US White House Says Slavery Is Being Taught Wrong, Should Not Be So Negative - In a statement sent to Newsweek the Smithsonian said: "The Smithsonian's work is grounded in a deep commitment to scholarly excellence, rigorous research, and the accurate, factual presentation of history.

https://www.newsweek.com/white-house-says-slavery-being-taught-wrong-should-not-so-negative-2117100?
https://archive.is/Ge1lq

1:41

Lindsey Halligan, the White House official leading a review of the Smithsonian Institution, said you "can't really talk about slavery honestly unless you talk about hope and progress" during a Newsmax appearance on Wednesday.

Newsweek contacted the Smithsonian Institution for comment on Thursday via email outside of regular office hours.

Why It Matters​

On August 12 Halligan wrote to Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch saying the White House would lead "a comprehensive internal review of selected Smithsonian museums and exhibitions."

On his Truth Social website President Donald Trump described the Smithsonian as "OUT OF CONTROL" and said museums across the United States are "WOKE."

Critics have accused the White House of "political interference" and pushing a "sanitized" version of history, while supporters claim the Smithsonian fails to achieve political balance.

What To Know​

Speaking to Newsmax Halligan said she had written to the Smithsonian asking for details about its exhibits to try and find where the museum group "went wrong," adding: "Museums that are over 70 percent funded by the federal government shouldn't be laboratories for political experiments."

Referring to slavery Halligan added: "It's not about whitewashing it's about full context, so while slavery is obviously a horrible aspect of our nation's history you can't really talk about slavery honestly unless you also talk about hope and progress and I think we need to be focusing on the progress that we've made then and we need to stop focusing so much on the lack of progress.

"We need to keep moving forward as a country. Our 250th anniversary as a country is coming up next July and we're hoping the Smithsonian and D.C. is beautiful and amazing and a place that all Americans want to come visit during that time."

A clip of Halligan's comments was shared on X by Aaron Rupar, an independent journalist.

Halligan wrote to Smithsonian Secretary Bunch on August 12 saying she would lead a "comprehensive internal review of selected Smithsonian museums and exhibitions."

According to the letter the first phase of the review will focus on the following museums: 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.

It said additional museums could be included later as part of a second phase of the review.

In a statement sent to Newsweek the Smithsonian said: "The Smithsonian's work is grounded in a deep commitment to scholarly excellence, rigorous research, and the accurate, factual presentation of history.

"We are reviewing the letter with this commitment in mind and will continue to collaborate constructively with the White House, Congress, and our governing Board of Regents."

On August 14 Mary Trump, the president's estranged niece, highlighted his pressure on the Smithsonian Institute as an example of the "unique threat" she believes he poses to the future of the U.S.

The removal of an exhibition covering Trump's two impeachment bids from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History recently sparked backlash.

What People Are Saying​

Lindsey Halligan said on Newsmax : "Classrooms shouldn't be stages upon which teachers can preach their various indoctrination masquerading as eternal truths and similarly museums that are over 70 percent funded by the federal government shouldn't be laboratories for political experiments.

"And what we're doing is we just sent a letter to the Smithsonian asking for more information regarding their exhibits, their placards, to try get to the bottom of what happened and where the Smithsonian went wrong and try to make the Smithsonian amazing and great and live up to what the president wants the Smithsonian and D.C. to be."

Sarah Weicksel, the executive director of the American Historical Association, told Newsweek via email: "The Smithsonian has an international reputation for the integrity of its research and scholarship, and it is a trusted resource to which teachers turn for high quality educational content. Partisan political intervention into museum professionals' work stands to erode public trust. The public must have access to a whole and complex history of the American past, not the sanitized and incomplete version preferred by the current administration."

What Happens Next?​

It remains to be seen what changes the Smithsonian Institution will make in response to criticism from the White House, and what the reaction to these will be from the broader artistic and historical communities.

 

[Chuckwagon]

Good. American chattel slavery sucks (as does all slavery in general) but this retarded notion that it's some uniquely evil sin which tainted America and Americans forever, can never really be forgiven and justifies endless (white-)guilt-tripping, reparations and soft-on-niggery policies to this day is ridiculous. Especially when the scumfucks trying to guilt trip the honkeys with it 'inexplicably' have little to nothing to say about Jewish ownership of the slave ships or other sorts of slavery, be it the Irish on Caribbean sugar plantations or the Arab-Berber slave trade which endures - no, even thrives to this very day.

