#whitewashing of history

[odinsblog]

This is what misinformation + selective outrage + indifference looks like

Me: Gotdammit

[androgynousbirdtale]

I want to add that the amount of people out there that didn't know that Black people were promised 40 acres and a mule after slavery was abolished is ASTOUNDING. 😒

[indecisiveavocado]

dear antizionists,

Please name me ten cases wherein:

There was going to be probably murderous antisemitism (not just words, but actions)

Before it could happen, and of their own accord, non-Jews intervened and stopped it from happening.

These cases can be from anywhere and anytime.

Why?

Because if you can't, well--if you can't show me even ten times where non-Jews have showed concern for Jews and saved us--what the fuck kind of hope do we have?

And for what it's worth, here's a non-exhaustive compendium of cases where that didn't happen. For courtesy, I'm only counting it after 1440, when Gutenberg invented the printing press, as a communication breakthrough close to where modern times are generally stated to begin. (This also gets me out of listing the seventy bajillion medieval blood libel cases.) I am, unless on an unusual scale (so, not cities but countries) not counting expulsions. just assume a constant drumbeat.

1450s: Jews burned at the stake, Breslau

1460s: Jews of Fez, Morocco, massacred.

1470s: Jews slaughtered in part of Sicily. Over 300 die

1480s Spanish Inquisition begins.

1490s: At the urging of preacher Muhammad al-Maghili, Jews of Tlemcen, Algeria are killed; Thanks to al-Maghili, Jews of Tuat, Algeria, are killed; Jews expelled from Spain; Jews in Mali offered the choice of conversion, expulsion or death. Judaism illegal in Mali. This at the urging of guess what preacher?; Killed, Mecklenburg, Trnava, Mecce; Expelled, Portugal

1500s: Killed, Lisbon. Or maybe it was Christians accused of being Jews. I'm counting it; Burned at the stake, Berlin

1510s: Killed, Apulia, Hebron, Tsfat

1520s: Killed, Mezinok

1530s, 40s, 50s: expulsions, so damn many. also martin luther's on the jews and their lies. few small killings. jews barred from entering russia.

1560s: goa inquisition; killed for not converting, polotsk;

1570s: Mexican inquisition

1590s: killed, lublin

1610s: killed, frankfurt

1630s: killed, krakow, leczyca, peru

1640s: killed, portugal

1648-55: chmielnicki genocide. 100k+ jews die.

1660s: killed, istanbul, lviv

1670s: exile of mawza, yemeni jews sent into the desert to die

1680s: various massacres, hungary; killed, worms, prague

1690s: killed, majorca and portugal

1720s: ashkenazim barred from jerusalem along with those who look ashkenazi. jews expelled from ukraine

1730s: haidamaks attack jews, ukraine; killed, jaroslaw

1740s: jews expelled from ukraine, again;

1760s: uman masscare. later, r' nachman of breslov will choose to live in uman, to help the souls of the murdered move on.

1770s: killed, hebron, basra

1780s: expelled, morocco; killed, libya

1790s: killed, tetouan (in morocco); killed throughout morocco; confined to the Pale by catherine the great

1800s: killed, tlemcen

1810s: killed, algiers, denmark, latvia, bohemia, the latter three as part of the hep-hep riots

1820s: jews kidnapped from parents, russia, as young as 8 or 9, forced to serve in military; pogrom, odessa

1830s: killed, tabriz, tsfat, tsfat again, mashhad

1840s: very nearly blood libel, damascus, syria; averted with jewish effort

1860s: gen. order #11; jews killed, marrakesh, fez, barforush, tunisia

1870s: killed, demnat; pogrom, odessa, again

1880s: killed, tlemcen, algiers, petach tikva; wave of pogroms, including in kirovgrad, kyiv, warsaw, balta, ekaterinoslav, nizhini novgorod, called "storms in the negev"; may laws issued

1890s: killed, corfu, zakynthos, hamadan, iran, tripolitania, oran, algiers; dreyfus affair

1900s: wave of pogroms, most infamously in kishinev, but also odessa, dnipro, kyiv, simferopol, romny, kremenchug, nikolayev, nizhni novgorod, kerch, rostov-on-don, minsk, gomel, bialystok, siedlce, kishinev again, etc., etc; killed, casablanca

