Tag: the constitution

Constitution, Declaration Of Independence Now Have ‘Trigger Warnings’ On National Archives Site

Digital copies of America’s founding documents — as well as other historical documents in the National Archives’ online catalog — now feature “trigger warnings” alerting readers that they may contain “harmful language,” and the change appears to follow the release of a “little-noticed” report from a National Archives racism task force that suggested the agency provide “context” for its historical materials.

Digital copies of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, most notably, now feature a “Harmful Language Alert,” which appears at the top of the page, and directs users to a National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) statement on “potentially harmful content.”

The NARA does not specify why the Constitution, Declaration, or Bill of Rights received the warning, but the NARA statement indicates that documents and historical materials are marked as having “harmful language” when they:

  • reflect racist, sexist, ableist, misogynistic/misogynoir, and xenophobic opinions and attitudes;
  • be discriminatory towards or exclude diverse views on sexuality, gender, religion, and more;
  • include graphic content of historical events such as violent death, medical procedures, crime, wars/terrorist acts, natural disasters and more;
  • demonstrate bias and exclusion in institutional collecting and digitization policies.

Trigger warnings are listed as just one of a number of solutions to the problem of providing historical documents to an increasingly “diverse community,” the NARA notes, and are part of an “institutional commitment” to “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

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National Archives ‘Task Force’ Suggests Racism “Trigger Warnings” For Constitution, Bill Of Rights

A National Archives ‘task force’ on racism has suggested placing trigger warnings around the building housing founding documents including the U.S. constitution, as well as declaring that the historical portrayal of the founding fathers has previously been “too positive”.

Fox News reports that the group has proclaimed the National Archives’ Rotunda building, which houses the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as an example of “structural racism”.

The task force has decreed that the building lauds “wealthy White men in the nation’s founding” and that documents on display contain “legacy descriptions that use racial slurs and harmful language to describe BIPOC [Black, Indigenous and other People of Color] communities,” as well as other offensive terms including “elderly,” “handicapped” and “illegal alien.”

The group wants new descriptions added to exhibits to “contextualize the records,” and notes placed to “forewarn audiences of content that may cause intense physiological and psychological symptoms.”

It also suggests creating “safe spaces” where those who cannot handle the exhibits dedicated to the nation’s founding can retreat and mentally stabilise themselves.

The report also states that events should be staged such as “dance or performance art in the space that invites dialogue about the ways that the United States has mythologized the founding era.”

The task force had a particular suggestion for how to portray the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, noting that he is “described in this sample lesson plan as a ‘visionary’ who took ‘vigorous action’ to strengthen the ‘will of the nation to expand westward.”

It continues, “The plan does not mention that his policy of westward expansion forced Native Americans off their ancestral land, encouraged ongoing colonial violence, and laid the groundwork for further atrocities like the Trail of Tears.”

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REVEALED: Parler’s New CEO Wants Convention That Would Let George Soros Rewrite The Constitution

Mark Meckler, the new interim CEO of Parler, currently supports a Convention of States that could give George Soros and other interests the power to rewrite the Constitution.

Meckler, who was appointed as interim CEO of Parler following the removal of founder John Matze, currently runs the Convention of States Project, a supposed “grassroots” organization pushing for a convention under Article V of the Constitution.

The project describes itself as a “national effort to call a convention under Article V of the United States Constitution, restricted to proposing amendments that will impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit its power and jurisdiction, and impose term limits on its officials and members of Congress,” which initially sounds appealing.

However, a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities argued that such a restriction on an Article V convention would be impossible, with states unable to control what a convention could and could not discuss, and nobody else having clear constitutional control over the convention.

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2020: The Year In Which Comforting American Myths Were Ravaged

Thanks in large part to Covid lockdowns, this year has left vast wreckage in its wake, with ten million jobs lost, more than 100,000 businesses and dozens of national chains bankrupted or closed. Up to 40 million people could face eviction in the coming months for failing to pay rent, and Americans report that their mental health is at record low levels. But the casualty list for 2020 must also include many of the political myths that shape Americans’ lives.

Perhaps the biggest myth to die this year was that Americans’ constitutional rights are safeguarded by the Bill of Rights. After the Covid-19 pandemic began, governors in state after state effectively placed scores of millions of citizens under house arrest – dictates that former Attorney General Bill Barr aptly compared to “the greatest intrusion on civil liberties” since the end of slavery. Politicians and government officials merely had to issue decrees, which were endlessly amended, in order to destroy citizens’ freedom of movement, freedom of association, and freedom of choice in daily life. Los Angeles earlier this month banned almost all walking and bicycling in the city, ordering four million people to “to remain in their homes” in a futile effort to banish a virus.

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