but we
kind of think slavery is bad. And he's like, of
course you think that. Let's just your modern thoughts, but
should you really judge me by your modern standards? And
they're like oh yeah, good point, and I am exaggerating,
but only barely. I really I was shocked, shocked that
(32:26):
there would be just such a crazy distortion to paint
people in a positive light, that we don't only say, Okay,
let's talk about these figures and they're good and they're
bad and whatever, but that you would just say, you
know what, even the bad stuff they did, let's just
call it good. Let's just make it even simpler. Let's
say maybe slavery wasn't so bad. Then we don't even
have to do the whole complicated thing. Christopher Columbus was
(32:48):
a guy who did some bad things. No, let's just
say he was a guy who did mostly good things.
And that's a simpler cell for the kids. And so anyway,
in the last few weeks there's been announcements of this
is what's going to be rolling out. There's a whole
big undertaking. I think it'll be a really well funded project.
I think it's going to change how history is presented
(33:11):
in schools. Now. I think that's really concerning. The long
and short of it for me is just that it's
all really hypocritical, it's all really ironic. The Trump administration
is saying that they are setting out to end in
doctrination in schools, and they specifically took an issue with
echo chambers in schools, saying that it's progressive echo chambers.
(33:32):
Now they are unabashedly creating conservative echo chambers in schools,
and they're just introducing a different kind of propaganda. If
you're going to say that focusing too much on the
negative aspects of American history is propaganda and indoctrination, then
wouldn't doing the reverse also be propaganda or indoctrination to
say that you're committed to not just telling the truth
(33:54):
of history, whatever it is, however the chips fall, whatever
turns out to be true. Instead, you start with the
end in mind. You start with the goal of this
needs to arrive at patriotism. This needs to arrive at
a positive view of America and all of its history.
Don't you think that that might undermine the integrity of
(34:15):
what of what learning history is. You can't learn history
with a goal in mind. You can't learn history and
say we want to learn patriotic history. We want to
learn it and end up with seeing everything and everyone
and every bad thing and a positive light. You can't
do that. What we're seeing with the Trump administration is
(34:37):
an overcorrection, a big over correction. There's a power struggle,
there's a culture where there's ping ponging happening now and
there will be ping ponging in the years to come.
Do I find it concerning that, like conservative think tanks
are going to be infiltrating curriculum in the years to come.
I do find that really really concerning. But I'm call
(34:58):
me crazy hot take. You might not like this take.
I am personally comforted by thinking about just how terrible
my own history and civics education was and how I
didn't stay in the dark forever. You know, Like when
I was growing up, they taught us a very whitewashed
version of history about everything from Columbus Day to Thanksgiving
to history of all oppression was. It was toned down drastically,
(35:26):
and yet as I grew, as I aged, as I
learned more, I didn't stay confined to what I was
initially taught. So I'm not like raising the alarms of like,
oh my gosh, no one's going to know the true history.
Like I think we all as we've grown up have
had this like collective awakening. So that provides me with
a little bit of comfort that, like, even if kids
(35:48):
in schools today were taught a really whitewashed version of history,
they would have about the same starting point that I did.
You know, I was taught a really whitewashed version of history.
So even if we're going backwards, we're just going awkwards
to where we started. I don't think we can get
much worse than where we were, So that's something Maybe
that's encouraging. I don't know this whole episode I've been thinking.
(36:12):
I think the Trump administration is taking things to a crazy,
crazy level. But there are people, many people who had
difficulties with what was happening to curriculums under the Biden administration,
with what they were teaching about race, with what they
were teaching about privilege, with what they were teaching about
unconscious bias, how they were taking things that were ideology,
and in some they were allowing schools to teach opinion
(36:35):
as fact. I'll agree, I'll agree with that. I have
agreed with that. So I think there are some thoughtful
people who took issue with when schools were like veering
really really hard left. I a person on the left
was also like, oh, guys, this is concerning ooh, Echo Chambers,
Ooh ideology, Ooh, a lack of viewpoint diversity. This is
(36:56):
a problem. I was saying that when it was on
the left. Now it's on the right, and I'm really
skewing it and saying this is awful, this is really
really bad. But I say it in any case, just
when this is the difficulty. We're all trying to talk
about truth, we're all trying to talk about history. We're
all saying, let's just stick with the facts. But there's spin,
there's bias, there's attitude, there's opinion. There's so much that
(37:20):
is up for debate, and we can say it's not
up for debate, but it is the problem. How do
you write the sentences, How do you choose, what language
do you use, What adjectives do you use? What photos
do you include or not include? What's too gory, what's
age appropriate? There are a lot of factors. It's a
complex thing. And I think that what the Trump administration
(37:41):
is doing is responding in kind to what the Biden
administration was doing, and I think they're just taking it
way way further because what they saw was like, Okay,
we're concerned, and I don't think that the people doing
this are just evil people who want evil things done.
I think it's honestly, like the most the good faith
argument is, you have a legitimate concern that if we
(38:04):
teach history a certain way, and if we teach that
there were good guys, and the good guys were the
victims in any case. So it's the people of color,
it's the enslaved Africans, it's the indigenous people, you name it,
whoever the victims are, they're the good guys. And then
there were the bad guys, and those are the oppressors.
And in all cases those are people with white skins.
