Actually, Slavery Was Very Bad

[Celerity]

The president’s latest criticism of museums is a thinly veiled attempt to erase Black history.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/08/trump-attack-smithsonian-slavery/683969/

https://archive.ph/yiW72


Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

In what looks to be an intensifying quest to reshape American history and scholarship according to his own preferences, President Donald Trump this week targeted the Smithsonian Institution, the national repository of American history and memory. Trump seemed outraged, in particular, by the Smithsonian’s portrayal of the Black experience in America. He took to Truth Social to complain that the country’s museums “are, essentially, the last remaining segment of ‘WOKE.’ The Smithsonian,” he wrote, “is OUT OF CONTROL.” Then Trump wrote something astonishing, even for him. He asserted that the narrative presented by the Smithsonian is overly focused on “how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been.”

Before continuing, it is important to pause a moment and state this directly: Donald Trump, the current president of the United States, believes that the Smithsonian is failing to do its job, because it spends too much time portraying slavery as “bad.” After reading his post, I thought of the historian Lonnie Bunch, the current secretary of the Smithsonian—the first Black person to lead the institution since its founding in 1846—and the founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. In his 2016 speech at the grand opening of the museum, Bunch thanked Barack Obama and George W. Bush for their support. “We are at this moment because of the backing of the United States Congress and the White House,” he said, turning to them both onstage. It’s sobering to consider how different things are today.

Bunch has been fighting efforts by the Trump administration to bring the Smithsonian into conformity with the MAGA vision of American history, and people familiar with his views say he is committed to protecting the intellectual integrity and independence of the Smithsonian. But how much longer, given Trump’s ever more antagonistic position, will Bunch be able to withstand the presidential pressure? On Truth Social, Trump said he had “instructed my attorneys to go through the Museums, and start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities where tremendous progress has been made.” A recent letter to the Smithsonian from the White House states that the review will be completed and a final report issued by early 2026, in time for the nation’s 250th anniversary, “to ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism.”

Trump’s Truth Social comment on slavery was unsettling for me not only because I am the descendant of enslaved people, and not only because I was born and raised in New Orleans, which was once the center of the domestic slave trade, but also because I am an American who believes that the only way to understand this country—the only way to love this country—is to tell the truth about it. Part of that truth is that chattel slavery, which lasted in the British American colonies and then the American nation for nearly 250 years, was indeed quite bad. In 2021, I published a book about how we remember slavery. I have spent years reading the first-person accounts of formerly enslaved people discussing the myriad horrors they endured—the journey across the Middle Passage, the abuse, the sexual violence, the psychological terror, the family separations. It is worth taking the time, in light of the president’s recent words, to revisit some of these accounts.

snip

[Frasier Balzov]

1. An attempt to erase WHITE history. n/t

[malaise]

4. Yep

Dismiss what whites did to African and indigenous peoples

[Bernardo de La Paz]

5. Yes: there are three sides. African Americans had it bad, slavery whites were much worse since they held the whip.

The third side is the abolitionist whites, who had their own problems, like Lincoln's racist thoughts of an African homeland (Bantustan).

[Iggo]

29. Even racists knew that slavery was bad.

That’s how bad slavery is.

(There’s a slogan there, somewhere.)

[ananda]

12. What's left of it, that is...

Remember, much of racist southern history has already
been erased... but of course, not all of it.

I guess Trump and co. are going after it big time now.

[cachukis]

2. Man, you are a resource. Drawing a salary yet?

[Celerity]

6. EarlG told me the cheque is in the mail.

[cachukis]

9. Smooth.

[EdmondDantes_]

10. Does he pay better or worse than George Soros?

But yes, you always bring insightful, thought provoking articles and comments

[Paladin]

3. Looking forward to trump telling us what the UPSIDE of slavery was. (nt)

[Frasier Balzov]

7. That kind of "re-imagining" is well under way.

You might have heard: Slavery taught enslaved persons useful skills.

[GopherGal]

13. Yep. You beat me to posting it....

We've heard it before: "something, something, job skill training."

[Jack Valentino]

21. Like how to pick cotton and obey orders without question?? (OR ELSE)

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. The upside of slavery was

... fuelling the Southern economy: an upside for the well-off and the rich of the region. In other words, an upside limited to a very few, a shameful upside, a hideously grotesquely morally bankrupt upside for a few.

[Jack Valentino]

22. The Northern economy also profited from it:

shipping, banks, factors who arranged annual financing for southern planters...

[The Blue Flower]

11. Speaking from the depths of his unplumbable ignorance and bigotry

As always. And Americans are expected to conform to his blinkered vision?

[Evolve Dammit]

14. His Dad (Fred) was a Klansman arrested in NY in 1920's at a rally (WaPo). Together they paid the highest fine

for housing discrimination in NYC history (c) 1970. The POTUS is a total f'in racist. It would be nice to hear it in the NOOSE. But they can't because it would upset Der Fueher.

[lame54]

15. It's as thin as he is

[Wonder Why]

16. When you are evil personified like trump and hitler, it's hard to see the bad in the bad.

[groundloop]

17. Wait, didn't the slaves learn valuable life skills?

What a fucking bigot.

[Jack Valentino]

23. The most valuable skill a very few of them learned was

how to get away!

[kimbutgar]

18. It's hard to believe that in the 1970's on network TV Roots was shown and it exposed the cruelty of slavery

And sadly now they couldn’t show that miniseries in network TV.

We have gone forward, then backwards, then forward and now we are going into a backward hell hole abyss!

[Jack Valentino]

24. Why could they not show it on TV today? Because of Trump??

It IS available on several streaming services:

"Yes, the miniseries "Roots" is available on several streaming services. You can find it on Amazon Prime Video, including an ad-supported version, or as a purchase on Fandango at Home. It's also available for free streaming on Kanopy. Additionally, the 2016 reboot is available on Hulu. "

I have it on DVD, myself, but in a badly produced edition...

[kimbutgar]

25. Yes we can get it in streaming but it was in network TV in the early 70's!

Big difference!

Before cable as it is now, vcr, dvd and streaming. It was a very limited option at the time.

But you might be too young to know that!

[Jack Valentino]

30. NO, I saw it the first time, and it was the mid-70s, since I was in Jr. High at the time.

1977.

I WISH I was too young to know that! LOL

[leftstreet]

19. DURec

[rickyhall]

20. It takes effort when you're raised by racists.

[GreenWave]

26. How many rebellious people were thrown overboard resisting slavery?

Adding up the total for five centuries would probably reach over 100,000,000 dead due to slavery.
Died resisting slavers.
Thrown overboard.
Stranded on islands when an ocean swell hit.
Rigors of slavery.
Lynchings.

[Trailrider1951]

28. And if you're a young woman

Rape!
And your children sold at auction!

[Paladin]

27. Slavery: No big deal. Cracker Barrel's new logo: End of modern civilization.

Welcome to the fucked-up world view of trump and his brain-dead MAGA followers.