POLITICS: The Reckless and Dangerous ‘Woke’ Assault on our Heritage

 

• History has been rewritten with a poison pen by radicals with money who hate America.

We have been fighting revisionist history in public schools for many decades and now it seems no agency, institution, nor historic homes are immune from the Woke assault on our heritage.

In June of 2021, the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) “racism task force” claimed that the Archives rotunda, which houses our beloved founding documents, is an example of ‘structural racism’.

National Archivist David Ferriero, appointed by President Obama and approved by the Senate in 2009, commissioned NARA’s racism task force in response to the death of George Floyd.

By September of 2021, NARA issued a blanket warning to readers across its catalogued website that our Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Bill of Rights contained “harmful content”, labeling them as “harmful or difficult to view.”  Can you imagine declaring our Founding Documents that set the stage for moral self-governance, liberty, and justice for all, “harmful content”?

As reported by the racism task force, “OurDocuments.gov features transcripts and historical context of ‘100 milestone documents of American history’ but often uses adulatory and excessive language to document the historical contributions of White, wealthy men.”

“Trigger warnings” were then issued by NARA, forewarning audiences of “content that may cause intense physiological and psychological symptoms.”  They go on to regurgitate an absurd cacophony of a present-day critical theory-laced word salad disclaimer that our documents could “reflect racist, sexist, ableist, misogynistic/misogynoir, and xenophobic opinions and attitudes; be discriminatory towards or exclude diverse views on sexuality, gender, religion, and more,” and “include graphic content of historical events such as violent death, medical procedures, crime, wars/terrorist acts, natural disasters and more.”

And now, the radicals with billions are expanding the defamation of our American heritage by taking aim at Thomas Jefferson’s and James Madison’s estates and legacies.

Monticello

Billionaire philanthropist and hypocrite, David M. Rubenstein, contributed $20M between 2013 and 2015 to refurbish Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and, evidently, to also revise its historical significance.  As he accuses Jefferson of profiting off of slavery, Rubenstein himself used a tax loophole in the 1980s that took advantage of some unsuspecting native Alaskans to rise to the top.  Michael Lewis, wrote a critical essay on Rubenstein about ‘The Great Eskimo Tax Scam’.  Another writer wrote of the scam, “Because of the Rubenstein family and how [his ex-wife] influenced the change in the state’s sovereign fund, the average Alaskan family has lost tens of thousands of dollars.”

The Rubenstein millions have contributed to what passes for history at Monticello lately.  The house tour primarily highlights modern art depicting slavery, particular trinkets and items in the home, and much, much more about the enslaved people.  There are some exhibits on the construction of the home and the fact that Jefferson was an architect and scientist, yet the tour guides recast him as a “tinkerer”  and father of a slave’s (Sally Hemmings) child.

Just for the record, the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society conducted a year-long investigation which concluded the allegations that he fathered one of Sally’s children were “almost certainly false.” The Society determined that it was more likely his brother Randolph was the father.  Nonetheless, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation that owns Monticello has decided to present as fact that Jefferson is the father.

There is a 7.5-minute film which briefly discusses Jefferson’s philosophy and political accomplishments, but appallingly absent are any exhibits on Jefferson as President, Vice President, Secretary of State, diplomat, governor, drafter of the Declaration of Independence and Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, or founder of the University of Virginia.  These accomplishments may get scant mention by docents who, by the way, are free to write their own scripts for the tour.

As the author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson set forth the radical idea that “all men are created equal.”  His original draft blasted King George III in the Declaration for his “inhumanity toward enslaved peoples.”  The Declaration of Independence is the mission statement and the very essence of what it means to be American, yet there is shockingly no exhibit on Thomas Jefferson and the document at Monticello.

It was also Jefferson who promoted Article 1, section 9 of the Constitution that would allow the prohibition on the slave trade into the country beginning on January 1, 1808, yet that is omitted in the house tour.

No American Flags Fly at Montpelier

Similar to Monticello, Montpelier – the plantation home of James Madison – presents exhibits which almost exclusively feature the story of slavery and its “central role in the framing of the nation” along with its “lasting legacies”, claims Brenda Hafera, Senior Policy Analyst at the Heritage Foundation’s Simon Center for American Studies who reported on her experiences at the homes of our revered Founders.  A film defines these ‘lasting legacies’ as “mass incarceration, the achievement gap, housing discrimination, and the vicious cycle of poverty, violence, and lack of opportunity throughout America’s inner cities.”  How Woke can you get?

In the mix of influences on exhibits at Montpelier are the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which owns the estate, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and David Rubenstein’s millions.  A series of exhibits called “The Mere Distinction of Colour,” funded by Rubenstein, provides an informative history of slavery, then goes into a scripted diatribe of critical race theory and restorative justice, claiming that “the legacies of 200 years of African American bondage are still with us.”

Critical race theory, mentioned earlier in this paper, is one of the latest Marxist movements of the Left and it dictates that slavery is the one and only thing that defines America and that white people are all oppressors.  Another fad happening in schools is gender or queer theory and even Montpelier hasn’t escaped being besmirched by it.  An observer on the tour of Madison’s upstairs library reported that a guide “remarked that (today’s) Constitution has (been) expanded to apply to those whom Madison would NOT have included such as LGBTQ+ individuals.”

James Madison not only drafted the Constitution but wrote the Bill of Rights, many of the Federalist Papers, advocated for limited government through separation of powers, federalism, checks and balances, and individual liberty.  Madison was a brilliant patriot who served in the Continental Congress and as our fourth President.