(38:24):
Those are the oppressors, those are the colonizers. And you
teach this narrative of history, the victims and the victors,
the oppressed and the oppressors. Oh and by the way,
good guy, bad guy. It falls along racial lines, racial categories.
That's how the current administration sees the curriculum that was
in twenty twenty. They say, we're teaching history in this way.
(38:46):
We're categorizing people by their race. We're oversimplifying things, and
we're not seeing people for their individual character, their individual merit.
We are just sending all of these kids home from
school with the conclusion that white people are bad, that
white people are the bad guys, and that people of
color are the good guys. And not only that, but
that they're just the good guys because they were oppressed.
(39:08):
That's what brings them virtue, that's what wraps them in
innocence in our memory. That's how the current administration sees
a more progressive approach to teaching history, and so they're
flipping the script. I had to guess. I think this
is like a big Bravado move, and they're going to
push it as far as they can, knowing that it's
going to be walked back and rained in in the
(39:29):
years to come. That's just my hunch. I could be wrong,
but I'm generally not going to be one of those
people who hops on the podcast Mike and tells you,
isn't this terrible? And isn't this bad? And isn't this crazy?
And man, those people on the other side, how awful.
Let's hate them. That's not what I do. That's not
(39:51):
what I'm about. Instead, even when the events are mind
boggling and upsetting and the actions are frustrating and laurable,
I want this to be more than just event session.
My hope is that this could feel more like a
meeting of the minds, you and me. Let's put our
heads together. Let's talk about all of these changes and
(40:12):
how they coalesce into one big old effort to put
a really positive spin on history that is so positive
that it kind of warps and distorts history. And maybe
if we talk about that and we see how all
of these things kind of fit together, they fit into
the same narrative, and that narrative is just getting a
(40:32):
little bit more delusional and warped as time goes on. Okay,
then we see that we understand that at some point
we won't be too surprised by that or taken off
guard when the next statement is issued about this crazy thing,
or that hopefully we can be better informed, better equipped,
ready for conversations whatever may come. So we know our
(40:56):
stuff and we can speak confidently about what's been happening,
and hopefully we'll be better for it. Well, at least
have a good understanding, a good grasp of what's been
going on. That should just make us better citizens. I
don't know, I haven't really figured out the moral arc
of this episode or the inspiring takeaway and that's kind
of killing me if you can't tell. I decided to
(41:16):
release this episode for everyone, not just my paid supporters.
Paid support is how I've been able to keep doing
this work even as the DEI rollbacks and all of
the changes with the Trump administration has really come for
my industry and my profession. I've been able to thankfully
rely on support from individuals to keep this thing going
(41:38):
and allow me to keep creating content and making the
vast majority of it freely available. So thank you so
much to my paid supporters for all the new listeners.
I hope to keep releasing a free episode here and
there in the months to come, but overall, I'd love
if you'd consider becoming a paid supporter. There's some really
good episodes in the archive. I've got book reviews on
(42:03):
ranking books on whiteness my least favorite to most favorite.
I've got book reviews on books that are anti anti racism,
so they're like really critical conservative takes and I explain
like my favorite takeaways from them or what I didn't
like about them. That's a good one. I also have
a deep dive on what the heck happened with the
Black Lives Matter Foundation that was a really interesting episode
because they kind of just fell off the face of
(42:24):
the earth and nobody knew what went down. A lot
went down. So if you want those episodes and many more,
check out membership. There's a link in the description. I'd
love to have you, and right when you join, I
personally type out a welcome message saying thanks so much
for joining. I'm glad you're here as a way to
show my appreciation, so you can keep an eye out
(42:46):
for that too. Thanks for listening to this episode. Until
next time.
Just before the weekend, Trump announced that Indigenous People's Day
is once again Columbus Day, point blank period. I think
now would be a good time to unpack this move
and many many others from the Trump White House that
have decimated the Biden administration's policies and brought in their
(00:24):
opposite in every way. I'm your host, Marie Beacham, and
on this episode we will be talking about Columbus Day
and Indigenous People's Day, and the National Parks and Harriet
Tubman and Jackie Robinson and basic facts about slavery and
(00:46):
all of the other things that have been up for
debate this year since Trump returned to office. I'm getting
over a sickness. You might hear that in my voice. Apologies,
but I have a lot I want to talk because
there have been so many developments this year alone in
terms of the fight for defining history, defining what is true,
(01:11):
what is good, what deserves to be shared in classrooms, curriculum, museums,
and what doesn't. The censorship efforts have been so super
abundant that I bet you haven't even heard about half
of these things. The Trump administration has made such a
comprehensive effort to make revisions to what museums have been saying,
(01:35):
what's acceptable in curriculum, what's acceptable in college campuses, and
oh boy, have they gotten to work. I've really struggled
with what to do with this episode. Do I just
give you a fire hose of information and say, look
at all these bad things that are happening. Bet you
didn't know that good thing you know now? Because that
doesn't seem very helpful, very productive. And I don't want
(01:57):
to be alarmist and make you panic and make you
feel completely overwhelmed. But on the other hand, if you're
trying to look up every headline and gather all these
different things, that in itself is an overwhelming experience. So
I thought, you know what, how would I do a
special episode and bring together the information so you are informed,
(02:17):
so it can be simple. Hopefully I can make it digestible,
and maybe we can tie a bow on it and
send you off with some sort of encouragement or call
to action. I don't know. I haven't gotten that far.