1910s: killed, shiraz, fez; leo frank killed; genocided in russian civil war, including in bender, tiraspol, kharkiv, kyiv, vitebsk, bratslav, chernihiv, kremenchuk, lviv, ovruch, zhytomir, proskurov, balta, chernobyl, elysavet, kodyma, uman (again; this time nachman was dead), bila tserkva, pinsk, vilna, and elsewhere, often several times in one city

1920s: killed, jerusalem, jaffa, oran, hebron, tsfat; expelled, mongolia; mein kampf published; ford falls for protocols

1930s: pogrom, balti, grodno, przytyk, brest, constantine, yaffa, tiberias; nazi takeover and subsequent persecution; thousands of afghani jews expelled; nuremberg laws; anschluss pogroms; kristallnacht

1940s: shoah, duh; seriously the shoah; could mention a bazillion things but I won't, suffice to say it's one giant flashing "we can't trust you"; farhud; jedwabne; babyn yar, iasi; wannsee conference; killed, benghazi, croatia, cairo. pogroms, manama, aleppo, aden, jerada, tripolitania, tripoli, egypt, krakow, kielce, kunmadaras (did I mention those three were of shoah survivors coming "home"?). expelled, jewish quarter, jerusalem. many of those in arab lands were due to "antizionism".

1950s: civil-rights-movement related shul bombing

1960s: more civil-rights-movement related shul bombings; all egyptian jewish men placed in concentration camps and kept there for over two years due to the actions of israel, they're antizionist not antisemitic; wave of antisemitism, poland, as if they weren't satisfied with killing 90 percent of their jews; jews persecuted under the guise of being antizionist, ussr, nothing familiar here. around now jews are expelled from libya.

1970s: munich massacre,

1980s: various attacks and bombings

1990s: a few bombings and such, most notably AMIA bombing in argentina

2000s: a few bombings. jews have mostly left arab countries but that doesn't stop there from being bombings

2010s: occasional killings; 2018 pittsburgh synagogue shooting where I live

2020s: a few shootings, approximately seven bajillion attacks, stabbings, etc. Hell, in the past two weeks alone, three people have been killed and twelve injured. That's more than one death/injury per day, and this hasn't been particularly unusual!

So:

If you can't find instances where such plots were foiled without the urging of Jews--

and if I can find a bazillion where they weren't, often committed by the authorities--

is it not reasonable to say Jews can't trust non-Jews for our safety?

And that, therefore, we must have a state?

Because that's what Zionism is.

Not "I fully support Israel."

Not "I don't think Palestine should exist"

Not "fuck Gazan children".

But "We cannot trust you and so we need our own state where we can be safe. Where the authorities won't kill us."

And if you're opposed to that, despite the mountains of evidence in the form of corpses that not doing so does lead to Jews being killed because they can't go anywhere--

Is it so wrong to call you antisemitic?

[otherwindow]

Imagine a group of evil vampires awakening an ancient powerful vampire of legend to help them dominate the land, but their plan backfires because said ancient powerful vampire of legend (that they assumed would look like them) is a minority the evil vampires are oppressing.

[helyeahmangocheese]

guys do you know how absolutely cracked the british!Grace siblings dynamic is... punk british Thalia who is so anti establishment bc look at the fucking monarchy and the british empire.... BLACK JASON GRACE, SON OF THE KING OF GODS, GRAPPLING WITH THE HISTORY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, THE BRITISH EMPIRE, AND THE EMPIRE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. the implications... and yet they're just kids who want to fit in... the family story, yall, fucking ouch.

[siobhanmuirromance]

This is a Nazi move. Be aware of what they're trying to do.

[mollysunder]

I wonder if the mural of Vander already existed and someone else painted Jinx into it after she became so well regarded?

I just feel like the portraits aren't that well integrated in theme. You have Vander's profile bordered in yellow flowers to represent friendship and joy. Then you have the more detailed painting of Jinx looming over Piltover exploding it with smoke bombs. Jinx is framed around doves while stylized into her latest attacks.

It feels like the artist(s) wanted to associate Jinx with Vander rather than the other way around because the actual subject of the Jinx's portion of the mural is Jinx violently provoking Piltover, but the nature of Jinx's portion is practically whitewashed to make it work with Vander's theme to the point Jinx is surrounded by DOVES. It might be an attempt to harmonize Jinx's persona with the ideals Vander left behind, which are the complete opposite of what Jinx is actually doing.