 

[TowinKarz]

It's not that it shouldn't be so negative.

Slavery is a negative thing and there's no defense for it.

It's that it should not be so all-consuming in education and culture, with the entire history of the US and everything it ever founded or touched or adjudicated for fought in battle being inextricably linked to it to the point that you risk being canceled and professionally censored if you do not agree that "America was built on slavery!" when it was not and every American institution existing to create and defend it, when they don't.

 

[fresh pair of socks]

Africans sold their own people to the jews.

It's time to right the wrongs of history and hold these monsters accountable.

 

[Blewberry Nausea]

Glenn Beck has President Trump’s back

 

[Party Hat Wurmple]

I for one would like to bring back slavery. Its clear to me that giving them freedom was the wrong move.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

"It's not about whitewashing it's about full context, so while slavery is obviously a horrible aspect of our nation's history you can't really talk about slavery honestly unless you also talk about hope and progress and I think we need to be focusing on the progress that we've made then and we need to stop focusing so much on the lack of progress.

Africans sold their own people to the jews.

It's time to right the wrongs of history and hold these monsters accountable.

They are going to flub this history lesson, make small changes that make them look like fools and get instantly reversed after MAGA gets crushed, then it's business as usual til the end of time.

 

[Day of the Cope]

Given how they don't talk about how Natives or Blacks held slaves, not do they talk about how the slaves were bought from African war tribes that took them as POWs, than I agree that slavery is being taught wrong. Literally all the lessons have devolved into is "white people am bad".

 

[Chuckwagon]

I for one would like to bring back slavery. Its clear to me that giving them freedom was the wrong move.

Just deport the antiquated farm equipment to Liberia as Lincoln originally intended, thinking the free labor of niggers would ever be worth having them around in the country at all was a huge mistake on the part of the early colonists.

 

[Breadbassket]

Just deport the antiquated farm equipment to Liberia as Lincoln originally intended, thinking the free labor of niggers would ever be worth having them around in the country at all was a huge mistake on the part of the early colonists.

You can go further back then Lincoln and find Jefferson advocating for emancipating and then deporting Black slaves as early as the 1780s. There were a number of people who thought letting them stay was a bad idea.