But we have a lot to talk about, So let's
get right into it. Starting with the proclamation issued by
President Trump on October night, So just a few days
(02:39):
ago today, our nation honors the legendary Christopher Columbus, the
original American hero, a giant of Western civilization and one
of the most gallant and visionary men to ever walk
the face of the earth. Oh my goodness, what a
way to euligize a man. We are just laying it
(03:01):
on thick. Okay, this Columbus Day, we honor his life
with reverence and gratitude, and we pledge to reclaim his
extraordinary legacy of faith, courage, perseverance, and virtue from the
left wing arsonists who have sought to destroy his name
and dishonor his memory. Then this goes on to describe
(03:23):
Columbus in very glowing terms, speaks highly of the ban
he is, and his courage and his fortitude and his
faith and his resolve, and it says, let's celebrate his legacy.
Let's celebrate the great nation of Italy and our special
bond rooted in timeless values. Yeah. So there you have it.
It's Columbus Day. Forget about Indigenous People's Day. I have
(03:46):
a hard time putting to words how I think we
should make sense of these things, because, on the one hand,
my initial response is just to laugh and be like
this is pretty ridiculous. This to me feels like a
step backwards. Think about how when I was growing up
and I was in school, and I'm pretty young, so
I wasn't in school all that long ago. Back in
(04:07):
the day when I was growing up, the approach was
pretty much, let's just flatten it out to a simpler story,
let's shave down the hard parts, make it more palatable.
That's what's best for the children, and that's generally what
was done. But then in the twenty first century there's
been a big pivot and parents and adults, teachers, everyone
(04:30):
is trying to figure out a just the true full
version of historical events on their own terms, and then
b figuring out how to pass that along to the
coming generations. So it's just interesting to see how the
Trump administration is intending to reverse that and saying it
in very bold, clear language, all of the things that
(04:53):
have happened in the twenty first century to be a
little bit more honest about slavery, a little bit more
honest about colonization, a little bit more honest about racism
and oppression, and all sorts of things. The Trump administration
is saying those changes are bad, but don't worry. We're
going to reverse them. We're going to correct them, and
we're going to reintroduce patriotism. In this episode, I want
(05:15):
to run through so many of these changes because it
has been nitty gritty settle changes on websites, changes at museums,
at national parks. But even just to consider one thing
that highlights the big picture of what's going on here
is Juneteenth, because, as you know, Juneteenth has recently become
a federal holiday that happened under the Biden administration, and
(05:36):
now the Trump administration said we're not celebrating Juneteenth. Trump
doesn't like unilaterally have the power to end Juneteenth because
it's not just like the president, it's like a congress
and like other people are involved type of thing, and
that doesn't seem like a very popular move. Take away
the federal holiday, make people work. So the Trump administration
(05:57):
let Juneteenth slide, but they said we're not gonna celebrate it,
we're not gonna acknowledge it. We think the fourth of
July is the more patriotic thing, so we're just gonna
ignore Juneteenth. That's par for the course. That's unsurprising. But
what is surprising is that before Juneteenth was a federal holiday.
Back in Trump's first term, he did acknowledge junent teenth,
(06:21):
not just once, but multiple times. He acknowledged it, had
a statement to honor it, to express reverence. He was
willing to say, hey, June teenth, here's our history. Even
though the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, there was a delay
between when that happened and when enslaved people actually got freedom. Okay,
(06:44):
knowing how his statements usually go, he kind of didn't
put it in those terms, but big picture, he acknowledged it.
Then you have Biden who comes in and makes it
a federal holiday. A few years later, Trump is back
in office, and now he is just anti Juneteenth. I
think that's a good place to start because it highlights
how this isn't just a matter of debating over history
(07:06):
and truth. We're saying it's about history. Oh, we don't
agree on the history of what happened, but it's not that.
What we don't agree on is the tone the attitude
we should take toward history. Trumps previously acknowledged junteenth. You
can't argue with the facts of Juneteenth, and he doesn't.
It's just that five six, seven years ago he didn't
(07:27):
feel like acknowledging in his eyes, Acknowledging junteenth didn't threaten
the whole persona, the whole attitude, the whole patriotism thing
that he was going for. It didn't undermine his stance
on holding to patriotism steadfastly. But now in twenty twenty five,
he's taken a much harder stance on what patriotism in
(07:49):
history needs to mean. And that harder stance is I
think really unfortunate. I have a whole timeline of events
throughout the year, of actions that the Trump administration has
taken toward this end of rewriting history. Now it's hard
to even understand the vocab here because like even the
(08:12):
very first thing that I would say pertains to this
big movement of I want to call it revisionist history.
I think that's a fitting term. I'd say. The first
thing was January twenty ninth, he had just taken office
in his executive order titled ending Radical Indoctrination in K
twelve Schooling. I think that's one significant because this is
where they had introduced the term of we need to
(08:36):
bring back patriotic education, and they say it's really a
terrible tragedy that education has been so divisive, it has
been so race based. It says things like we have
taken innocent children and indoctrinated them, and we need to
stop that. What we need to bring back is a
happy story of American history, unifying themes, talking about character
(08:58):
and moral excellence and mayor detocracy. That's the backbone of America.
That's the only thing that should be allowed in classrooms.
