The United States National Archives and Records Administration says that all American history records, not just the U.S. Constitution, contain "harmful" language, following a controversy stirred last week by author and Fox New Contributor Todd Starnes.
As per The Christian Post, the National Archives responded to Starnes in Twitter that the "Harmful Language Alert" displayed in their website is not for "specific records" only but applies to all of the content of their "online Catalog." NARA's tweet accompanies the link going to their standard statement explaining what the "harmful" content is.
"This alert is not connected to any specific records, but appears at the top of the page while you are using the online Catalog (https://catalog.archives.gov). To learn more about why the alert about harmful language appears in our Catalog, please go to (NARA's Statement on Potentially Harmful Content)," NARA said on September 8.
Earlier reports indicated that NARA labeled the pages of the America's Founding Documents Section of its online catalog with "Harmful Language Alert: see NARA's Statement on Potentially Harmful Language." The warning is highlighted with a Cyan background just below the menu of each page. Something contrary to what NARA claims following the bashing they received after Starnes put them on spotlight.
NARA, established in 1934 for the preservation and protection of American heritage documents, said in its Statement On Potentially Harmful Language that such content may be found offensive since it "reflect racist, sexist, ableist, misogynistic/misogynoir, and xenophobic opinions and attitudes" that could come as "discriminatory towards or exclude diverse views on sexuality, gender, religion, and more."
Starnes claimed that the NARA's statement is part of the Democrats "crack down on conservative content" as it "slapped a 'harmful language' alert on the U.S. Constitution."
"What in the name of 'We the People' were they thinking?" Starnes remarked in his blog.
"The National Archives apparently considers 'freedom' to be a four-letter word," he pointed out, "It's not exactly which words violated the emotionally stunted people who run the National Archives. Apparently one of the perpetually offended Millennial staffers breaks out in hives at the mention of words like 'freedom' and 'liberty'."
Starnes was pertaining to the meeting NARA had with 800 of its employees on May 11 with its racism task force. During that meeting, a presenter "told a story about a black congressional staffer who objected to the 'charters of freedom' label assigned to the historical documents" displayed in the NARA Rotunda in Washington DC.
Accordingly, the staffer felt "alienated" because the said documents are not his "charters of freedom."
Starnes' blog was tweeted by one of his followers, Marilyn whose handle was @AgnesClaire, and retweeted by Tom Kattman who called the NARA alert as "a bit dense" with the screencap of the U.S. Constitution online catalog page. Kattman's post caught the attention of the said government office who then released the said response explaining the warning is not limited to the specific document only.
In a separate report published in June, The Christian Post revealed that the NARA's racism task force deemed the contents of its Rotunda in Washington, D.C. full of "structural racism" and "exclusionary."
The task force said the Rotunda actually "lauds wealthy white men in the nation's founding while marginalizing BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, People of Color], women, and other communities." The task force raised the need to implement changes to address the matter by "reckoning with its past in unprecendented ways" out of the movement of Black Lives Matter that has become a national interest.
"Its reverential, quasi-religious treatment of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights does not adequately reflect a full history of the founding of the United States," the NARA racism task force report highlighted.
