On a trip to Washington, D.C., the other day, I decided to drop by the National Archives. I wanted to make sure we still had a Bill of Rights.
As it turns out, I had picked a very interesting day for my visit.
The day before, the state of Virginia had ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, finally pushing it over the finish line of needing ratification by 38 states. I didn’t think it would really matter to me until I felt teardrops rolling down my face upon hearing the news.
Personally, I don’t think we’re equal, and we never will be — not until the day when a man, equally as well as a woman, can create a whole new human being, using nothing but his own body and one cell donated by someone else. Imagine if a man could do that; we’d never hear the end of it! Imagine how unimportant the construction of obelisks and winning of football games would seem to them, then. We’re not remotely equal — but I’ll settle for equality in the eyes of the law since it sadly seems to be an improvement.
So, yes, Virginia’s ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment was a pretty big deal. Almost as big a deal as what was happening just a few blocks to the east, where the impeachment trial of Donald Trump was getting underway — according to rules set out in documents housed right where I stood, in the rotunda of the National Archives building.
It is hard to read those originals. The room is dimly lit — on purpose — and the originals are so badly faded, and behind such unwieldy cases, that it was hard to find any readable words.
I understand these conditions are necessary for conservation, but there should be some life-size facsimiles for everyone to look at, study, and even run our fingers over. These words are so important! They need to be easier to see.
But it wasn’t until I woke up the next morning that I learned I had walked right past the big story: The National Archives was in trouble for airbrushing some words out of the signs in a photograph from the Women’s March in 2017. The airbrushed words included “Trump” from signs like “God Hates Trump,” and “pussy” as in “This pussy grabs back.”
Here were women exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech — check the glass case to your right! — peaceably assembling and petitioning their government for a redress of grievances. Every word on every sign was a heartfelt petition.
National Archives officials initially defended their actions as an effort “not to engage in current political controversy,” and out of concern for the apparently tender eyes of visiting school groups.
If avoiding controversy was their goal, they sure failed in a big way. They have now apologized and promised such a thing will never happen again.
But I still have some questions: Who has the right to airbrush whose grievances out of history? Whom are they really protecting, and from what?
If the National Archives is going to start airbrushing photographs, for fear of a president’s displeasure, where will they stop? When might they start airbrushing things INTO photographs — like a few thousand more people into Trump’s inauguration, to come a little closer to the lies he made his Press Secretary utter?
And who are the Archives to airbrush out certain words, when the President himself has used them?
Sure, they’re awkward and embarrassing. But so is the photo of an enslaved African American man, his back a crisscross of scar tissue from a lifetime of whippings. That’s hard to explain to your children. So is the internment in camps of American citizens during World War II — men, women, and children — just because somebody thought they might help the Japanese. So is the plight of homeless men and women living today on America’s streets. They’re all awkward, embarrassing, and very hard to explain.
But so, for that matter, is the man who calls our military’s highest leaders “dunces” and “babies.” Who thinks it’s okay to tear infants out of their mothers’ arms and put them in cages. Who talks about an entire continent as “a shithole” and who brags how “when you’re a star…you can do anything. Grab ‘em by the pussy.”
Donald Trump is worse than an embarrassment. He is an outrage and no matter what happens in the next few weeks on Capitol Hill, he will be this nation’s stain on history, forever. There’s no airbrushing that.