Bring back patriotism. In this executive order, Trump also mentions
the seventeen seventy six Commission, which is a throwback. It
was actually during Trump's first term when he was taking
issue with again what he called divisive concepts that he
(09:21):
really really did not like the sixteen nineteen project, which
the New York Times thing it was huge. Nicole Hannah Jones,
a historian, talked about how slavery played an essential role
in all of American history. It's saying, the oppression of
African Americans is the thread that runs throughout all of
American history, and so it's basically saying, we can't separate
(09:45):
our history from oppression. Trump disagreed, and so he had
as people create the seventeen seventy six Commission. Saying, no,
the origin of the country had nothing to do with slavery.
It had everything to do with our independence, our freedom.
July fourth, seventeen seventy six, the date we all know
and love. That's when the real story starts. So that
was back in his first term, and then when he
(10:07):
returned to office in January, he said, good news, guys,
I'm bringing back the seventeen seventy sixth Commission, and we're
going to make this patriotic education that I wanted to
introduce last time. We're making it happen. That was the
first action. Then you go down to the line. Not
a whole lot happened for a good couple months, But
(10:28):
then people got to slew thing and they noticed a change.
That change was to our girl, Harriet Tubman. This is
as reported by CNN and by quote. A large image
of and a quote from Harriet Tubman have been removed
from a National Park Service web page about the Underground
Railroad following several prominent changes to government websites under the
(10:52):
Trump administration. When you compare the web page between January
twenty first and March nineteenth, it shows that the large
image of Trubman, who is the railroad's most famous conductor
for helping scores of people escape slavery, has been swapped
with a series of five commemorative stamps showing Tubman alongside
other people, and those stamps tout black and white cooperation.
(11:16):
The Washington Post was the first to report on the changes,
and you can see that the focus of the text
changed significantly. The new page does not mention slavery until
the third paragraph and cuts a reference to the Fugitive
Slave Act of eighteen fifty entirely. Previously, the article started
with a description of enslaved people's efforts to free themselves
(11:39):
and the organization of the Underground Railroad. The article now
starts with two paragraphs that emphasize, quote, the American ideals
of liberty and freedom. One historian and author of a
book about the Underground Railroad told CNN that Tubman's reduced
presence on the Underground Railroad page is quote both offensive
(11:59):
and absurd. He went on to say, to oversimplify history
is to distort it. Americans are not infants. They can
handle complex and challenging historical narratives. They do not need
to be protected from the truth. This' got a little
bit of chatter online, so maybe you did hear about it.
I saw videos poking fun of the fact of like,
(12:20):
oh yeah, we had to do away with Dei. And
if there's anyone who is all about di, it was
Harriet Tubman talk about a Dei higher sure like a
black woman. She was probably just because of her identities
that you know, she got to be in that role,
and a lot of people were just poking fund saying
this is ridiculous. You can say that Dei has gone
too far in the twenty first century. You cannot say
(12:44):
in good faith that honoring a black woman who freed
enslaved people somehow falls under the category of wokeness. Okay,
even as I say that, though I'm like, okay, this
isn't a fair characterization, because the whole argument that the
Trump administration is making is that they want to change anything.
(13:06):
Where the narrative is essentially that oppression and racism were
fundamental to American history. They want to say, no, they
weren't fundamental to American history. They're not woven into the
fabric of American history. They're a stain on American history.
Sure there's been racism, Sure there's been discrimination, there's been prejudice.
But that's not who we are at our core. That's
(13:26):
not who we've always been. That's what people on the
right want to make clear. So they can say, sure,
let's talk about Harriet Tubman, but then they want to
sideline her and say it's not all about her. There
were white people who were doing what she was doing too.
Do you see how we've always been able to see past,
you know, racial divides, and it's always been a matter
of character and merit. They're saying, yeah, let's give Harriet
(13:49):
Tubman her flowers, but we have to give the flowers
to the white people who have done it too. Again,
it's all about the attitude. One that you might not
have heard about is that a similar thing was done
with Jackie Robinson's web page, and I quote in March,
the Pentagon seemingly took down a page about Jackie Robinson,
the trailblazing baseball player who became the first black Major
(14:11):
League baseball athlete in the modern era. Basically, Jackie Robinson's
page was just quietly removed, and then when people noticed it,
they quietly restored it. Why would they do that, Why
would we take down the history of Jackie Robinson? Who
seems like a pretty universally beloved character, clearly a hero
(14:34):
breaking through barriers, incredible achievement in the face of terrible adversity.
Shouldn't we be celebrating that as the most American thing?
Why would the Pentagon take the page down. Well, it's
because they were doing this broad effort. It wasn't just
that they were specifically saying, let's be done with Jackie Robinson.
(14:55):
It's that Pentagon officials were told, you need to look
for any celebration of firsts, the first black pilot to
do this, the first black general to do this, the
first black senator, congress person, the first black you name it,
and remove any reference to these firsts. They're saying. The
(15:18):
idea was, we've taken it too far with identity, and
if we're celebrating the first person to do that and
the first person to do that, then we're just obsessing
over race and we're allowing it to create further divides,
and so let's just do away with it. We don't
need to talk about firsts. Let's just be colorblind. Let's
see pass skin color. And so then our poor Jackie
(15:39):
Robinson gets the axe because that's too divisive. He's clearly
a first, the first black major League baseball player, and
you can't tell his story without talking about him being
a first, So they get rid of his story. And
again I'm trying to like not caricature this and be like,
how would they do that to Jackie Robinson, but instead say,
here's the core idea. To even ignoreledge firsts is to
(16:01):
acknowledge discrimination. If you say these are the firsts, the
firsts of their race, to make it the first of
their class, to make it the first of whatever. What
you're saying is something preceded that first that was discriminatory.