Brenda Hafera reported on her experience at James Madison’s estate: “Many of (Madison’s) singular tasks, such as drafting the Bill of Rights, could have been the subject of an extended exhibit, but they are barely mentioned.”  One video “labels Madison a slaveowner and the Constitution as racist, stating that it applied only to white men.”

No American flags fly at Montpelier.

Visitors, while learning little of Madison’s enormous importance in the founding of our nation, are left with the impression that “slavery was the central animating force behind the laws and economy of the United States,” Hafera points out.  The actual truth about America’s early economy was that industry and innovation in the North, not the slave labor of the South, drove prosperity.

Samuel Gregg, a visiting fellow with Heritage’s Simon Center, puts the constant barrage that slavery was the driving force behind the antebellum economy into perspective.  “Slavery made many plantation owners extremely wealthy,” thereby, creating a crony economy in which only a few could prosper.  Slavery worked to the benefit of plantation owners, small in number, but impoverished most of the South, including poor whites.  In actuality, the cotton industry was not totally dependent on the institution of slavery.  In fact, slavery “retarded the economic development of the South,” Gregg has written.  People living in the South in 1860 were poorer on a GDP per capita basis than they were in 1800 making it possible for the industrial North to easily defeat the weaker South in the Civil War.

Granted, the horrors and injustice of the stain of slavery on our nation should never be trivialized, but we need a balance.  Montpelier and its controlling proprietors do not come close to giving us that.

In defense of James Madison, historian Sean Wilentz demonstrates in No Property in Man: Slavery and Antislavery at the Nation’s Founding – whose title was taken from Madison himself when he heralded – that he (Madison) and the delegates at the Constitutional Convention had “thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men.”

Slavery was created out of state laws and, if one has an inkling of an understanding of the Constitution that was written by James Madison, they might understand what Hafera specifies on this point: “Without ratification of the Constitution, and by preserving the Union, the Founders preserved the possibility of extinguishing slavery at some point in the future.”

Joyfully, there is good news on the presidential home front.  George Washington’s Mount Vernon is owned by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association of the Union, fortunately for those Americans who visit.  Ms. Hafera weighed in with this observation in her report on how three important founders are remembered at their homes:  “Their detailing of Washington’s accomplishments, commitment to historical accuracy and standards, informative tours and exhibits, and modest tone make Mount Vernon the gold standard against which Montpelier and Monticello are measured in this report.”  So, it seems that Mount Vernon has avoided the Woke Marxist makeover.

As far as Jefferson’s Monticello and Madison’s Montpelier are concerned, Andrea Widburg at American Thinker says, “Rather than being shrines to the men who seeded American liberty even if they applied it imperfectly in their own lives, both are now shrines to Critical Race Theory.”

The Fallacy of Presentism and What’s the Result?

Presentism, the audacity to interpret past events in terms of present-day attitudes or standards, reigns when it comes to how some translate our history today.  Ms. Hafera says that history’s first objective should be “to let the evidence, not our personal biases or modern sensibilities, form the basis of our narrative.”  But evidence and truth are not the norm in most classrooms and museums these days.  History has been rewritten with a poison pen by radicals with money who hate America.

Presentism is NOT history!

What is happening at historical sites and in classrooms is an “attempt to colonize culture,” proclaims William Allen, emeritus dean and professor of history at Michigan State University.  Allen went on to say, “the effort is to expand and take over our understanding of American culture in order to remake our history.”

To paraphrase William Allen, the attempt to redefine the United States as only a slaveholding society is false to the facts, the history, and the culture.  “That attempt can only succeed so far as the attempt to colonize the culture succeeds, take over the role of interpretation, and to control the narrative, as they now like to say.”  Allen concludes by saying this colonization of culture is what is happening at these presidential homes and that is the period we are living in.

Dr. Peter Wood, the president of the National Association of Scholars and author of “1620: A Critical Response to the 1619 Project”, says that much of the historical revision stems from Nicole Hannah-Jones’ New York Times’ 1619 Project and its contention that American history begins with the arrival of the first slaves in 1619.  Wood acknowledges that historians on both the Left and the Right concur that the 1619 Project is ahistorical.

What is the result when students are exposed to tainted American history?  Dr. Wood declares, “What comes from all this is a hatred for America; basically a fairly strong feeling that we are a rotten country from the start, and every student needs to know that and to feel it.  This dissension then becomes an end unto itself.”

I believe we see the result in the disastrous division that exists between us.  We actually see it on the streets as we watch rampant crime, buildings burn, policemen assaulted or killed, businesses looted, and the dissolution of the Rule of Law that our Founders championed.  We see it when politicians blatantly use their influence to enrich themselves and, in turn, pass harmful legislation that destroys opportunities for Americans and destroys our Republic itself.

We must preserve our national treasures by telling true American history and demonstrating that the unique American Experiment can continue to bless those who wish to work hard.  We must foster a shared American culture and stop those who strive to divide us and pit group against group.  We must not allow the reckless and dangerous Woke assault on our heritage to succeed.

Originally posted by Claudia Henneberry, and reposted with permission of The Potomac Tea Party.

https://x.com/nicksortor/status/1831022235122794985

Brother Bob is no longer on Facebook (although you can see his archives there), and is back on Twitter again, but is ramping up on Minds and Gab, and has his biggest presence on MeWe.

Cross posted from Brother Bob’s Blog