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Here in the United States, we are currently cursed with a movement
that wants to impose a sanitized and biased version of American history on our nation.
We consider our freedom of speech and the press to be sacrosanct. But these same constitutional
rights have recently been misused by those trying to reinterpret numerous inconvenient historical
truths. “George Orwell's 1984 portrays a world in which the past is repeatedly rewritten to best
serve the desires of a centralized party. A slogan of this party states, ‘Who controls the past
controls the future, and who controls the present controls the past.’ Politically controlled
revisionist history in the United States has brought us one step closer to Orwell's vision . . .
{It’s time to stand up to} preserve the past as it was rather than as we wish it were. Changing it,
even in service of some perceived higher societal goal, is ultimately detrimental. To paraphrase
the great newsman Walter Cronkite, ‘that's the way it was.’ Let's leave it that way . . .”
(Ref. 1)
“George Orwell {also} said, ‘The most effective way to destroy people is
to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.’ In the former USSR, censorship,
rewriting of history and eliminating undesirable people became part of Soviets' effort to ensure
that the correct ideological and political spin was put on their history. Deviation from official
propaganda was punished by confinement in labor camps and execution.
“Today there are efforts to rewrite history in the U.S., albeit the
punishment is not so draconian as that in the Soviet Union. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu
had a Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee monument removed last month. Former Memphis Mayor A C
Wharton wanted the statue of Confederate Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, as well as the
graves of Forrest and his wife, removed from the city park. In Richmond, Virginia, there have
been calls for the removal of the Monument Avenue statues of Confederate President Jefferson
Davis and Gens. Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart. It's not only Confederate
statues that have come under attack. Just by having the name of a Confederate, such as J.E.B.
Stuart High School in Falls Church, Virginia, brings up calls for a name change. These history
rewriters have enjoyed nearly total success in getting the Confederate flag removed from state
capitol grounds and other public places.
“Slavery is an undeniable fact of our history. The costly war fought
to end it is also a part of the nation's history. Neither will go away through cultural
cleansing. Removing statues of Confederates and renaming buildings are just a small part of
the true agenda of America's leftists. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, and there's a monument
that bears his name — the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. George Washington also
owned slaves, and there's a monument to him, as well — the Washington Monument in Washington.
Will the people who call for removal of statues in New Orleans and Richmond also call for the
removal of the Washington, D.C., monuments honoring slaveholders Jefferson and Washington?
Will the people demanding a change in the name of J.E.B. Stuart High School also demand that
the name of the nation's capital be changed?
“These leftists might demand that the name of my place of work —
George Mason University — be changed. Even though Mason was the author of the Virginia
Declaration of Rights, which became a part of our Constitution's Bill of Rights, he owned
slaves. Not too far from my university is James Madison University. Will its name be changed?
Even though Madison is hailed as the ‘Father of the Constitution,’ he did own slaves.
“Rewriting American history is going to be challenging. Just imagine
the task of purifying the nation's currency. Slave owner George Washington's picture graces the
$1 bill. Slave owner Thomas Jefferson's picture is on the $2 bill. Slave-owning Union Gen.
Ulysses S. Grant's picture is on our $50 bill. . .
“The challenges of rewriting American history are endless, going
beyond relatively trivial challenges such as finding new pictures for our currency. At least
half of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were slave owners. Also consider
that roughly half of the 55 delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia
were slave owners. Do those facts invalidate the U.S. Constitution, and would the history
rewriters want us to convene a new convention to purge and purify our Constitution?
“The job of tyrants and busybodies is never done. When they
accomplish one goal, they move their agenda to something else. If we Americans give them
an inch, they'll take a yard. So I say, don't give them an inch in the first place. The
hate-America types use every tool at their disposal to achieve their agenda of discrediting
and demeaning our history. Our history of slavery is simply a convenient tool to further
their cause.”[Emphasis mine] (Ref. 2)
“They finally came for George Washington.
“The perpetual war on history now has the father of our country in its
sights as the San Francisco Board of Education considers removing a mural of Washington from a
local school.
“If the board succeeds in politicizing Washington, whose legacy was
once so secured and uniting that his home at Mount Vernon was considered neutral ground during
the Civil War, then we have clearly crossed the Rubicon of social division.
“Critics of the mural point out that, in addition to Washington, it also
depicts slaves and Native Americans—and one of the Native Americans appears to be dead.
“The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American
values. The good news is there is a solution.
“They have called the artwork offensive, and the school board says it
‘traumatizes students’ and ‘glorifies slavery, genocide, colonization, manifest destiny, white
supremacy, oppression, etc.,’ . . .