I think this is on purpose because Jinx is the most politically relevant member of her family now. Jinx is the one being valorized and venerated, and EVERYONE knows none of this would have been possible without Silco. Silco was the one who dedicated his resources to train Jinx and was openly anti-Piltovan to Jinx and the rest of Zaun.

I've seen some claims that Vander and Jinx are together because Vander was more beloved than Silco. But Silco never made it illegal to mourn or even celebrate Vander's memory. Silco allowed and a giant statue of Vander to be built in the middle if Zaun and he'd TALK to it.

But now Silco's dead and there are people running around in the background wearing Jinx's X and Silco's color scheme on their clothes. It feels like there's an ideological custody battle on behalf Silco and Vander through their supporters on who was Jinx's "true" father and gets the lions share of historical parental acclaim.

Tldr: The mural seems more like an effort to save face for Vander rather than bolster Jinx because Vander's actual values inexplicably lead his KNOWN favorite to becoming an enforcer. Meanwhile, everyone knows, especially Silco's supporters, that Silco's responsible for how Jinx turned out, and she's currently Zaun's favorite.

[the-way-astray]

genuinely don't believe they will get that far, but if they do, i hope the kotlc moviemakers don't do the thing with tam and linh's hair. and maruca's

[odinsblog]

A humanitarian crisis is what happens after a natural disaster like a tsunami, or a hurricane, or an earthquake. A humanitarian crisis is when an unexpected accident happens. A humanitarian crisis is what happens to marginalized communities in a pandemic. Indiscriminately bombing a population of noncombatant civilians and then intentionally depriving them of food, water and medical access is a deliberate war crime, NOT some random act of nature. Words matter. Calling the aftermath of bombing civilians “a humanitarian crisis” is no different than using the passive voice to describe Israel’s war crimes without directly attributing them to Israel. Please do not let the well documented displacement, and the meticulously planned out ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians… don’t allow that to be whitewashed and erased away into some kind of unfortunate “accident” of nature.

And don’t even get me started on the tired media trope of labeling non-white starving people, “looters” when they take food to feed their families…

[contemplatingoutlander]

This is the first time I've clearly seen the actual revisions a state education department (Virginia) is making to a high school elective course on African American history (which focuses on that history in Virginia) because of a GOP governor's (i.e. Glenn Youngkin's) executive order prohibiting “inherently divisive concepts” from public schools.

This is a link to an archived article, so anyone can read the entire article. Below are some charts in the article that show the recommended revisions:

It is clear from the above chart that the reviewers want any mention of systemic racism and White privilege to be eliminated from the course, even though there is clear evidence that both exist.

It is also deeply concerning that any discussion of "implicit bias and stereotypes" is banned, even though those of us in the social sciences know that implicit bias and stereotyping exist. To prevent high school students from learning about these concepts is a blatant attempt to keep them ignorant.

Again, based on the chart above, the proposed revisions have done away with any discussion of the ubiquitous nature of racism or the fact that systemic racism exists. Instead the proposed revisions focus on (presumably overt) "discriminatory practices," while ignoring the subtle ways that racism has affected the Black population over the years, including the way it affected returning WWII Black veterans.

[See more under the cut.]

Furthermore, according to the proposed revisions, the term "White supremacist" cannot even be used. I wonder how the reviewers expect teachers to be able to describe the ideology of members of the KKK?

The reviewers also apparently want to pretend the University of Virginia wasn't involved with the Eugenics movement, since they took out a reference to it. In addition, the proposed revisions wouldn't allow the Eugenics movement to be called a "pseudo science." Are teachers supposed to claim it was "science"?

The reviewers also apparently want to forbid a discussion of how Eugenics was used in Virginia "to control African Americans," which indeed it reportedly was.

Furthermore, the recommended revisions falsely assume that redlining no longer exists, and that historical redlining no longer has an impact. Although it is not as overt as it once was, redlining does still exist in various forms and the impact of older redlining practices still have negative affects on Black populations.

From what I can tell, the proposed revisions have NOTHING to do with trying to stop students from feeling "uncomfortable" in classrooms. Discomfort naturally occurs for all of us when we learn about things that go against what we previously believed. But that is how people learn and grow.

