WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Smithsonian’s newest wing, the National Museum of Racial Awareness, opened its doors Saturday, a glass-and-steel addition to the African-American Museum that the Smithsonian’s board calls “long overdue”. The three-hour ceremony defied far-right attempts to whitewash egregious totems of systemic racism documented by award-winning professors from the nation’s most elite universities.
Former President Barack Obama, the Rev. Al Sharpton, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shared the ribbon-cutting dais. Obama called it “a mirror we’ve needed for a long time.” Sharpton, invoking his refrain that “we need a new conversation about your racism, about your bigotry, about your hate”, declared it “long past due.” Ocasio-Cortez, echoing her 2019 warning that white supremacy operates “like a virus” in the American subconscious, said the exhibits would help the nation “get inoculated.”
The tour opened in the Chromatic Injustice Wing, sponsored by Columbia University, anchored by a swatch of “Simply White” and a looped confession of professor Wendy Walters’ “visceral, irrational” hatred of white paint. Next, the Numeracy & Oppression Gallery, sponsored by Stanford University, displayed a permanently unsolved algebra equation captioned “Some problems should never be asked”. The Dairy Aisle of Shame, courtesy of New York University, enshrined a glowing carton of racist white milk under glass. The Grammar Gulag, on loan from Michigan State University, provides hands-on Ebonics training in support of Black linguistic justice. The tour closed at the original Whiteness Chart, restored from the archives of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, listing rational thinking, punctuality, and hard work as racist traits of White Culture.
The gift shop’s bestseller by midafternoon: a tote bag reading “I Survived Standard English,” $38, or $34 with a university faculty ID.
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