“President Donald Trump ordered his administration Friday to install signs in front of the Smithsonian Institution’s U.S. History museum telling visitors that some of the exhibits are inaccurate, his latest move to reshape how the story of the United States is told.” —AP, July 24, 2026
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” —James Baldwin
To paint over all our contradictions and ambiguities,
pain and suffering, with a topcoat of “patriotism.”
To leave an entire people ignorant
of the truth of our origins.
To erase whole populations whose very existence
seems to offend him.
To pretend that all the theft and rape and slaughter
was in self-defense/for a good cause/never happened.
To feed us fractured fairy tales that dismiss and distort,
turn our history into a children’s recess war game.
To ignore our differences, discount the ways
we treated each other in the past and to this day.
To rob us of our adulthood: our ability to apologize
and forgive, to extend compassion and mercy.
To trim the corners, smooth the rough edges,
obliterate the grain of the wood is no less than
To utterly destroy its character.
Kay White Drew is a retired physician whose poems appear in various anthologies and print & internet outlets including Gargoyle, The New Verse News, and Second Coming. She’s also published short stories and several essays, one of which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and a memoir, Stress Test. She lives in Rockville, MD with her husband. Reading and spending time in nature keep her sane(ish) in these difficult times.
