Talk of The Villages Florida - View Single Post - Am I Crazy? NO, THEY ARE!
View Single Post
 
Old 09-09-2021, 10:05 AM
Laker14 Laker14 is offline
Sage
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 2,612
Thanks: 2
Thanked 2,922 Times in 1,060 Posts
Default

[QUOTE=n8xwb;2000921]I read this early today ----

"The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) determined recently that America's founding documents may be "harmful or difficult" for some users to view since they reflect "outdated, biased, offensive, and possibly violent views and opinions."[/QUOT

Here's a link to the NARA site, explaining further that statement.
NARA’s Statement on Potentially Harmful Content | National Archives

I think what the site attempts to explain, at the top of the page, is that documents from the past, and subsequent archivists' descriptions of documents and events may contain language that, at the time, was accepted, but now is not.

As I read the page, I understand it to say that they are working to eliminate racist, and exclusionary or otherwise offensive language going forward, and providing insight as to the general attitudes of society at the time the historical documents were drafted and archived, but NOT to rewrite or change the original documents, or archivist's explanations as they were originally drafted.

I hope this is what they are saying and doing. It is important, in order to avoid repeating bad history, to know what it was, and not to whitewash it into what we wish it was, or what we would like to believe it was.