Spoiler

From a 1824 letter calling for slaves to be freed then deported:
The 2d object, and the most interesting to us, as coming home to our physical and moral characters, to our happiness and safety, is to provide an Asylum to which we can, by degrees, send the whole of that population from among us, and establish them under our patronage and protection, as a separate, free and independant people, in some country and climate friendly to human life and happiness. that any place on the coast of Africa should answer the latter purpose, I have ever deemed entirely impossible. and, without repeating the other [[arguments which have been urged by others, I will appeal to figures only, which admit no controversy. I shall speak in round numbers, not absolutely accurate, yet not so wide from truth as to vary the result materially. there are in the US: a million and a half of people of colour in slavery. to send off the whole of these at once nobody concieves to be practicable for us, or expedient for them. let us take 25. years for it’s accomplishment, within which time they will be doubled. their estimated value as property, in the first place, (for actual property has been lawfully vested in that form, and who can lawfully take it from the possessors?) at an average of 200. D. each, young and old, would amount to 600. millions of Dollars, which must be paid or lost by somebody. to this add the cost of their transportation by land & sea to Mesurado, a year’s provision of food and clothing, implements of husbandry and of their trades which will amount to 300. millions more, making 36. millions of Dollars a year for 25. years, with ensurance of peace all that time, and it is impossible to look at the question a second time. I am aware that at the end of about 16. years, a gradual detraction from this sum will commence, from the gradual diminution of breeders, and go on during the remaining 9. years. calculate this deduction, and it is still impossible to look at the enterprize a second time. I do not say this to induce an inference that the getting rid of them is for ever impossible. for that is neither my opinion, nor my hope. but only that it cannot be done in this way. there is, I think, a way in which it can be done, that is, by emancipating the after-born, leaving them, on due compensation, with their mothers, until their services are worth their maintenance, and then putting them to industrious occupations, until a proper age for deportation. this was the result of my reflections on the subject five and forty years ago; and I have never yet been able to concieve any other practicable plan. it was sketched in the Notes on Virginia, under the 14th Query. the estimated value of the new-born infant is so low (say 12½ Dollars) that it would probably be yielded by the owner gratis, and would thus reduce the 600, millions of Dollars, the first head of expence, to 37. Millions & a half. leaving only the expences of nourishment while with the mother, and of transportation. and from what fund are these expences to be furnished? Why not from that of the lands which have been ceded by the very states now needing this relief? and ceded on no consideration, for the most part, but that of the general good of the whole. these cessions already constitute one fourth of the states of the Union. It may be said that these lands have been sold, are now the property of the citizens composing those states, and the money long ago recieved and expended. but an equivalent of lands in the territories since acquired, may be appropriated to that object, or so much, at least, as may be sufficient; and the object, altho’ more important to the slave-states, is highly so to the others also, if they were serious in their arguments on the Missouri question. the slave-states too, if more interested, would also contribute more by their gratuitous liberation, thus taking on themselves alone the first and heaviest item of expence. In the plan sketched in the Notes on Virginia no particular place of asylum was specified; because it was thought possible that, in the revolutionary state of America, then commenced, events might open to us some one within practicable distance. this has now happened. St. Domingo is become independant, and with a population of that colour only; and, if the public papers are to be credited, their Chief offers to pay their passage, to recieve them as free citizens, and to provide them employment. this leaves then for the general confederacy no expence but of nurture with the mother a few years, and would call of course for a very moderate appropriation of the vacant lands. suppose the whole annual increase to be of 60 thousand effective births. 50. vessels of 400. tons burthen each, constantly employed in that short run, would carry off the increase of every year, & the old stock would die off in the ordinary course of nature, lessening from the commencement until it’s final disappearance. in this way no violation of private right is proposed. voluntary surrenders would probably come in as fast as the means to be provided for their care would be competent to.]] looking at my own state only, and I presume not to speak for the others, I verily believe that this surrender of property would not amount to more annually than half our present direct taxes, to be continued fully about 20. or 25. years, and then gradually diminishing for as many more until their final extinction: and even this half tax would not be paid in cash, but by the delivery of an object which they have never yet known or counted as part of their property: and those not possessing the object will be called on for nothing. I do not go into all the details of the burthens and benefits of this operation. and who could estimate it’s blessed effects? I leave this to those who will live to see their accomplishment, and to enjoy a beatitude forbidden to my age. but I leave it with this admonition to rise and be doing. a million and a half are within their controul; but 6. millions (which a majority of those now living will see them attain) and one million of these fighting men, will say ‘we will not go.’

I am aware that this subject involves some constitutional scruples, but a liberal construction, justified by the object, may go far, and an amendment of the constitution the whole length necessary. the separation of infants from their mothers too would produce some scruples of humanity. but this would be straining at a gnat, and swallowing a camel.

I am much pleased to see that you have taken up the subject of the duty on imported books. I hope a crusade will be kept up against it until those in power shall become sensible of this stain on our legislation, and shall wipe it from their code, and from the remembrance of man, if possible. I salute you with assurances of high respect and esteem.

 

[Fucker Carlson]

Nothing wrong with constructive discussion about slavery and its evils, the problem comes when you start using it as a justification to burn down Target and steal all the TVs.

 

[Milkshake Sniffer]

Newsweek's headline

White House Says Slavery Is Being Taught Wrong, Should Not Be So Negative​

The actual quote

can't really talk about slavery honestly unless you talk about hope and progress

Both are 13 words long and there is nothing confusing or overly long about the actual quote. So why didn't Newsweek not cite the actual quote in the headline as opposed to creating their own wording relegating the actual wording to the article text? Perhaps it's because the actual quote does not say that "slavery is being taught wrong" or that slavery is not intrinsically negative. Indeed the longer quote buried 7 paragraphs in underlines how the headline does not represent what was said explicitly describing slavery as "horrible".