There was a time before inclusion, and that time before
is a moral misstep. That's putting it lightly. And it
(16:24):
seems that the current administration doesn't have a category for
acknowledging America's moral failings, and they feel that to do
so would be unpatriotic, and so they just erase them.
And that is exactly what got cranked up in March.
So in March, Trump releases a new executive order called
(16:45):
Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History. Here's how this
one opens, and I quote, over the past decade, Americans
have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our
nation's history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven
by ideology rather than truth. This revisionist movement seeks to
(17:07):
undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting
its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light.
So are you hearing this. You know he's saying, we
had history right, we have the facts right. And it's
only been in the past decade that we've seen revisionist movements.
The way people have revised history is by making it
(17:29):
too negative, so it continues. Quote. Under this historical revision,
our nation's unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and
human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or
otherwise irredeemably flawed. Rather than fostering unity and a deeper
(17:50):
understanding of our shared past, the widespread effort to rewrite
history deep in societal divides and fosters a sense of
national shame disregarding the progress America has made. And then
it gives some examples of ways that quote the prior
administration advanced this corrosive ideology. Then with this, they announced
(18:13):
that they'll be coming through materials at the Smithsonian museums.
They'll be scrutinizing the materials. They're really concerned with the
National Museum of African American History and Culture, and they
just get to work. Now some of the things that
they take issue with. Again, I'm like a broken record here.
I've also taken issue with they talk about how the
(18:33):
National Museum of African American History and Culture quote proclaimed
that hard work, individualism, and the nuclear family are aspects
of white culture. And they say, that's pretty terrible to
say that hard work is an aspect of white culture.
I completely agree. I've also take an issue with the
fact that they released those materials. But here's the thing
(18:55):
that wasn't on display at a Smithsonian museum. That's not
like an exhibit at the smith Sonian, that's not etched
in the wall at the Smithsonian. That was something that
the Smithsonian had posted to social media back in twenty
twenty and it received a lot of backlash, rightfully so,
and it was removed. So this thing that the Trump
administration is referencing about, like the radicalization of the Smithsonian,
(19:17):
isn't something that is ongoing. It's something that the Smithsonian
released saying white people are one way and people of
color are the other way. And I said, that's really terrible.
I've written about that exact thing. I'm like, I can't
believe the Smithsonian posted this and shared this. That's like
racial essentialism at its finest. That's pretty racist. And I
was part of the backlash, but they walked it back,
(19:39):
they undid it. That was five years ago, and now
in this executive order, we're citing that as an example
of why we need to do a complete overhaul of
the Smithsonian Museum. That doesn't quite make sense. We're taking
things removed from their social media five years ago and
saying this is why we are going to undermine their
(20:00):
authority altogether, strip them of their privileges, and make them
pay for it by completely changing the way they present
history to the public. That's what I think is pretty excessive.
And that's like what I want to say with all
of this stuff, the Glumbus Day thing, the whole how
are we portraying history? The Oh, we're focusing on race,
(20:22):
focusing too much, focusing not enough, all of this. I'm
trying so hard to not just vent to you and
be like, can you believe it. This is so terrible.
I'm trying to say, I get it. I get their
starting point. I get what they are trying to correct
for on most things. On somethings, some things I don't get.
But on a lot of these things, I get what
they're trying to correct for. And what it just becomes
(20:42):
is a completely terrible, heavy handed over correction that is
far worse than the thing that it's replacing. That's the
irony of it all. Like you can, you can point
out that the Smithsonian posted something to their social media
that was really bad five years ago. They removed it,
they apologized for it. They're like, yeah, you guys are
so right. We were wrong with that one. That's good.
(21:05):
They walked it back. That was a bad thing. It
was a blip, though it was a blip. And now
they take that and they're saying that the Smithsonian Museum
needs to reconsider all of its materials and that they
will threaten funding, and federal funds are about two thirds
of the Smithsonian's budget. They will pull funding if they
(21:26):
find any quote, improper ideology, if there's too much focus
on race, if there's too much focus on divisive topics,
if there's too much negativity about history, and it's just
these general broad strokes that says the President, the man
on top. He has the final say on history, and
if he doesn't like something about history, he has the
(21:49):
right to censor it. Here's what Donna Brazil writes for
The Hill talking about this whole debacle. President Trump's new
executive order, titled Restoring Truth Insanity to American History does
just the opposite. It's a declaration of war on American history,
demanding that Smithsonian Institution, museums, and other facilities whitewashed the
(22:10):
truth about racism and other ugly chapters of our past
and present. It's an unprecedented act of political interference in
the Smithsonian, which is the world's largest museum, education, and
research complex, with twenty one museums, fourteen education and research centers,
and the National Zoo. The executive order instructs Vice President j. D.
