Resist: the hidden message in US arts council's stinging letter to Donald Trump

 

• Michael Idato

   
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At first glance it looks exactly what it seems to be: President Donald Trump's arts and humanities committee resigning en masse to protest his controversial stance on white supremacist violence in the US.

But if you cast an eye down the left side of the document, at the first letter of the first word of each paragraph, they spell a single word: RESIST.

It's an unsurprising gesture, perhaps, but the sort of thing that conspiracy theories thrive on.

What the White House will make of it, if anything, remains to be seen.

The letter, dated Friday, US time, and signed by 16 of the 17 committee members, criticised the "false equivalence" of the President's comments on the recent violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In remarks which have drawn criticism from the entire political spectrum, Trump laid the blame for the violence on "many sides" and referred to "good people" who were among the white supremacist marchers.

"Ignoring your hateful rhetoric would have made us complicit in your words and act

A

ions," the committee said in the letter.

"Supremacy, discrimination, and vitriol are not American values; your values are not American values," they added.

"We must be better than this. We are better than this. If this is not clear to you, then we call on you to resign your office, too."

The letter also issued a stinging rebuke to the broader policy positions of Trump's presidency.

"You released a budget which eliminates arts and culture agencies [and] you have threatened nuclear war while gutting diplomacy funding," the letter said.

It also made reference to the US withdrawal from the Paris agreement, the undermining of the Civil Rights Act and Trump's "attack" on transgender people serving in the military.

"This does not unify the nation we all love," the letter said.

Ironically, as Trump calls for the preservation of Confederate statues in American cities, one of the remits of the committee is the preservation of American "treasures", including cultural and heritage resources, and historic structures and artifacts.

The mass resignation, which effectively disbands the body, is the latest in a number of foundation-shaking departures from the orbit of the embattled President.

It follows the disbanding of two committees of industry chief executives which were, despite the fact they had never actually met, focal points of the Trump administration's emphasis on economic strategy.

In contrast, however, the dissolution of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities is unlikely to cause too much of a stir.

The Trump administration's appears to have a less than substantial interest in the arts, and the arts community, broadly speaking, seems to have a somewhat toxic stance towards the Presidency.

Trump's wife, Melania, is  the "honorary chair" of the committee, though she holds that position more out of the custom that it is one of the committee chairmanships automatically taken by the first lady.

Notably, the formation of the arts and and humanities committee pre-dates the Trump administration.

It was established in 1982 by then-President Ronald Reagan; the current (now, technically, former) committee members were all appointed by former President Barack Obama. 

In addition to its working committee, the agency lists the heads of the Library of Congress, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts as ex officio committee members.

Three of Trump's cabinet are also ex officio committee members: interior secretary Ryan Zinke, education secretary Betsy DeVos and secretary of state Rex Tillerson.

None of the ex officio committee members is a signatory to the resignation letter.

The list of signatories includes actor Kal Penn, artist Chuck Close, author Jhumpa Lahiri and Vicki Kennedy, the widow of Edward M. Kennedy.

The only missing signature from the letter is that of New York theatre director George C. Wolfe; according to a tweet from Penn, Wolfe's name was added to the letter after it was sent.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/entertainment/resist-the-hidden-message-in-us-arts-councils-stinging-letter-to-donald-trump-20170818-gxzsra.html