The White House increased its pressure on the Smithsonian on Thursday, calling out a list of exhibitions and materials mentioning race, slavery, transgender identity and immigration to bolster President Donald Trump’s ongoing criticism that the institution is too focused on divisive and negative aspects of American history.
In an official, unsigned article titled “President Trump Is Right About the Smithsonian,” the White House called out seven museums for their exhibits and messaging — including the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Museum of American History, the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of the American Latino.
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“As President Trump promised, the Trump Administration is committed to rooting out Woke and divisive ideology in our government and institutions,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in an email. {snip}
Among the targets of the White House’s list were two museums that have not yet broken ground on buildings — the National Museum of the American Latino and American Women’s History Museum — and works by individual artists.
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The White House’s list comes two days after Trump said he would send his attorneys through the museums, adding that the Smithsonian focused too much on “how bad Slavery was.”
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Some repeat targets were mentioned in Thursday’s list. The White House again singled out “The Shape of Power,” a Smithsonian American Art Museum exhibition that explores how sculpture “has shaped and reflected” concepts of race in the U.S., and how it “has been a powerful tool in promoting scientific racism.” The show was mentioned in Trump’s executive order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”
As part of the president’s effort to oust Portrait Gallery director Kim Sajet, the White House issued a list of 17 examples of the museum’s alleged partisanship. The commissioning of choreographer-in-residence Dana Tai Soon Burgess’s performance “El Muro” (The Wall) appeared on both that list and the new release. Burgess did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The White House announced a more aggressive review of Smithsonian materials last week. The institution is conducting its own internal review.
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The document also criticized the National Museum of American History for mentioning Benjamin Franklin’s status as a enslaver in an exhibition about his scientific legacy, and for its inclusion of the Immokalee Statue of Liberty, a papier-mache statue holding a tomato instead of a torch, used in demonstrations by immigrant farmworkers with the message, “I, too, am America.”
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