The cancellation of Jefferson at Monticello…
…had actually already happened when I was there, around 2008. The docents were already droning on and on about slaves and Sally Hemmings, almost as though those were the main points of Jefferson’s life.
This NY Post article describes what’s going on there these days:
“The whole thing has the feel of propaganda and manipulation,” Jeffrey Tucker, founder of the libertarian Brownstone Institute and a recent visitor, told The Post. “People on my tour seemed sad and demoralized.”
The new emphasis is the culmination of a 10-year effort to balance the historical record, officials of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the nonprofit that owns the estate, have said
So I guess it’s gotten even worse. More:
“Half of the comments on Jefferson were critical,” wrote William Bailes of Chester, Virginia, in an online review after visiting in June. “Even my 11-year-old daughter noticed the bias.”
Tucker described his guide last month as “surly and dismissive” of Jefferson’s accomplishments…
…[O]n a visit this week, The Post found, the grievance has become the predominant theme at Monticello, from the ticket booth in the visitors center — decorated with a contemporary painting of Jefferson’s weeping slaves — to its final gift-shop display…
Books by critical race theory proponents Ibram X. Kendi and Ta-Nehisi Coates enjoy pride of place in the visitor center’s gift shop, while the smaller Farm Shop store displays five titles on Jefferson’s slaves — and a single biography of the man himself…
“The entire focus was on his mistress,” complained Wesley Stevens of Tulsa, Okla. “They are trying to rewrite history to make it seem like the Founding Fathers were terrible immoral creatures that happened to start a country.”…
The Thomas Jefferson Foundation is run by a roster of big-money Democratic donors and former Democratic officials…
Please read the whole thing, because excerpts don’t do it justice.
By the way – it’s much too complex a subject to explain here, but although it has become the Accepted and Obligatory Narrative that Thomas Jefferson was the father of Hemmings’ children, it is not what you’d call proven. It certainly seems to have at least been a male relative of Jefferson’s, however. If you want to wade through this or at least part of this challenge of the Thomas Jefferson theory, be my guest. Here’s a very brief treatment.
In line with all of this, I want to revisit a post of mine about something Allan Bloom wrote (in his 1987 work The Closing of the American Mind) about his own schooling, which occurred back in the 1940s and shows the seeds of all of this had already been firmly planted:
What began in Charles Beard’s Marxism and Carl Becker’s historicism became routine. We are used to hearing the Founders being charged with being racists, murderers of Indians, representatives of class interests. I asked my first history professor in the university, a very famous scholar, whether the picture he gave us of George Washington did not have the effect of making us despise our regime. “Not at all,” he said, “it doesn’t depend on individuals but on our having good democratic values.” To which I rejoined, “But you just showed us that Washington was only using those values to further the class interests of the Virginia squirearchy.” He got angry, and that was the end of it. He was comforted by a gentle assurance that the values of democracy are part of the movement of history and did not require his elucidation or defense. He could carry on his historical studies with the moral certitude that they would lead to greater openness and hence more democracy. The lessons of fascism and the vulnerability of democracy, which we had all just experienced, had no effect on him.
Of course, it’s much much worse now. I am pretty sure that Bloom’s professor respected America and its ideals; for the most part the academics and other elites in charge these days do not and are actively determined to destroy our respect for our past and make us hate our own country.
[NOTE: Here is Robert Frost’s take on related matters.]
Marxists rewriting our history and American heritage.
Maybe we will learn how Marx and Engles Religion should be our new national religion to enlighten mankind.
I hate these people
It wasn’t that long ago that the Dems had an annual fundraiser in February or March at all levels of government called the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner. It’s been renamed, of course, as the Liberty and Justice Celebration or something equally woke.
Here’s your favorite Transportation Secretary (back when he was a candidate for Biden’s present gig) calling on Indiana to do the right thing:
https://nypost.com/2019/05/18/pete-buttigieg-wants-thomas-jefferson-events-and-buildings-renamed/
This outrage is attracting insufficient attention, and far too few figures with cultural authority or political power are courageous enough to decry the intensifying assault on all elements of American history and of the Western tradition (for details, consult the new book by Douglas Murray entitled The War on the West). One week ago Bari Weiss posted (on her SubStack) a fascinating and alarming essay by a tenured professor at UCLA (Joseph Manson) who is leaving his position out of dismay at the destruction of his (and other universities) by leftist fanatics and “woke” zealots.
For those interested, I was at Mt. Vernon in June. The Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union, the non profit which maintains and preserves Mt. Vernon, has not (yet) been taken over by woke zombies. The treatment of slavery was, I thought, balanced and in context. It was not part of every other sentence as it is at Monticello (I can verify it is there – I was there in February). If you are in the greater DC area make sure you allocate a day for it. It is worth it.
those who are for cancelling Washington dont seem to care that he freed his slaves.
I wonder how many slave owning African kings did that?
The United States has sustained a mortal wound, inflicted by stupid +/or evil Democrats and blacks. That we should cower in response to the 13%, who as a whole are dumber and more violent than their fellow citizens (as to dumb, think Ta-Nehisi, the corrupt BLM founders, and the NYT 1619 female, Hannah-Jones) is truly revolting.
Praises to Clarence Thomas and Thomas Sowell, inter alia! I wrote “as a whole”, did I not?
Personally, I remember with affection my days long ago in Charlottesville, when the entire populace spoke about “Mr. Jefferson” as if he’d just gone away for a weekend. But that university, designed by the great man himself, is now totally socialist.