“But the original intent of the mural was actually the exact opposite.
“It was painted in 1936 by artist Victor Arnautoff, a man of the left
in his own time who, according to {a} historian . . . , wanted to depict Washington in a less
glamorized way by including images of disturbing realities. . .
“[Arnautoff] included those images not to glorify Washington, but
rather to provoke a nuanced evaluation of his legacy. The scene with the dead Native American,
for instance, calls attention to the price of ‘manifest destiny.’ Arnautoff’s murals also
portray the slaves with humanity and the several live Indians as vigorous and manly.
“Those who condemn the murals have misunderstood it, seeing
only what they sought to find. [Emphasis mine] They’ve also got their history seriously
wrong. Washington did own slaves—124 men, women and children—and oversaw many more who belonged
to his wife’s family. But by his later years he had evolved into a proto-abolitionist, a
remarkable ethical journey for a man of his time, place, and class.
“No matter to the modern iconoclasts. It’s too much to expect one to
think about what one is rushing to destroy. Obliterate now and ask questions, well,
never. [Emphasis mine]
“This is just the latest example of attempts to purge American history
of its historical figures. Not only is this trend wildly misguided—how destroying statues and
paintings bring an end to racism and prejudice is never fully explained—but it also cheapens
the debate over America’s past by ignoring nuance.
“From the beginning, it was clear that this movement had far
less to do with genuinely criticizing past historical figures, but instead reflected the need
of modern radicals to feel good about themselves and think they are ‘doing something’ to stop
oppression, [Emphasis mine] be it real or imaginary.
“Reflection and thoughtfulness are uncomfortable impediments to those
who never dare question whether they are on the ‘right side of history.’
“It makes sense that the same people who seek to de-platform individuals
for wrongthink on social media and shut down controversial speakers at universities are the same
people who want to erase artwork and monuments. The common thread is for their views to be
constantly reinforced and never challenged from without.
“The unthinking maxims of intersectionality and identity politics must
be recited over and over again from all sectors of society. No alternate views can be tolerated.
Such teachings soothe the minds of radicals who can easily ignore the moral complications of
life from the safe comforts of their college campuses and public buildings. (Those, of course,
are made possible by the wicked people they seek to extinguish.)
“Doubt, skepticism, and the use of reason are uncomfortable and
problematic.
“It didn’t take long for the iconoclasts to move from Jefferson Davis
to Thomas Jefferson, and then from Jefferson to the most revered of our Founding Fathers,
George Washington.
“What’s truly revealing about the empty, surface-level nature of
these efforts is how little cost is involved for those doing the erasing.
“Criticizing slavery and racism in 2019 can get one tenure,
public office, and a six-figure salary as a corporate consultant. So brave.
“It’s easy to cover up or take down a painting, not so easy to
sacrifice the immense benefits of living in the prosperous constitutional republic that
problematic men like Washington created.
“As David Marcus wrote for The Federalist, it was easy to get rid
of Kate Smith’s ‘God Bless America’ recording at Yankee games due to her singing what are
now considered offensive songs in the 1930s—but are Yankee fans willing to abolish the
Yankees themselves because of their team’s historical role in segregation?
“For that matter, are Harvard University administrators and professors
willing to give up their jobs at an institution founded in part by a man who owned slaves
because its origin was problematic?
“Not likely. [Emphasis mine]
“It’s far more satisfying to take the less costly step of tearing
down a painting or a statue. And it’s much easier to avoid the complicated fact that so many
of these supposedly ignorant and prejudiced people built the very institutions they enjoy
today.
“In their simplistic thinking, surely those who founded a free
republic based on consent, and truly ‘broke the wheel’ of tyranny that had been the norm
for virtually all of human history, couldn’t be great if slavery was still a part of their
heritage.
“They failed to live up to their own ideals, so they best be erased.
“But to follow this logic forward, we can’t stop with the Founders.
“The over half-million Americans who lost their lives and countless
others who risked them to end slavery, the ‘original sin’ of this country, also weren’t so
great, you see.
“Their skin was generally too fair, their motivations insufficiently
pure, and most were undoubtedly homophobes who couldn’t have conceived of modern concepts like
gay marriage or a man literally becoming a woman.
- - -
“Greatness, according to the history erasers, truly belongs to the
wokescolds {A wokescold is a person who is very pretentious about how much he/she cares
about a social issue and scolds others who are not} who wage hashtag campaigns to raise
awareness about offensive art and ensure society conforms to their ever-evolving whims.
