Trump Says Smithsonian Focuses Too Much on 'How Bad Slavery Was'

The remark, made as the president has ordered a wide-ranging review of museum exhibits, added to his pattern of minimizing Black history.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington.Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

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“The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future,” Mr. Trump said in a social media post. “This Country cannot be WOKE, because WOKE IS BROKE. We have the ‘HOTTEST’ Country in the World, and we want people to talk about it, including in our Museums.”

Mr. Trump made the comments a week after the White House told the Smithsonian that its museums would be required to adjust any content that the administration finds problematic in “tone, historical framing and alignment with American ideals” within 120 days. Taken together, the administration’s examination and Mr. Trump’s post on Tuesday were the latest example of Mr. Trump trying to impose his will on a cultural institution and minimize the experiences and history of Black people in the United States.

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The administration has worked to scrub or minimize government references to the contributions of Black heroes, from the Tuskegee Airmen, who fought in World War II, to Harriet Tubman, who guided enslaved people along the Underground Railroad. Mr. Trump commemorated Juneteenth, the celebration of the end of slavery in the United States that became a federal holiday in 2021, by complaining that there were too many non-working holidays in America. He has called for the return of Confederate insignia and statues honoring those who fought to preserve slavery.

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Mr. Trump has often stoked divisions in the United States by tapping into white grievance and framing himself as a protector of white people both in the United States and overseas. Quentin James, a co-founder of the Collective, which aims to elect Black officials in America, said Mr. Trump’s comments about the museums were an attempt to protect “white fragility.”

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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/us/politics/trump-smithsonian-slavery.html

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Slavery and human trafficking; are kissing cousins in the same moral abyss while also having the identical commonality as to the economic class of their most ardent champions.

So far as moral bankruptcy is concerned, if you don't have the purchasing power of awareness to recognize that enslaving black people as evil, anathema to virtue, with no redeeming value worth the cost to collective humanity, you will be just as morally ignorant toward human trafficking for young white women or girls to satisfy the personal depravity and greed of the wealthy and powerful. All of humanity is cheapened as a result.