And if the GOP wanted to stop "liberal" teachers from "indoctrinating" their students into "left-wing ideas," they would simply have legislated the presentation of two sides of an argument, AS LONG AS both sides were factually-based and rational. (For instance, there is NO factual or rational argument that the Holocaust didn't happen or wasn't as destructive as it was).

But the GOP politicians want to BAN the discussion of any view of history and society, however factually and rationally based, that goes against their whitewashed ideas of how history should be presented. In other words, the GOP wants schools to indoctrinate students into a right-wing way of viewing history and society that favors Whites.

This is incredibly regressive, and reminiscent of the United Daughters of the Confederacy's attempts to ensure "The Lost Cause" mythology was taught in schools.

[hersheysmcboom]

Please sign below👇

[notwiselybuttoowell]

(Original title: Why is Trump targeting the Smithsonian?)

Recent changes by the Trump administration are affecting how US museums and institutions tell the nation's multicultural history to travellers.

In the last few months, US President Donald Trump has threatened to annex Canada; warned that the US will "go as far as we have to go" to seize Greenland; and imposed tariffs on all nations, effectively initiating a global trade war. But while many of Trump's most dramatic "America first" actions are aimed at other countries, his sweeping new policy changes are also affecting how the US tells its own multicultural story.

Several highly touristed landmarks in the US are already facing significant changes.

On 27 March, Trump signed an executive order titled Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, arguing that there has been "a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation's history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth". The order took specific aim at the Smithsonian Institution, whose 21 museums, 21 libraries and many other research and cultural centres comprise the world's largest museum complex and were visited by nearly 17 million people in 2024.

The order threatens to bar congressional funds from institutions that espouse "improper, divisive or anti-American" beliefs. As an example of this, Trump cited programming from the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History & Culture, the only national museum devoted exclusively to documenting African American life, history and culture from slavery to the modern era.

Headquartered on the National Mall in Washington DC, some of the Smithsonian's many museums focus on marginalised communities in the US – including the National Museum of the American Indian,the National Museum of African Art, the National Museum of the American Latino and the embattled National Museum of African American History and Culture. 

Many activists and historians have expressed outrage over the order's broader meaning and argued that it is actually a brazen attempt to do what Trump is denouncing: rewrite US history. This begs the question, which version of the US will visitors find?

"It seems like we're headed in the direction where there's even an attempt to deny that the institution of slavery even existed, or that Jim Crow laws and segregation and racial violence against Black communities, Black families, Black individuals even occurred," said Dr Clarissa Myrick-Harris White, a historian and Africana studies professor at the historically Black Morehouse College in a statement to the Associated Press.

This concern was echoed by the American Historical Association, whose 10,000 members represent the world's largest organisation of professional historians. In a statement co-signed by 31 organisations, the association says the executive order "egregiously misrepresents the work of the Smithsonian Institution", which was established by Congress more than 175 years ago for the "increase and diffusion of knowledge".

"The stories that have shaped our past include not only elements that make us proud but also aspects that make us acutely aware of tragedies in our nation's history," the statement notes. "No person, no nation, is perfect, and we should all – as individuals and as nations – learn from our imperfections." 

Some feel Trump's targeting of the Smithsonian is part of a broader culture war he has been waging against "woke ideology" across many of the nation's federally run institutions. Since returning to office, Trump has worked to dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences, which oversaw grant funding for numerous Native American, Native Hawaiian, Latinx and African American museums across the country; and Trump's agencies have reportedly issued a list of words to limit or disappear from government websites, like "women", "Black" and "cultural heritage".

Some of these references have already been removed from websites or displays of traveller-friendly landmarks. In February, Stonewall National Monument in New York City, which is run by the US National Park Service, erased references to transgender people. In March, Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia – which is managed by the US Department of the Army – scrubbed its website of any information highlighting the contributions of African American, Hispanic or female servicemembers, including removing stories about veteran and civil rights leader Medgar Evers and the Tuskegee Airmen, the US's first Black Airforce pilots. In nearby Washington DC, a two-block section of 16th Street leading to the White House with the words "Black Lives Matter" was recently repaved in response to threats to cut transportation funding if the plaza was not renamed.

Since the Black Lives Matter protests five years ago, many museums and other cultural institutions have sought to include more diverse perspectives in their exhibitions, a move that often boosted their visitor numbers.

