The 2017 Women’s March was an extremely powerful event to participate in and a powerful statement that the majority of voters who did not vote for the narcissistic criminal-in-chief (now #ImPOTUS) Trump weren’t going to go quietly into the night. Today is Women’s March 2020. Today, The Washington Post reported that the National Archives censored photos of the 2017 Women’s March to remove Trump’s name and otherwise avoid political controversy.
A placard that proclaims “God Hates Trump” has “Trump” blotted out so that it reads “God Hates.” A sign that reads “Trump & GOP — Hands Off Women” has the word Trump blurred out.
Stalin* would be proud of the National Archives embrace of Trump’s 1984-ish Brave New World: altering images to erase items that the autocratic demagogue would find distressful.
“As a non-partisan, non-political federal agency, we blurred references to the President’s name on some posters, so as not to engage in current political controversy,”
History is fungible. History is defined by the victor.
Don’t worry, this wasn’t actually in the display — no, the archives’ staff wouldn’t actually distort history.
[Archives’ spokesperson] Kleiman said the National Archives “only alters images in exhibits when they are used as graphic design components.”
“We do not alter images or documents that are displayed as artifacts in exhibitions,” she said. “In this case, the image is part of a promotional display, not an artifact.”
Someone discovered the alterations and informed the Post reporters. When the reporters asked the Archives for other examples of similar changes, crickets in response …
Guess what, more people see the “promotional display” than the actual exhibition — a simple truth — and therefore the archives chose to (without any indication or explanation by the image) distort the historical record that the most people would see.
When told about the action taken by the Archives, prominent historians expressed dismay.
"There's no reason for the National Archives to ever digitally alter a historic photograph," Rice University historian Douglas Brinkley said. "If they don't want to use a specific image, then don't use it. But to confuse the public is reprehensible. The head of the Archives has to very quickly fix this damage. A lot of history is messy, and there's zero reason why the Archives can't be upfront about a photo from a women's march."
Let’s be clear, it isn’t just “prominent historians” who are and should be dismayed at the Archives’ staff’s readiness to ‘self censor’ to avoid the Wrath of Trump.
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* The Stalin reference background (Wikipedia):
Censorship of images was widespread in the Soviet Union. Visual censorship was exploited in a political context, particularly during the political purges of Joseph Stalin, where the Soviet government attempted to erase some purged figures from Soviet history, and took measures which included altering images and destroying film.