Maybe this is a 'water is wet' statement, but: putting the Holocaust on a pedestal where it can never be compared to anything else doesn't just serve zionism, it serves the individual agendas of a lot of colonialist powers too because it ensures that their history of atrocities is never compared to the Holocaust and remembered in the way that our culture remembers the Holocaust.

The transatlantic slave trade? The deliberate British Great hunger in Ireland? The deliberate British Famines in India? The Holodomor? The multiple acts of ethnic cleansing and mass murders committed by the Netherlands in Indonesia and its other colonies? Leopold II's reign of terror in Congo? And countless others.

All of these exist in the relatively ignored field of 'lesser evils' and aren't remembered and used as national moral anchors in the way the Holocaust is. They're not at the center of our collective memory because this one great horror takes center stage and it is deemed morally unacceptable to place other horrors near it. The only exception I can think of is the US, where thanks to the endless hard work of African Americans, slavery is sort of kinda almost recognized in the collective consciousness as a second great horror. But it's still second fiddle and disputed, and meanwhile in the European countries that engineered the transatlantic slave trade and profited from it, the space it takes in the collective consciousness is tiny.

The Netherlands has over 70 World War 2 museums. It is yet to open its first museum about slavery and has no museums dedicated to it's other colonial atrocities. The budget of the national World War 2 commemoration is 35 times larger than that of the national slavery commemoration. Holocaust education is important, but something is out of whack here. And it's easy to see why colonial powers don't want to change that.

Wedding Dress of Lollaretta Pemberton Allen 

Pictured with her groom, Grover Allen

1939

National Museum of African American History & Culture

Lt. Uhura’s Starfleet uniform, worn by Nichelle Nichols

Afrofuturism exhibit, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC

photo: David Castenson

Bernard Gotfryd (photograph), Nina Simone and James Baldwin, (gelatin silver print), 1965 [Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. © Bernard Gotfryd]

MORE OF SYD'S PERSONALITY

Peep Syd's shirt here!

It's a shout out to the The National Museum of African American History and Culture/Blacksonian

I wonder if they're trying to say that she went there.

She seems like the type of person to make the trip, be heavily into the culture

Sydney is a gem

on the subject of museums though: I'm a FIRM believer that the smithsonians are genuinely some the greatest cultural heritage americans possess and I believe SO fervently in them being free to the public and accessible to all because they ARE our nation's history and tell (and ideally deconstruct) our national myths and help contextualize the natural world around us and show us the heights of human ingenuity and art. also my favorite of all of them is the national museum of the american indian and I personally think if you can only go to one smithsonian museum it should be that one

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) recognizes the 70th anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision by the U.S. Supreme Court with a daylong public event Friday, May 17.

JFK at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, 2023

GIF: Bruce Morrow

Sweet Emma and Her Preservation Hall Jazz Band

source: Smithsonian, National Museum of African American History and Culture

Preservation Hall Jazz Band, American, founded 1963

Alcide Pavageau, 1888 - 1969

Jim Robinson, 1892 - 1976

Emanuel Sayles, 1907 - 1986

Willie Humphrey Sr., 1900 - 1994

Josiah Frazier, 1904 - 1985

Percy Humphrey, 1905 - 1995

Emma Barrett, 1897 - 1983

A black-and-white photograph of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band of New Orleans, standing in front of Preservation Hall in New Orleans, Louisiana. The photograph depicts six men in suits standing behind bass drum, with the words [PRESERVATION HALL / JAZZ / BAND / of / New Orleans, La.] printed on the drumhead. The men are standing in a line and each is holding one instrument. From left to right is Alcide "Slow Drag" Pavageau holding a double bass, "Big" Jim Robinson holding a trombone, Emanuel Sayles holding a banjo, Willie Humphrey holding a clarinet, Josiah "Cie" Frazier holding drumsticks, and Percy Humphrey holding a trumpet. "Sweet" Emma Barrett, piano player and leader of the band, is seated to the right of the wearing a skirt set, printed blouse, hat and jingles attached to her calves. There are no inscriptions on the front or back of the image.

every man who made history wanted more time for the ones he loved 🖤👻

Washington, DC 📍

National Museum of African American History and Culture Debuts Freedmen’s Bureau Search Portal

National Museum of African American History and Culture Debuts Freedmen’s Bureau Search Portal

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) announces the launch of the Freedmen’s Bureau Search Portal. The new comprehensive search platform is designed to help family historians and genealogists search for their ancestors and for scholars and students to research various topics found in over 1.7 million pages of Freedmen’s Bureau records. The portal…

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Yves Coatsaliou (photograph), James Baldwin seated at his work table, (silver and photographic gelatin on photographic paper), May 1972 [Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Gift of The Baldwin Family. © Yves Coatsaliou]