America’s Attic
I loved this description of the Smithsonian — America’s attic.
What a clever way to describe one of the main repositories of American history and culture and scientific advancements. I hadn’t heard the term before yesterday’s episode of The Daily by The New York Times.
Pocket Casts
The episode was all about the Trump Administration’s attempt to revise not only the wording on some exhibits but what was shown in the first place.
The whole time, I was thinking about an episode of The West Wing, from the third season, called “The Women of Qumar.” In a B plot, Toby is meeting with the leaders from the Smithsonian after an exhibit on World War II had prompted outrage and protests from veteran groups. The exhibit criticize wartime propaganda that included racist language toward Japanese people, and the leaders bristled at the notion that telling such truths could be seen as “anti-American.”
He then later meets with veterans to hear their complaints, which centered around the portrayal of America as vengeful in its response to the attacks on Pearl Harbor.
There are numerous other issues discussed in the episode, namely women’s rights through two separate storylines — one featuring Josh and one featuring C.J. By the time the episode was over, Courtney said something to the effect of how remarkable it was that, for a show that was made a long time ago now, we haven’t actually progressed or changed in many ways.
That what’s-old-is-new-again quality was on my mind as I thought about the similarities in the current Smithsonian debate. And sure enough, I was validated in the episode itself, not with a reference to The West Wing but to the real-life drama that inspired it from the 1990s.
I don’t know what to make of that. I don’t necessarily think it’s a good quality of American life that we are still having some of the same debates as we were 25 years ago. But at the same time, in this political climate under this particular administration, I look for signs that we’ve been here before, for proof that we can, in fact, weather the storm.
Some things truly have no precedent. That much is clear. But The West Wing’s dramatization of a real conflict and debate at the Smithsonian is proof that some of these fights have been had before. I don’t think that means we shouldn’t be concerned about the current fight, but it does give me some kind of hope that American institutions can come through this sort of thing in the end.
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