When History Is Written by the Losers

Recent news reports indicate that the current President plans to review Smithsonian exhibits to make sure they align with his interpretation of history. For those outside of the United States who might be wondering, no, the President is not a historian or history expert of any kind. His interpretation is based only on his personal opinion.

Erasing history should be a concern to anyone with critical thinking skills. It’s said that history is written by the victors, and it’s true. In a country founded on white supremacy and patriarchal ideals, history is skewed toward wealthy white men.

What happens when the losers start writing history?

Note: I did not ask what happens when the oppressed write history. I asked about the losers. The people who want to rewrite the past because telling the truth hurts their sensitive feelings. They want to believe in the heroic tale of America that they’ve told themselves. They don’t want to see the actual history that involves oppression and genocide.

While there are at least two sides to every story, the President only wants one side told — the side that wants to whitewash history until nothing ugly shows through. But we don’t learn from history by glossing over it. We only learn when we look at the hideous truth of the past and vow to never repeat it. To paraphrase Maya Angelou, when we know better, we do better.

But erasing history? That’s not a way forward. That’s a way for people to stroke their egos at the expense of progress.

When the nation’s biggest losers get together and start picking and choosing what history to teach, we all lose. We don’t learn from past mistakes. We can’t see them repeating in the present. We are, all of us, lost in a world where history is written by people who are unacquainted with the truth.

To modify history isn’t just about silencing the unpalatable parts of our past. It also erases the very real struggle of our country’s citizens. Where representation matters, the current administration looks to remove that representation to push propaganda that never has been and never will be true.

Whitewashing history does not change it.

It’s not a time machine. It’s white-out over the bold-faced truth. Anyone unwilling to look at history in its entirety is little more than a coward — a true loser who refuses to see anything that doesn’t align with their own opinions.

It’s more important than ever for families and individuals to talk about history without glossing over the parts we don’t like. Until we can talk about it with unflinching honesty, we will only repeat it. While the administration is banning books and oppressing people, We The People have to be more intentional about learning, reading, and sharing the truth.

We have to decry any attempts at the erasure of history and groups of people. We have to advocate for more equitable representation across the board — in our politics, our entertainment, and in our lives. We have to care about people who are not like us, and we have to fight for their rights as hard as we would fight for our own.

History is under attack. Science is under attack. The fundamentalists think they see a path back to a problematic past, but there will always be people like me who speak out against it, who see the dangers ahead and call out a warning, and who know that history unlearned is history doomed to repeat itself.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.