As we have considered the 250th Anniversary of America, we refer to Thomas Jefferson‘s phrase “WE THE PEOPLE” as one of the most prolific statements ever.
But what does it mean? WHO IS WE?
Is it persons vs, people?
Is it taxation without representation?
Is it freedom, not you as a citizen?
Who are we talking to when we say “Let’s Make America Great Again.”
Who is the audience specifically?
Is it all of America, immigrant and enslaved ancestors?
Is it the Old America of the Gilded Age era?
Who is the we?
This is a question I would propose to Jefferson if I could interview him.
I recently read the government’s 162-page report titled “Saving America’s Story”. It targets the National Museum of American History (NMAH) director Anthea Hartig by alleging extreme political activism, claiming the museum focuses too much on oppression rather than national achievements, and asserting that exhibits fail to present history in an inspiring and unifying way.
Prepared by the White House Domestic Policy Council, the report accuses the NMAH of abandoning historical scholarship in favor of “extreme political activism” that deliberately promotes division and undermines national pride. In essence, the museum people are labeled as “radicals”.
The report says that slavery was inherited from the British and suggests a rewrite of American history to deny and disclaim actual facts on slavery because it depicts America negatively. It alleges that exhibits focus heavily on identity politics, slavery, racial injustice, and social conflict rather than celebrating the nation’s founding ideals and achievements.
The report criticizes the National Museum of the American Indian’s Nation to Nation exhibition and the NMAH‘s Many Voices, One Nation exhibit. It takes issue with narratives describing the “forcibly pushed” relocation of Indigenous people and a “stolen land” framework.
So the Government wants to ignore reality and facts. “Museum materials repeatedly suggest that Christianity functioned principally as an instrument of conquest, exclusion, or cultural erasure, while the constructive role of Christian belief and Christian institutions in shaping the nation and its freedoms receives scant, if any attention. White, male, and Christian Americans are regularly denigrated as the alleged embodiment of oppressive power structures” .
So, is this where we are as a nation, to have our history rewritten and reconsidered to secure the ideology of “white male supremacy?”
