2 days ago
Not flying pride flag an act of acquiescence by Wisconsin Historical Society
The Wisconsin Historical Society has chosen not to raise the Pride flag this year, ending a practice that it had started in 2019. While there are understandable reasons to avoid flying all flags except for state and national flags on government buildings, it is difficult not to see this decision as an act of negation, a step backward, and an act of political acquiescence.
When the current federal administration has chosen to attack LGBTQ+ communities by removing protections and allowing discrimination at the same time that it rejects decades of historical scholarship with the Executive Orders 'Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling' and 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History' (both openly rejected by professional historical organizations), it is no small act to choose negation.
The denial of history is intimately related to citizen acquiescence and then social erosion. The timing of the Historical Society's decision leaves one to wonder if a president and party that wields power with threats to funding and vituperative speech had a role in this decision.
The Historical Society's spokesperson, Colleen Lies, has said that while the decision was 'complex and difficult,' the society would be guided by its mission to 'connect people to history by collecting, preserving and sharing stories of Wisconsinites from all backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives.' And a quick look at the society's website clearly demonstrates its commitment to headlining LGBTQ+ stories this month.
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But history is not just an act of collection; it can often be built on acts of erasure. The erasure of history has been used to do harm, maintain power, and silence painful reckoning. "History," wrote Maya Angelou, "despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again."
Noted historian Gerda Lerner, who practiced and helped build the field of women's history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, just yards from the doors of the Wisconsin Historical Society, asserted that historical knowledge was power. Only by reclaiming their history could women empower themselves.
"Men develop ideas and systems of explanation by absorbing past knowledge and critiquing and superseding it,' she wrote in "The Creation of Feminist Consciousness." "Women, ignorant of their own history, did not know what women before them had thought and taught,' and so could hardly change the cycle of subordination.
Historical consciousness helped change that trajectory. Without that consciousness, historical ignorance and erasure doom us all to a Sisyphean struggle. We are in a moment of national and local reckoning with history's importance. Every historical gesture and decision matters.
The Wisconsin Historical Society, one of the premiere historical societies in the nation, has chosen an act of negation, perhaps adding to a quiet erosion of all that the state has done to pioneer Queer rights. Pride Month, like Women's History Month or Black History Month, reminds us that in the recovery of history, in the preservation of those histories alongside equally important but longer-told and better-known histories, we enrich the nation and the national story. In our many histories and many stories, we build strength and tolerance.
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Collection and preservation are crucial, but we must also fight erosion and erasure, particularly at a moment when the process of erasure is federally mandated and funded. In 1851, just after statehood, Wisconsin adopted the motto 'Forward' to reflect the collective desire to lead the nation toward progress. At this important moment, let's not go backward.
A. Kristen Foster received her Ph.D. in U.S. history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She worked at the Wisconsin Historical Society while completing her degree and is currently an Associate Professor of History Marquette University.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Not flying pride flag step backward for WI Historical Society | Opinion
