Update – the US Naval Academy released a list of books they pulled from the shelves because of this Trumpist anti-DEI purge. Here is that list.
This is what the Trumpists fear: the truth about our country, about racial divisions, and gender divisions, that were part of the law, and utterly inimical to both individualistic and social values we strive to embody.
They are threatened by race and gender, and want to bury the study of these oppressions, because they open the door to understanding other social divisions, like ability/disability, youth/age, legality/illegality, and other divisions that have concrete effects, cleaving people into two groups, then four groups, then eight groups, and on and on.
These books, most likely, embody an ethos of repairing the rifts, so people can overcome their hatreds and fears, and become a unified people. They fear the rise of another Americans with Disabilities Act, another Civil Rights Act, another 13th and 14th Amendment, another 19th Amendment. They want to continue to prevent the passage of an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. They want us to hate asylum seekers (maybe because they don’t want us to be able to seek asylum).
They want the opposite: increased division, increased resentment, increased hopelessness.
They don’t want people to fight and struggle for their liberation. They want people to stew in their oppression, become passive, and accept the abuse. They want people divided to be suspicious of each other, to compete against each other, and fight each other. They want us to be satisfied with crumbs, as long as someone below us gets fewer crumbs. They don’t want us to share the whole cake.
Original post on Nov 8, 2024
Inventing Black and White – Learn how Bacon’s Rebellion became a turning point for the way the laws of colonial Virginia distinguished people of different races. (Note that the two classes – poor vs. indentured/slaves – united, but it was to continue the expansion of the colonies into indigenous land.)
Erasing History at the National Archives
Colleen Shogan is accused of de-emphasizing racial conflict in presentations of history at the NA.
Rafu Shimpo: Community Groups Call for Accountability at National Archives – erasure of Japanese American history.
ArtNet: The National Archives Museum Is Under Fire for Allegedly Scrubbing Difficult Historical Events
WSJ (paywall): America’s Top Archivist Puts a Rosy Spin on U.S. History—Pruning the Thorny Parts
