President Donald Trump is vowing to take the “WOKE” out of Black museums and transplant his own cultural ideology of what America is, a plan Carol Moseley Braun called, “outrageous” and one which is being executed by a “moron.”
“We have to protect our museums and cultural institutions from this guy to go forward,” Braun told the Chicago Crusader Tuesday, August 19. “This guy is a complete moron.”
To protect Black museums, Braun, chairman of the Board of Trustees of the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center said, “We have to continue what we’re doing, pushing back on his dictatorial impulses. We can’t let him become the dictator he wants to be.
“We have to continue to focus on the issues that matter and the Smithsonian is not one of those,” said Braun. “The Smithsonian has always been an American treasure and very important to the entire country and DuSable is very important to Chicago.”
Trump has his own view which he is mandating all cultural museums adopt, especially the Smithsonian which he says 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,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social.
Trump made his remarks a week after his aides wrote a letter to Smithsonian Institution Secretary Lonnie Bunch, III, the first Black person to hold that position, detailing what Trump wants him to change.
Aides told Bunch that the initiative “aims to ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.”
In Trump’s reviewing of the Smithsonian museums, his aides say they will focus on “public-facing content, the curatorial process to understand how work is selected for exhibits, current and future exhibition planning, the use of existing materials and collections and guidelines for narrative standards.”
In a statement made to the Smithsonian Magazine Bunch said part of the purpose of the Smithsonian “was to help a nation understand itself—an impossible task without the full recognition of the horrors slavery.”
What Trump wants to do is to “erase everything that influences African American people,” Northeastern Illinois University Professor Emeritus Robert Starks told the Chicago Crusader. “That is what MAGA is all about, Making America Great Again (MAGA).”
To Trump, according to Starks, “America is only great when you wipe out any progress, any achievements, any efforts, the greatest set of or contributions by African Americans and Hispanic people. Black and brown people have to be wiped out otherwise it’s not legitimate. That is what he’s trying to do,” Starks stated.
“The Smithsonian Institute is one of the greatest set of museums and libraries in the world. Why would he want to mess with that?” asked Starks. He wants the museums to take down any negative exhibit involving him. It’s sinful,” he stated.
Reminded that Trump has said he is not a Christian, Starks said, “He depends on the Evangelicals to put him into office, and even though he never talks about the bible, he is selling them.”
Starks said what Trump is following is Project 2025 which was mostly written by Russell Vought who believes there is a need to “bend or break bureaucracy to the presidential will.” Starks added, “Trump is following that line-by-line.”
Accusing the Smithsonian Institution of being “out of control” and tired of Black museums curating “woke” exhibits showing slavery as “bad,” President Trump has ordered a “comprehensive review” of eight Smithsonian museums.
Trump is expanding his hunt of offensive cultural exhibits he feels go contrary to his cultural beliefs.
“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,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social post.