The fight against “wokism” (a term derived from a 30’s era African-American idiom meaning stay(ing) aware of political circumstance and racism) has suddenly become and intensified effort to destroy the legacy of civil rights and remove hard-fought civil rights successes.
One of the most evident indicators of this trend is the apparent attempt to erase and/or diminish Black history and related cultural artifacts. Stages of this erasure has already begun at the Smithsonian Institute including the National Museum of African American History and Culture and other venues where artifacts and evidence of Black life and history are exhibited.
This writer assumed that there was an imperative from the infamous Project 2025 (also known as the 2025 Presidential Transition Project). That assumption proved incorrect as the Project does not specify any directive pertaining to historical items. Executive Order 14253 stands as the directive from the Office of the President that spurs destruction in the name of ‘truth’ and ‘sanity’.
Cuts to federal grants that fund Black History museums are proposed in an effort to block showing the public how enslaved people learned to farm, manage multiple crops and support the pre-Civil war economy. Of the estimated 46 thousand plantations working prior to the war, only a few have survived to demonstrate how they worked and they are now under threat of closing.
The Executive Order goers on to say in part, the Smithsonian has “promoted narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.” Are we to assume that forced labor and the ownership of people is not oppressive?
Efforts to diminish the trauma and negative effects and to assuage the guilt and shame need to be seen for what they are. Widespread stories of parents worried that the stories and images of past practices and offenses toward slaveholder property cannot be compared to the actual trauma the victims said practices experienced.
When the citizenry views the undisputed cruelty that occurred during the vital days of chattel slavery, reconstruction and Jim Crow, there can be no question as to the insanity of the barbarism experienced.
If the truth were to be told of the entirety of the horror experienced by these citizens, these members of our society, the world would be sickened and disturbed. The exercise of continued “whitewashing” of these true chapters in our history is nothing but intentional sin.
As we approach America’s 250th anniversary, we face a choice. We can attempt to “whitewash” our past to maintain a comfortable narrative, or we can embrace the full, honest truth. True progress toward freedom and equality is only possible when we look at our history—flaws and all—with open eyes. Discomfort is not a threat to our nation; it is the starting point for the realization that we can, and must, continue to do better.
Guy Hayes is the author of the {soon!} coming novel: Martyr for the Kingdom: Uriah the Hittite
The fight against “wokism” (a term derived from a 30’s era African-American idiom meaning stay(ing) aware of political circumstance and racism) has suddenly become and intensified effort to destroy the legacy of civil rights and remove hard-fought civil rights successes.
One of the most evident indicators of this trend is the apparent attempt to erase and/or diminish Black history and related cultural artifacts. Stages of this erasure has already begun at the Smithsonian Institute including the National Museum of African American History and Culture and other venues where artifacts and evidence of Black life and history are exhibited.
This writer assumed that there was an imperative from the infamous Project 2025 (also known as the 2025 Presidential Transition Project). That assumption proved incorrect as the Project does not specify any directive pertaining to historical items. Executive Order 14253 stands as the directive from the Office of the President that spurs destruction in the name of ‘truth’ and ‘sanity’.
Cuts to federal grants that fund Black History museums are proposed in an effort to block showing the public how enslaved people learned to farm, manage multiple crops and support the pre-Civil war economy. Of the estimated 46 thousand plantations working prior to the war, only a few have survived to demonstrate how they worked and they are now under threat of closing.
The Executive Order goers on to say in part, the Smithsonian has “promoted narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.” Are we to assume that forced labor and the ownership of people is not oppressive?
Efforts to diminish the trauma and negative effects and to assuage the guilt and shame need to be seen for what they are. Widespread stories of parents worried that the stories and images of past practices and offenses toward slaveholder property cannot be compared to the actual trauma the victims said practices experienced.
When the citizenry views the undisputed cruelty that occurred during the vital days of chattel slavery, reconstruction and Jim Crow, there can be no question as to the insanity of the barbarism experienced.
If the truth were to be told of the entirety of the horror experienced by these citizens, these members of our society, the world would be sickened and disturbed. The exercise of continued “whitewashing” of these true chapters in our history is nothing but intentional sin.
As we approach America’s 250th anniversary, we face a choice. We can attempt to “whitewash” our past to maintain a comfortable narrative, or we can embrace the full, honest truth. True progress toward freedom and equality is only possible when we look at our history—flaws and all—with open eyes. Discomfort is not a threat to our nation; it is the starting point for the realization that we can, and must, continue to do better.
Guy Hayes is the author of the {soon!} coming novel: Martyr for the Kingdom: Uriah the Hittite