(22:31):
Vance to quote remove improper ideology from Smithsonian properties. But
what is an improper ideology? The terms aren't defined, meaning
they can refer to anything Trump doesn't like. She goes
on to write, I love America and believe I'm lucky
to live in the greatest nation on Earth, just as
millions of my fellow citizens do. But that doesn't make
(22:52):
me blind to the fact that my African ancestors were
brought here in chains, brutally enslaved, and then treated as
second class citizens long after emancipation. The Smithsonian must not
ignore this. The Smithsonian should not pretend that racism, sexism,
and other forms of prejudice never existed or no longer exist,
just because that bothers some people. Doing this would turn
(23:16):
the institution into a purveyor of lies and propaganda, like
the governments of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. This
has nothing to do with diversity, equity, and inclusion. It
has everything to do with truth. She talks about the
practical issues too, with the White House essentially trying to
put a muzzle on the Smithsonian. Like she says, should
(23:39):
the African American Museum say that people of all races
were enslaved and that slavery had nothing to do with racism.
Should it deny that slavery was the root cause of
the Civil War? Should it portray slavery in a positive
light a beneficial institution that educated Africans. She's just pointing
out that by the Trump administration's rules in which we
(24:00):
can't talk about the first person to do this or
do that because it would mention race. And we can't
talk about the negative aspects of history because that would
be unpatriotic. And we can't make any distinction based on race,
and we can't talk too heavy handedly about racism because
that makes people feel bad. She's saying that just doesn't work.
When your job is to talk through history. We can't
erase all of those pieces. What we're left with is
(24:22):
just scraps of the truth that's not the truth. I
also think this part's really good. The job of the
Smithsonian is to tell the American story accurately, the good,
the bad, and the ugly, and not to paint a
fairy tale version of the past and present. Since it
was created in eighteen forty six by an Act of Congress,
the Smithsonian has been run on a non political basis
(24:44):
by historians, scientists, and other experts. It would be expensive, chaotic,
and harmful to require the Smithsonian, museums and other facilities
to overhaul their exhibits and change the way they tell
the story of our country. Every time a new president
enters the White House. He would also insult the public's
intelligence to feed them a politicized and sugarcoated version of
(25:07):
the American story. I thought that was really good, really
really good, A good response to a very bad thing,
which is also what this next thing is because around
the same time, Trump took to social media and he
was saying that the Smithsonian is too woke. He said
(25:27):
it is quote out of control, and he said that unfortunately,
we are too focused on quote how horrible our country is,
how bad slavery was, and how unaccomplished the down trodden
have been. Can you believe that sentence, that statement, we
are too focused on how bad slavery was? I mean,
(25:49):
I oof. I think a really really good response to
this came from Clint Smith. I really respect him as
an author, and he came out with an article with
The Atlantic. I think the title says it all. It's titled, actually,
slavery was very bad. And in that article he said,
(26:11):
the president's latest criticism of museums is a thinly veiled
attempt to erase black history. And in this article, where
he's going to unpack the Smithsonian and Donald Trump's attacks,
he says, before continuing, it is important to pause a
moment and state this directly. Donald Trump, the current president
of the United States, believes that the Smithsonian is failing
(26:31):
to do its job because it spends too much time
portraying slavery as bad. I'm only like halfway through my notes,
and I'm drowning in these revelations, so I'll pick up
the pace to hurry through some of these next ones. Basically,
the White House said that they're going to review all
of the Smithsonian's things to ensure alignment with Trump's direction,
(26:54):
and they mention the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of
the nation's founding is coming up, and so we really
got it tightened up the messaging here. They're like, before
twenty twenty six, we got to really make sure that
we just do a little PR management for America and
make sure we just think she's great, She's never done
anything wrong. Hire a good PR firm, Wipe all the
(27:16):
dirt anyone has on her. That's what the Trump administration
is saying we have to do. And apparently the Smithsonian
has too much dirt on America, not only the Smithsonian
but also the National Parks. Just last month, according to
The Washington Post, the Trump administration has ordered the removal
of signs and exhibits related to slavery at multiple national parks.
(27:37):
According to experts familiar with the matter, one of the
things that they ordered the removal of is a famous photo.
This photo is known as the Scourged Back, and you've
probably remember it from history class shows Peter Gordon, who's
an enslaved man, and it shows that his back was
terribly ripped up from being whipped after he attempted to escape.
(28:00):
It's a really famous portrait from that era and a
very visceral portrayal of the horrors of slavery. Not only
is it a visceral portrayal, but it's an undeniably true portrayal.
Because it's just a photograph. You can't say that it's
like incendiary, you can't say that it's biased, you can't
say that it's misleading. It is a photograph of the
(28:21):
physical harm done to a man who was trying to
make his way to freedom. But if the whole regime
is that we shouldn't focus on how bad slavery was,
it makes sense that that photo would make for bad
press for America. Just shy of her two hundred and
fiftieth birthday. But it wasn't just that photo. They also
went on to say, we have to actually review all
(28:42):
of the National Park Service stuff, all of the signs,
and just like the Smithsonian, it's all under review. According
to the Post, the National Park Service materials are being
evaluated specifically for the possibility that they might quote proportionately
emphasize negative aspects of US history or historical figures without
(29:05):
acknowledging broader contexts or national progress. And they said that
this could unintentionally distort understanding rather than enrich it. That
is quite the SoundBite. But to say that we need
to remove the materials because there's not enough context around it,
something like a photo like with the scourged backphoto. Not
enough context, please please, there's no context that which I'm
(29:31):
getting into the ranting territory. I need to rein it in.
