Friday, March 29, 2024

National Archives Places ‘Harmful Language Alert’ on Page Hosting U.S. Constitution.

The webpage of the U.S. National Archives that hosts the nation’s own Constitution has a “harmful language alert” for readers at the top of the page.

The alert now appears on many pages on the archives.org website, and links to a page entitled “NARA’s Statement on Potentially Harmful Content,” which they define as:

  • reflect racist, sexist, ableist, misogynistic/misogynoir, and xenophobic opinions and attitudes;
  • be discriminatory towards or exclude diverse views on sexuality, gender, religion, and more;
  • include graphic content of historical events such as violent death, medical procedures, crime, wars/terrorist acts, natural disasters and more;
  • demonstrate bias and exclusion in institutional collecting and digitization policies.

Bizarrely, the warning does not appear on a page about Jim Crow, which has no fewer than 6 uses of the word “n*gg*r.” Nor does it appear on a page with the word “k*ke.”

It does, however, appear on the page of the U.S. Constitution:

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