“But the truth is, those who wage war on America’s history are tacitly
acknowledging the benefits of living in America, a free country that allows them to pursue their
radical activism, even though it is antithetical to the founding ideals that enable free speech.
“These movements are forcing politics to infect every corner of our
existence, and that weakens this country. It makes us more hateful toward one another
and trains us in the un-American notion that to win arguments, we must quash, liquidate, and
erase from all memory those we disagree with. [Emphasis mine]
“The Washington mural may come down in San Francisco, but the real
damage is not being done to the art. It’s being done to the legacy of Washington, to ourselves.
“The past is an easy target for iconoclast bullies, but if Americans
don’t want them to keep winning, they will have to begin standing up and speaking out against
them.
“If not, the destruction of our statues and artwork will merely be
symbolic of the destruction done to our country at large.”
(Ref. 3)
Back in June of 2018, Americans lost another battle in the War on
History when it was announced that: “Boston-based Brigham and Women's Hospital officials
plan to remove 31 gold-framed portraits of some of the hospital's department chairs — most of
whom were white — as part of the institution's initiative to ramp up its diversity efforts . . .
“The portraits {had} hung in the hospital's Bornstein Amphitheater
for decades . . . Of the 31 portraits, 30 are of white leaders, while one is of a Chinese
department chair. . .” (Ref. 4)
A year later, the “offending” portraits were gone. “The walls were
entirely bare. Thirty-one oil portraits of medical and scientific leaders that had made the
room distinctive were gone. Images of . . . historic figures — had been removed.
- - -
“A year earlier, The Boston Globe reported that the portraits would
be removed as part of a diversity initiative . . . {This} was not diversity, but sterility.
- - -
“Why should this be? Today’s Brigham is increasingly diverse with
respect to gender and underrepresented minorities, but [Emphasis mine] nearly
all the portraits were of white men.
“The gap between portraiture and current workforce was obvious, and
addressing it fell to Brigham’s CEO, . . . , a physician-scientist who had trained in medicine
and cardiology at the Brigham 30 years earlier. She concluded that removing the portraits would
foster a more welcoming environment for the increasingly diverse community of employees, students,
trainees, and faculty. And then — overnight — the portraits were gone. Some were redistributed
to other, less public, locations, raising the question of how such relocation would promote
diversity or create a more welcoming environment.
“Reactions to removal of the . . . portraits varied. Some who couldn’t
decouple the portraits from prior exclusion of women and minorities cheered.
Others supported the portraits as a means to recognize past
accomplishments, despite the subjects living at a time of limited opportunities for women
and minorities. But voicing such views today is not without risk.
[Emphasis mine] . . . discussion is less likely when those questioning the change are
probably going to be characterized as members of a white patriarchy indifferent to concerns
of women and minorities.
“. . . removing all the portraits from this historic
amphitheater — in this way — was a mistake. Celebrating diversity doesn’t require erasing
or suppressing the memories of those who contributed greatly to the institution and the
profession — people whose work continues to have impact today. [Emphasis mine]
“This issue is not restricted to the Brigham. In Harvard’s historic
psychology department, portraits of its founder, William James, famed psychologist B.F. Skinner,
and other leaders were removed for similar reasons. Such events have broad cultural
significance.
“Institutions commission portraits to acknowledge past contributions
and to narrate institutional history, and their public display highlights important issues.
In this case, American medicine — and medicine elsewhere — was for much of its history largely
closed to women and minorities. The first women were admitted to Harvard Medical School in 1945,
and the first woman was appointed full professor in 1946. Black medical students were few in
number until 1968, when faculty pressure happily produced a sustained effort to increase their
numbers.
“But display or removal of portraits doesn’t change history or current
practice. The latter requires culture and policy to evolve. Brigham and HMS {Harvard Medical
School} now aggressively seek equal opportunity for women and minorities, reflected in broadly
increased participation by students, residents, faculty, and CEOs. Women represent half of
entering medical students and lead programs and departments throughout the school.
Underrepresented minorities have also advanced . . .
We should seek to learn from this story of substantial
progress — rather than hide it from view. [Emphasis mine]
“Some wish to judge those who lived at a time when different values
prevailed, but this is hardly straightforward. Unlike disputed portraits and statuary related
to slavery and the Civil War, these men made contributions to medicine and research that stand
up well to current scrutiny. Early in Brigham history, actions of single individuals wouldn’t
have diversified the workforce — that required major shifts in societal values. . .
“History and context matter, and should be accurately communicated
in any effort at portrait renewal.