That is horrific. One effort that I thought was pretty cool, though,
is that there are these little like bootstrapsy efforts to
preserve what the Smithsonian institution has right now. So there
are these historians and citizens who are coming together and
(29:53):
they're documenting all of the Smithsonian Museum right now so
that if changes roll out, they have an archive to
show the before and compare it to the after, and
at least that these moves by the current administration wouldn't
go unnoticed. I thought that was pretty cool. And they
took inspiration from a different effort, which is called Save
our Signs. And that's because with the whole National Park
(30:16):
Service thing and the way that all signs are being
reviewed and evaluated for if they're too negative about the past,
then parks visitors are compiling photos of the signs in
their current and truthful, accurate form. So again, if some
revisionist history wipes through, we have a record and maybe
the truth could be still preserved restored. I don't know.
(30:39):
I thought that was that was good and then okay,
we're laying in the plane. Last piece of bad news.
In the last few weeks, the Department of Education announced
that they're teaming up with a lot of very political organizations,
very conservative organizations, and they're going to lead civics programming
(31:00):
and this is how they're going to implement their patriotic education.
Some of them include Turning Point USA, Moms for Liberty,
the Heritage Foundation, Praguer, you Ugh Breguer, you Breger, you
I have a bone to pick with Prager. You Their
materials on Columbus Day are appalling. It's a conservative think
(31:20):
tank organization. Their express goal is to make education more
patriotic and shine a different light on events throughout history.
I spent a really strange morning watching the materials, giving
them the benefit of the doubt. I had heard terrible things,
but I was like, let me watch it for myself.
I watched that Christopher Columbus video and I was like, oh,
(31:40):
this is awful. Basically, the whole idea is these kids
time travel back to Christopher Columbus and they're like, some
people say we shouldn't celebrate you anymore. And Christopher Columbus
is like, well why is that And they're like, well,
they say you abused people and he did terrible things.
And he's like, well, I'm very hard working. And there's
also the fact that slavery is better than killing. To
(32:01):
be a slave is better than dead, is it not.
And they're like, oh, yeah, a good point, but we
kind of think slavery is bad. And he's like, of
course you think that. Let's just your modern thoughts, but
should you really judge me by your modern standards? And
they're like oh yeah, good point, and I am exaggerating,
but only barely. I really I was shocked, shocked that
(32:26):
there would be just such a crazy distortion to paint
people in a positive light, that we don't only say, Okay,
let's talk about these figures and they're good and they're
bad and whatever, but that you would just say, you
know what, even the bad stuff they did, let's just
call it good. Let's just make it even simpler. Let's
say maybe slavery wasn't so bad. Then we don't even
have to do the whole complicated thing. Christopher Columbus was
(32:48):
a guy who did some bad things. No, let's just
say he was a guy who did mostly good things.
And that's a simpler cell for the kids. And so anyway,
in the last few weeks there's been announcements of this
is what's going to be rolling out. There's a whole
big undertaking. I think it'll be a really well funded project.
I think it's going to change how history is presented
(33:11):
in schools. Now. I think that's really concerning. The long
and short of it for me is just that it's
all really hypocritical, it's all really ironic. The Trump administration
is saying that they are setting out to end in
doctrination in schools, and they specifically took an issue with
echo chambers in schools, saying that it's progressive echo chambers.
(33:32):
Now they are unabashedly creating conservative echo chambers in schools,
and they're just introducing a different kind of propaganda. If
you're going to say that focusing too much on the
negative aspects of American history is propaganda and indoctrination, then
wouldn't doing the reverse also be propaganda or indoctrination to
say that you're committed to not just telling the truth
(33:54):
of history, whatever it is, however the chips fall, whatever
turns out to be true. Instead, you start with the
end in mind. You start with the goal of this
needs to arrive at patriotism. This needs to arrive at
a positive view of America and all of its history.
Don't you think that that might undermine the integrity of
(34:15):
what of what learning history is. You can't learn history
with a goal in mind. You can't learn history and
say we want to learn patriotic history. We want to
learn it and end up with seeing everything and everyone
and every bad thing and a positive light. You can't
do that. What we're seeing with the Trump administration is
(34:37):
an overcorrection, a big over correction. There's a power struggle,
there's a culture where there's ping ponging happening now and
there will be ping ponging in the years to come.
Do I find it concerning that, like conservative think tanks
are going to be infiltrating curriculum in the years to come.
I do find that really really concerning. But I'm call
(34:58):
me crazy hot take. You might not like this take.
I am personally comforted by thinking about just how terrible
my own history and civics education was and how I
didn't stay in the dark forever. You know, Like when
I was growing up, they taught us a very whitewashed
version of history about everything from Columbus Day to Thanksgiving
to history of all oppression was. It was toned down drastically,
(35:26):
and yet as I grew, as I aged, as I
learned more, I didn't stay confined to what I was
initially taught. So I'm not like raising the alarms of like,
oh my gosh, no one's going to know the true history.
Like I think we all as we've grown up have
had this like collective awakening. So that provides me with
a little bit of comfort that, like, even if kids
(35:48):
in schools today were taught a really whitewashed version of history,
they would have about the same starting point that I did.
You know, I was taught a really whitewashed version of history.
So even if we're going backwards, we're just going awkwards
to where we started. I don't think we can get
much worse than where we were, So that's something Maybe
that's encouraging. I don't know this whole episode I've been thinking.
