There are 20 Smithsonian exhibits tagged by the White House for being more “ideological” and less factual.
Included in this list is an exhibit at the National Museum of the American Latino that portrays the U.S. as stolen land. It also characterizes U.S. history as rooted in “colonization,” The Hill reported.
Another exhibit was one about Benjamin Franklin in the National Museum of American History.
The administration didn’t the stance that his “scientific accomplishments were enabled by the social and economic system he worked within.”
Other targeted exhibits were ones that focused on support for transgender communities.
Specifically targeted was the American History Museum’s “LGBTQ+ History” exhibit.
The Trump administration condemned a separate display praising the 50th anniversary of Title IX with a focus on transgender athletes.
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order which probits transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.
Trump has criticized the museum for how it depicts slavery and its impact on Black Americans.
“The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future,” Trump posted on social media Tuesday.
“We are not going to allow this to happen, and I have instructed my attorneys to go through the Museums, and start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities where tremendous progress has been made,” he added. “This Country cannot be WOKE, because WOKE IS BROKE.”
This is in contrast to the words he spoke in his first term as president when he praised the opening of the National Museum of African American History for its portrayal of harsh truths and storied victories for disenfranchised Black citizens.
“Just as the Holocaust is remembered in all its brutality, so must America reckon with the truth of chattel slavery, Jim Crow and racial terror,” Dr. Toni Draper, publisher of the Afro-American Newspaper. “Anything less is historical erasure, a rewriting of facts to make the nation appear more palatable.”
“But history is not meant to comfort — it is meant to confront. And only in confrontation do we find the lessons that lead us forward,” she continued.
The Federalist published an article last week that called out the Smithsonian for “anti-American propaganda.”
The institutions being reviewed include the National Museum of American History, National Museum of Natural History, National Museum of African American History and Culture, National Museum of the American Indian, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, National Portrait Gallery and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