“Removing all the historic amphitheater portraits — leaving bare walls
in their place for the past year — won’t advance diversity. . .”
(Ref. 5)
And the perpetual war on History continues on. There are those who
fight the war on history in other, even more, ridiculous ways. In one of the most blatant
attempts at political pandering and historical revisionism, Democrats in Congress have proposed
compensating Black-Americans for slavery in the United States that ended more than a
century-and-a-half ago. Such a proposal may have had validity immediately after the Civil War
or while victims of slavery were still alive, it has no business being considered in 2019!
Slavery in America is a historical fact of the 19th century and before. It is over and done
with. Historically, it is certainly not something to be swept under a rug, but it is not a
subject requiring any action in the 21st century. How many former slaves are alive to receive
such compensation? How many children of former slaves are alive to receive such compensation?
In true demagogue fashion, Democratic Senator and potential
presidential candidate Cory Booker said, about the proposed compensation proposal:
“the U.S. needs to address ‘persistent inequalities’ experienced by African Americans by
discussing reparations, the idea that the descendants of slaves should be compensated for
the injustices and cruelty their ancestors experienced.”
(Ref. 6) As a potential Democratic presidential candidate,
is it possible that Booker is hoping to solicit Black-American votes in his bid for the White
House with his support of the compensation proposal?
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell exhibited rationality
and common good sense when he said: ‘I don't think that reparations for something that happened
150 years ago, for whom none of us currently living are responsible, is a good idea. We tried to
deal with our original sin of slavery by fighting a Civil War, by passing land mark civil rights
legislation. We elected an African American president’ . . .
- - -
“{Senator Booker laughingly claimed:} ‘This is a very important hearing.
It is historic. It is urgent.’ . . . He argued that black Americans deserve compensation not only
for slavery, but for the legacy of domestic terrorism against black people post-Civil War,
segregation, as well as for redlining, a practice used by mortgage providers that kept black
people from obtaining mortgages.” (Ref. 6)
Booker and his fellow Democrats surprisingly forgot to urge compensation
for all Native American descendants, along with compensation for descendants of Chinese, Irish,
Italian, and Japanese immigrants whose ancestors suffered often violent discrimination and economic
hardship in 19th and 20th century America. If the Democrats want to be truly fair, then they
should propose that we return the land of these United States to the Native Americans from whom
America stole it. They could have also called for some form of compensation for the American
Buffalo which were rendered nearly extinct by our early American ancestors. And let’s not stop
there. How about reparations for the descendants of Mexicans killed in the Mexican-American war
or the descendants of British soldiers killed by Americans in the Revolutionary War and the War
of 1812? Lest we forget, there were thousands of German, Italian and Japanese soldiers and
civilians killed by Americans in the two world wars. Don’t their families and their descendants
deserve reparations similar to what is being proposed for the descendants of America’s black
slaves?
It is simply mind-boggling that there are those in Congress who have
nothing better to do than consider stupid proposals on issues that took place more than a 150
years ago. Today’s questions on illegal immigration, health care, a nuclear Iran, trade wars,
drugs, and poverty are so irrelevant to these historical revisionist zealots that they pale in
comparison to a problem that was largely taken care of by a Civil War and an Emancipation
Proclamation in the middle 1800’s. Is it any wonder that so little is accomplished in our
nation’s capital when we elect representatives and senators who waste their time and our
money on such ridiculous considerations? There have been others, e.g., Josef Stalin
and Mao Tse-Tung, who have tried to revise history for political gain. Such behavior has no
place in today’s America.
One final and recent example of the absurd ongoing war on history comes
from Yale University. “This past week {June 2019}, Yale University announced plans to rename one
of its residential halls bearing the namesake of John C. Calhoun, a nineteenth century statesman
and passionate defender of slavery. This decision comes in the wake of the growing controversy
surrounding the administration’s initial pledge to keep the name as a biting reminder of our
nation’s past transgressions to teach future students about all we’ve had to overcome.