It's not about whitewashing it's about full context, so while slavery is obviously a horrible aspect of our nation's history you can't really talk about slavery honestly unless you also talk about hope and progress and I think we need to be focusing on the progress that we've made then and we need to stop focusing so much on the lack of progress.

This is a journalist created non-event as journalists again remind us (it must be a day with a "y" in it) exactly what they are. Truly the lowest form of scum.

 

[Brenda Holiday]

Lefties should be upset too because the way its taught now is hammering "you are inferior, you were owned, you were conquered" into the minds of all black kids and creates a powerful inferiority complex. If you haven't noticed, black people are deeply insecure. That's where a lot of the hatred towards whitey, society, the usa, etc comes from. It's heavily pushed by schools on purpose to continue to feed the social nuclear weapon that is the black population.
Funny how a racist white nationalist like me can see this but anti racist blm white saviors can't.

 

[Bonzi Baptist]

Good. American chattel slavery sucks (as does all slavery in general) but this retarded notion that it's some uniquely evil sin which tainted America and Americans forever, can never really be forgiven and justifies endless (white-)guilt-tripping, reparations and soft-on-niggery policies to this day is ridiculous. Especially when the scumfucks trying to guilt trip the honkeys with it 'inexplicably' have little to nothing to say about Jewish ownership of the slave ships or other sorts of slavery, be it the Irish on Caribbean sugar plantations or the Arab-Berber slave trade which endures - no, even thrives to this very day.

the hilarious hypocrisy of our education system The history classes teach slavery as the original sin that can't be forgiven, then you go to economics class, and they teach us why we need slave labor, or else poor people can't afford groceries.

 

[Magic Sun Daddy]

I don't need to be told slavery is wrong to come to that conclusion on my own, nor does anyone else living in a developed nation. This ain't Africa or Brazil.

 

[Tasty Tatty]

museums across the United States are "WOKE."

Museums across the world are woke. It's a problem everywhere.

I don't need to be told slavery is wrong to come to that conclusion on my own, nor does anyone else living in a developed nation. This ain't Africa or Brazil.

Even before wokeness was a thing, we also had the same views about slavery. Nobody ever said that it was a good system.

 

[An Idle Observer]

It's not that it shouldn't be so negative.

Slavery is a negative thing and there's no defense for it.

It's that it should not be so all-consuming in education and culture, with the entire history of the US and everything it ever founded or touched or adjudicated for fought in battle being inextricably linked to it to the point that you risk being canceled and professionally censored if you do not agree that "America was built on slavery!" when it was not and every American institution existing to create and defend it, when they don't.

I am a huge stickler for accurately quantifying suckitude precisely for this reason. Failure comes in all sorts of flavors and homogenizing it all is how you encourage people to fail to learn from history.

Slavery was an endemic practice at one point.

Americans bought people off the markets in Africa, meaning Africa did most of the work enslaving Africa.

The Founders were not all in agreement on how to handle this, but compromises were made to try and keep the nation together.

At no point did I compliment it, but it was an issue at the time like every other issue that ever gets raised in a democratic form of government.

Anyone saying the US was built off slavery should unironically go dress up like a Southern plantation owner. It's just the fucking King Cotton argument rehashed on the other side and I'd call it sad they're repeating a debunked slaveholder's argument if I didn't already know they're all monumentally stupid.

 

[Cthulus Nutsack]

Now im thinking about that stupid movie The Woman King and how Hollywood completely glossed over how involved the Dahomey were in the slave trade. Im all for teaching the history of slavery but teach everything about it not just the parts that make whitey look bad.

They didnt even tell us about Anthony Johnson in school. Bro was a black slave owner who had both white and black slaves and when one escaped he successfully sued to get him back. Interesting history

 

[SuperShibuyaFighter]

Good. The America bad because slavery narrative needs to die in a volcanic explosion.

What should be taught is how America was the first out of the many nations to stand up to slavery and end it.

 

[Gandhi's Left Hook]

and they teach us why we need slave labor, or else poor people can't afford groceries.

That's a bad econonics class then. Inflation is the mother of most economic woes. Slave labor decreases wages which makes inflation much more painful for the poor. Hence government gibs to keep them from rioting.