(36:12):
I think the Trump administration is taking things to a crazy,
crazy level. But there are people, many people who had
difficulties with what was happening to curriculums under the Biden administration,
with what they were teaching about race, with what they
were teaching about privilege, with what they were teaching about
unconscious bias, how they were taking things that were ideology,
and in some they were allowing schools to teach opinion
(36:35):
as fact. I'll agree, I'll agree with that. I have
agreed with that. So I think there are some thoughtful
people who took issue with when schools were like veering
really really hard left. I a person on the left
was also like, oh, guys, this is concerning ooh, Echo Chambers,
Ooh ideology, Ooh, a lack of viewpoint diversity. This is
(36:56):
a problem. I was saying that when it was on
the left. Now it's on the right, and I'm really
skewing it and saying this is awful, this is really
really bad. But I say it in any case, just
when this is the difficulty. We're all trying to talk
about truth, we're all trying to talk about history. We're
all saying, let's just stick with the facts. But there's spin,
there's bias, there's attitude, there's opinion. There's so much that
(37:20):
is up for debate, and we can say it's not
up for debate, but it is the problem. How do
you write the sentences, How do you choose, what language
do you use, What adjectives do you use? What photos
do you include or not include? What's too gory, what's
age appropriate? There are a lot of factors. It's a
complex thing. And I think that what the Trump administration
(37:41):
is doing is responding in kind to what the Biden
administration was doing, and I think they're just taking it
way way further because what they saw was like, Okay,
we're concerned, and I don't think that the people doing
this are just evil people who want evil things done.
I think it's honestly, like the most the good faith
argument is, you have a legitimate concern that if we
(38:04):
teach history a certain way, and if we teach that
there were good guys, and the good guys were the
victims in any case. So it's the people of color,
it's the enslaved Africans, it's the indigenous people, you name it,
whoever the victims are, they're the good guys. And then
there were the bad guys, and those are the oppressors.
And in all cases those are people with white skins.
(38:24):
Those are the oppressors, those are the colonizers. And you
teach this narrative of history, the victims and the victors,
the oppressed and the oppressors. Oh and by the way,
good guy, bad guy. It falls along racial lines, racial categories.
That's how the current administration sees the curriculum that was
in twenty twenty. They say, we're teaching history in this way.
(38:46):
We're categorizing people by their race. We're oversimplifying things, and
we're not seeing people for their individual character, their individual merit.
We are just sending all of these kids home from
school with the conclusion that white people are bad, that
white people are the bad guys, and that people of
color are the good guys. And not only that, but
that they're just the good guys because they were oppressed.
(39:08):
That's what brings them virtue, that's what wraps them in
innocence in our memory. That's how the current administration sees
a more progressive approach to teaching history, and so they're
flipping the script. I had to guess. I think this
is like a big Bravado move, and they're going to
push it as far as they can, knowing that it's
going to be walked back and rained in in the
(39:29):
years to come. That's just my hunch. I could be wrong,
but I'm generally not going to be one of those
people who hops on the podcast Mike and tells you,
isn't this terrible? And isn't this bad? And isn't this crazy?
And man, those people on the other side, how awful.
Let's hate them. That's not what I do. That's not
(39:51):
what I'm about. Instead, even when the events are mind
boggling and upsetting and the actions are frustrating and laurable,
I want this to be more than just event session.
My hope is that this could feel more like a
meeting of the minds, you and me. Let's put our
heads together. Let's talk about all of these changes and
(40:12):
how they coalesce into one big old effort to put
a really positive spin on history that is so positive
that it kind of warps and distorts history. And maybe
if we talk about that and we see how all
of these things kind of fit together, they fit into
the same narrative, and that narrative is just getting a
(40:32):
little bit more delusional and warped as time goes on. Okay,
then we see that we understand that at some point
we won't be too surprised by that or taken off
guard when the next statement is issued about this crazy thing,
or that hopefully we can be better informed, better equipped,
ready for conversations whatever may come. So we know our
(40:56):
stuff and we can speak confidently about what's been happening,
and hopefully we'll be better for it. Well, at least
have a good understanding, a good grasp of what's been
going on. That should just make us better citizens. I
don't know, I haven't really figured out the moral arc
of this episode or the inspiring takeaway and that's kind
of killing me if you can't tell. I decided to
(41:16):
release this episode for everyone, not just my paid supporters.
Paid support is how I've been able to keep doing
this work even as the DEI rollbacks and all of
the changes with the Trump administration has really come for
my industry and my profession. I've been able to thankfully
rely on support from individuals to keep this thing going
(41:38):
and allow me to keep creating content and making the
vast majority of it freely available. So thank you so
much to my paid supporters for all the new listeners.
I hope to keep releasing a free episode here and
there in the months to come, but overall, I'd love
if you'd consider becoming a paid supporter. There's some really
good episodes in the archive. I've got book reviews on
(42:03):
ranking books on whiteness my least favorite to most favorite.
I've got book reviews on books that are anti anti racism,
so they're like really critical conservative takes and I explain
like my favorite takeaways from them or what I didn't
like about them. That's a good one. I also have
a deep dive on what the heck happened with the
Black Lives Matter Foundation that was a really interesting episode
because they kind of just fell off the face of
(42:24):
the earth and nobody knew what went down. A lot
went down. So if you want those episodes and many more,
check out membership. There's a link in the description. I'd
love to have you, and right when you join, I
personally type out a welcome message saying thanks so much
for joining. I'm glad you're here as a way to
show my appreciation, so you can keep an eye out
(42:46):
for that too. Thanks for listening to this episode. Until
next time.
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