Visitors to the US may now find that even larger museums and organisations have been forced to make sweeping changes to their programming in light of the new policies. The DC-based Art Museum of the Americas cancelled two planned exhibitions highlighting the work of Black and LGBTQ+ artists in March, reportedly in response to the administration's new diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies. Meanwhile, the United States Marine Band, the country's oldest continually active musical association, recently cancelled a concert that was supposed to feature young musicians of colour. Perhaps most famously, in February Trump seized control of the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, one of the US's premier arts institutions. Since Trump's takeover, a host of acts have cancelled their planned appearances in protest.

Here are three museums that the staff of Cultural Heritage Partners feel help to tell the story of US history, and could use visitor support.

• Museum of the Cherokee People

(Cherokee, NC) – One of the oldest tribally operated museums in the country, the museum's mission is "to preserve and perpetuate the history, culture and stories of the Cherokee people".

• Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia

(Richmond, VA) – Housed in the historic Leigh Street Armory, the institution highlights the history, culture and contributions of African Americans from Virginia, from civil rights heroes to Nascar's first Black race car driver.

• National Museum of Women in the Arts

(Washington DC) – From the 17th-Century work of Mary Beale to the modern rhinestone-encrusted portraits by Mickalene Thomas, this museum tells little-known stories of women in the arts.

[angelofthemornings]

When I am an old Irish-American I don't want to hear anybody in the world who wasn't here for these times say "Many Palestinians left their homeland to seek jobs and new opportunities :)"

[artcinemas]

sanghis whining about "decolonization" while framing their entire identity on a colonial concept of 'hindu' honestly sums up their hypocrisy lmao

well that is the crux of it.

[afriblaq]

This is called obeying in advance, and it’s a key sign of a coming #autocracy and creeping #fascism… . Repost from @blackinformationnetwork • America’s top archivist, #ColleenShogan, is being accused of whitewashing and deemphasizing negative parts of U.S. history in a popular, national museum.

Shogan, the Biden appointee in charge of the nation’s most important documents, and her top advisors at the National Archives and Records Administration are facing heat over changes being made at its museum on the National Mall. Shogan has reportedly ordered the removal of references to Martin Luther King Jr., the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, the government’s displacement of Indigenous tribes, union organizers, birth control, and more.

Visitors of the National Archives museum shouldn’t “feel confronted,” the archivist said, but rather “welcomed.” A “proposed exhibit exploring changes to the Constitution since 1787,” including “amendments abolishing slavery and expanding the right to vote,” was reduced in size, and employees were told that “focusing on the amendments portrayed the Founding Fathers in a negative light.”

@joyannreid

[ciderjacks]

Will be saying this till I die that CREOLE DOES NOT MEAN BLACK/MIXED/NATIVE AND CAJUN DOES NOT MEAN YT ‼️‼️ Cajuns are a subset of Louisiana Creole (so all Cajuns are Creoles, not all Creoles are Cajuns. For the sake of this post though if I say “creoles” I mean non-Cajun Creoles) and the only difference between them is that Cajuns were typically dirt poor and lived in the bayou, while Creoles were typically wealthier and lived in the city and urban areas. There are black Cajuns, biracial Cajuns, and iirc nearly half of all Cajuns are native. There are also white Creoles. Cajun isn’t just “Creole but white” it’s a whole culture and community involving a lot of different ethnicities, and is very intertwined with southern indigenous cultures because of the proximity of the communities. The racial divide between Cajuns vs Creoles was caused by the sudden influx of white supremacy when Louisiana became U.S. territory- prior to that, black Creoles were legally considered white, and had all the privileges and power as a white person. (This is not to say it was some race-blind utopia, slavery was absolutely still a thing and in fact some wealthy Creoles owned slaves. Colorism was also a thing among Creoles. Your proximity to whiteness was largely dependant on your wealth and status.)

When the Louisiana purchase happened, American racism was then introduced to Creole and Cajun communities, and it tore through them really terribly. Subsequently, bc of a lot of shit, black/mixed people were categorized as Creoles, and so white people were categorized as Cajuns.

(This didn’t really stop the hatred of Cajuns and Cajun communities from white americans however, a mix of Cajuns being largely native and Cajuns being poor people who lived in the Bayou made them unpopular among “polite” white american society. Though it was harder to enforce any oppressive hate against them because the Cajuns were extremely isolated in the Bayou, tight knit, and had a reputation for being “dangerous” towards those who tried to come for them.)