If it weren’t for Sally Hemmings, would Jefferson be mentioned in schools at all?
Dwaz–
They’d have to mention Jefferson in connection with the Louisiana Purchase and the Corps of Discovery (Lewis and Clark expedition)– although I can think of ways they could weasel out of either or both.
I’m surprised that James Madison doesn’t come in for more criticism from the crazies since he is largely responsible for the constitution that they very much hate and of course he was a slaveholder.
I’m sure there have been attacks on him but they don’t seem to get as much attention as Jefferson and Washington.
Has anybody been to Montpeiler lately?
I’ve been rereading McCullough’s ‘John Adams’ and it never ceases to move me. Not just his work but his marriage. Amazing life.
John Adams is the founder that should be cherished by all.
The Dems hate America. And right now with their insane push for net carbon zero, they are assuring our destruction at the hands of China. And, no, I don’t think I’m being crazy.
Tucker Carlson made a great point the other day. Our number one foe is not tiny Russia. It is China. China is on the way of surpassing us in GDP.
All of this Russia and J6 stuff is a distraction. I remain convinced that the CCP let the virus out on purpose in order to get rid of Trump. If 3 million Chinese died, so what?
The Dems won’t like it when China dominates the world.
It really makes me sick to watch how the Dems and Biden are helping China
Cornhead,
You remember this interview in 2020.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/chinese-virologist-government-intentionally-coronavirus
You shouldn’t forget the vote in 2000 that as Forbes says changed China forever, granting China permanent normal trade relations and ushering in China to the WTO.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2020/09/18/this-is-the-vote-that-changed-china-forever/?sh=78a80c0239dc
I first visited Monticello in the mid-1980s when I was in grad school. It seems to me in those days you were allowed to visit the house at your own pace without being accompanied by a guide. I marveled at all the details in the house, from the dumbwaiter to the early copying device on display. The view is magnificent and I tried to imagine what it must have been like in Jefferson’s day to see the founding of a great nation and see its potential in the years ahead.
I was there a few years ago with my children and was excited to show them what a wonderful place Monticello was and was of course disappointed in all the negative commentary from the guides. This was about seven years ago so I assume it is much worse by now.
Jefferson defended liberty foremost among the founders not some dalliance one of his sons had with sally hemmings (who i first heard of on ‘head of the class’) well franklin as well
Jefferson defended liberty foremost among the founders not some dalliance one of his sons had with sally hemmings (who i first heard of on ‘head of the class’) well franklin as well
Don’t believe he had any legitimate sons. There are a few descendants of the sons of Sally Hemings for whom the line of descent from one of her sons to their person is completely male. Those few descendants can be identified as descendants of a male in the Jefferson family, which could be TJ himself, or his brother, or his nephews.
Books by critical race theory proponents Ibram X. Kendi and Ta-Nehisi Coates enjoy pride of place in the visitor center’s gift shop, while the smaller Farm Shop store displays five titles on Jefferson’s slaves — and a single biography of the man himself…
Coates is a magazine writer whose expertise lies in turning in usable copy on time. He has no more liberal education than a randomly selected person off the street; he’s just more verbose. Reviewing his publications, John Derbyshire’s assessment of his interests was that they begin and end with “American Blackness”. As for Kendi, he has few actually scholarly publications. He managed once to place an article in New York History. Both of these men are essentially polemicists, and no one serious about disseminating informative literature would give them pride of place.
The Thomas Jefferson Foundation is run by a roster of big-money Democratic donors and former Democratic officials…
I’m not recognizing any names other than the twit who used to edit Newsweek
https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/members-of-the-board-of-trustees/
Here’s a somewhat different list:
https://www.monticello.org/get-involved/about-the-foundation/
If true, another piece of evidence that the the Democratic Party is a cancer on the country.
The irony is that a generation ago, the docents gave you an account of Jefferson’s life and activities that attributed to him some rather talents, skills, and habits (“anticipated the methods of modern archaeology by x hundred years”, “never awoke after the sun had come up”) that tested your credulity. Now they’re trashing him.
“for the most part the academics and other elites in charge these days do not and are actively determined to destroy our respect for our past and make us hate our own country.” neo
“By their fruits shall ye know them”. an obscure 1st century rural Jewish carpenter
Cornhead,
“The Dems won’t like it when China dominates the world.”
Count on it, they and the RINOs will be the first to openly collaborate with the ChiComs. Of course, many perhaps most are and have been covertly collaborating with China as soon as there was money to be made.
Cicero,
Rasmussen found in a poll that, “Thirty-one percent of African-Americans said most blacks are racist,”
That is probably a good metric by which to evaluate the % of blacks who hate America and wish for its destruction.
Those on the left who hate America are not “democrats”, they are Marxists pretending to be liberal democrats.
Here is how a democrat acts; “at a dinner honoring 49 American Nobel Prize winners, John F. Kennedy famously quipped, “I think that this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynahan,
“Politics stops at the water’s edge”
I wondered above about James Madison and I see it is has happened to him too.
https://nypost.com/2022/07/16/james-madison-sidelined-by-woke-history-in-his-own-home/
Griffin:
Well at least they haven’t been allowed to, mostly peacefully, remodel or deconstruct Montpelier, at least not yet. If these leftist locusts are kicked out, expect destruction in the name of justice.
Leftist billionaires actively at work, like Orcs.
melody barnes ted kennedy staffer, obama policy adviser, on health care and obesity, board of veritas (health care) and booz allen hamilton (the people that vetted snowden, and the washington yard killer) aspen institute, like a viral plague,