Death Of The Institutions

 From the National Park Service:

Do you ever feel we, as a nation, put Abraham Lincoln “on a pedestal”?

What do you think might be a more useful, more complex, or more realistic way to think about or memorialize the 16th president?

Image: Library of Congress pic.twitter.com/6mQJGTUz7J

— Ford's Theatre NPS (@FordsTheatreNPS) September 18, 2021

Abraham Lincoln preserved the Union, freed the slaves(1), bestowed upon us our most memorable language on the meaning of America, and gave his life for our country.  I'm okay with the pedestal.

Though the NPS will just claim its tweet is about starting a dialogue and an honest engagement with history that is not what is really going on here.  It is about creating a mythology that one cannot already find ample critical analysis of Lincoln's actions because the Woke NPS is ready and waiting with its own Critical Race Theory approach to taking down Lincoln.  It is about laying the groundwork to substitute its warped and narrow analysis for any consideration of the man in full (of the kind you can find in the Freedman's Monument Speech of Frederick Douglass - another figure now anathema to the New Racists).  The latter portion of this 2013 post describes a precursor to what we are now seeing in the attack on Lincoln and the curious alliance of those seeking to tear him down.

A nation will always place some figures on metaphorical, and sometimes literal, pedestals.  It is necessary and inevitable.  The question is who will be placed on those pedestals and what that choice tells us about a country.  Should Lincoln be removed from his pedestal it would tell us that we are reverting to tribalism and turning away from the idea of our common humanity.

The Park Service is not the only Federal agency seeking to "reimagine" American history.  Last year the National Archivist created a racism task force "charged with identifying recommendations to NARA's internal and external systems, policies, processes, and procedures in support of an equitable environment".  In a pattern we seen replicated over and over again during the past year, once such a task force is established its findings (issued in April 2021) come as no surprise - the National Archives are a cesspool of structural racism existing in a country with a horrible history of continued racism.

The report makes many recommendations on internal "reforms" designed to allow the New Racists to control the Archives in perpetuity and also makes recommendations, which have been accepted by the National Archivist, regarding the documents displayed in the National Archives Rotunda and on its website.

Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley summarized those recommendations:

. . . for many of us, the National Archives’ Rotunda — containing the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights — is a moving, reverential place celebrating common articles of constitutional faith. That is not what the task force members saw.

Instead, they declared that the iconic Rotunda is one of three examples of structural racism: “a Rotunda in our flagship building that lauds wealthy White men in the nation’s founding while marginalizing BIPOC, women, and other communities.” They called for “reimagining” the space to be more inclusive, including possible dance and performance art. Even the famous murals in the Rotunda might have to go: The task force noted that some view the murals as “an homage to White America.”

The report objected to the laudatory attention given white Framers and Founders, particularly figures like Thomas Jefferson. It encouraged the placement of “trigger warnings” to “forewarn audiences of content that may cause intense physiological and psychological symptoms.”

The task force report called for “reimagining” the portrayal of founding documents on OurDocuments.gov, the website for America’s “milestone documents.” The task force objected that the “100 milestone documents of American history” included “adulatory and excessive language to document the historical contributions of White, wealthy men.”

The task force called for warnings and revision of racist language but stressed that such language “means not only explicitly harmful terms, such as racial slurs, but also information that implies and reinforces damaging stereotypes of BIPOC individuals and communities while valorizing and protecting White people.” It also called for “the creation of safe spaces” in every facility run by the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA).

A task force subgroup recommended that NARA “retire” the term “charters of freedom” as descriptors for the founding documents because “these documents did not result in freedom for everyone.” In addition, new signage would contain “trigger warnings” to protect tourists from potential trauma in seeing the documents; visitors would now be warned that the documents they are reading may “contain harmful language that reflects attitudes and biases of their time.”

I have no doubt that the Biden Administration, the most race-obsessed presidency since that of Woodrow Wilson, will endorse this massive distortion of American history.

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(1) The 13th Amendment passed the Senate and House before Lincoln's death though ratification did not take place until December 6, 1865.