“Despite its initial pledge, Yale swiftly reversed course and conceded
to the demands of those who wish to see every blemish of our history purged from the history
books. If today’s culture were not so politically correct, Yale’s decision might have been more
easily forgivable or, at the very least, its instigators be subject to less cynicism concerning
the possibility of ulterior motives. Whether or not this change really furthered some nobler end,
however, is by and large irrelevant to the greater danger of unbridled revisionism carried out
by indignant, politically correct folk. The profounder evil is opening our long-standing
traditions to a burgeoning relativism that seeks to dismantle anything in its path for no
legitimate end beyond temporarily appeasing its own, insatiable appetite. [Emphasis mine]
“As long as Calhoun’s namesake continues to no longer serve as a
sobering reminder of our nation’s past, who is to say future generations won’t be more readily
susceptible to lapses in moral judgment given modern predispositions to expunge even the
slightest of disquieting truths from the public consciousness? Have we as a civilization finally
reached a level of moral apotheosis that allows us to purify our past with total confidence that
no future American will commit an equally abhorrent sin? By establishing this precedent to
remedy our past as it comports with today’s moral framework, are we not effectively giving
future Americans total leverage to erase from today what they deem morally impermissible by
tomorrow’s standards?
“The exercise of moral revisionism is as ridiculous as the
perverted ideology of those who advocate its doing. [Emphasis mine] This habit of
tarnishing the legacies of historical figures purely and simply due to a position or belief
we now find unacceptable also does a disservice to the many positive contributions that came
from these men whose legacies are under attack. Woodrow Wilson, being another recent target
of revisionism, navigated our nation through the First World War and then passionately campaigned
for the League of Nations, an ambitious international peacekeeping project that set the template
for the United Nations. In addition to his accomplishments on the global front, Wilson’s ideas
about progressive government still remain salient, fortifying a legacy that seemed unbreakable
until just last year, when leftists at Princeton – a university for which he dedicated many
years of his life as a student, professor, and president – waged a successful campaign to remove
a painting of his likeness based on his racist views. There was also another campaign last year
to rename the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, but it was ultimately
struck down, though not without controversy, by Princeton’s Board of Trustees.
“Indeed, Wilson is by modern standards an unabashed racist. He viewed
African Americans as fundamentally inferior and sought to bar their admission from his institution
as other Ivy League schools began admitting them. However, it’s also critically important to
befit Wilson, a man born in Virginia nine years before the outbreak of the Civil War, to the
times in which he lived. That is not to say Wilson’s views on race — or Calhoun’s for that
matter — should be discounted simply because he grew up in different times, but it is equally
important to note that these views were considered outmoded not just by today’s standards,
but also in many parts of the country by the standards of the times in which they were
expressed.
“For instance, Calhoun’s view of the ‘positive good’ of slavery was
not the predominant view of the majority of the country in 1850. And even in 1933, when
Calhoun was chosen as a namesake for the new residence hall, there was some controversy
surrounding the decision. However, the name remained unchanged in the eight decades that
followed, despite being susceptible to the moralities of different people across several
generations. Now more than eighty years onward, it seems that we should take extra precautions
to preserve our history, particularly in today’s era of hyper sensitivity in which many on the
left readily pounce on even the slightest ‘microaggression.’ This is not to say that change
should never be welcomed, but in times like these it would be more advisable to buckle down
on long-standing traditions, lest we want to risk giving in to the forces of a revisionism that
may wind up being less edifying and more Orwellian in the long run.
“Lastly, if we take this moralizing to its extreme, who from our
history books can be spared from the towering judgment of today’s self-righteous demigods?
Surely none of the founding fathers who were slave-owners, nor Teddy Roosevelt for his bigoted
views of American Indians, nor Franklin Roosevelt for his decision to intern Japanese Americans.
And why not forsake the great emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, for expressing on several occasions
his view that whites were superior to blacks?
“The key point is that there will always be ugly truths in
our past since mankind has and always will continue to be imperfect. [Emphasis mine]
As difficult as it may be given today’s politically correct zeitgeist, we must face these harsh
truths head on, simultaneously taking pride in all that we’ve overcome and yet mindful of the
complex legacies of some flawed, but great, men in our history.”
(Ref. 7)
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References:
- Rewriting history and the pursuit of ignorance, Michael Rosenbaum,
The Hill, 26 February 2015.
- Rewriting American History, Walter E. Williams, New American,
14 June 2017.
- The War on History Comes for George Washington, Jarrett Stepman,
The Daily Signal, 20 May 2019.
- Brigham and Women's takes down 31 portraits of male leaders in diversity effort,
Alyssa Rege,
Becker’s Hospital Review, 14 June 2018.
- Removing portraits — a mistaken approach to promoting diversity in medicine,
Jeffrey S. Flier, Boston Globe,
19 June 2019.
- House committee confronts the "inheritance of slavery" in panel on reparations,
Grace Segers, CBS News,
19 June 2019.
- THE DANGERS OF HISTORICAL REVISIONISM, Paul Ingrassia,
FORDHAM POLITICAL REVIEW,
20 June 2019.
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