It’s Black History Month. Acknowledge it while it’s still legal to do so! Sarcasm aside, any history of the United States that doesn’t grapple seriously with slavery, Jim Crow, and modern-day racism is simply not a history of our nation.

But in Donald Trump’s America, these facts aren’t welcome in our museums, our textbooks, or our universities.

Destroying access to history is an important piece of the authoritarian fascist project. To control the information we have is paramount to controlling the people–of all races and ethnicities.

So, too, is the destruction of historical structures, especially in Washington. The dictator doesn’t want a capital with a history of its own. He only wants a capital with his history. Thus everything is renamed after him, or for him. Now there’s even a banner with his scowling face outside the Department of Justice!

I can’t quite pinpoint why the destruction of the East Wing of the White House is so emotional for me. After all, I’m a person who has picketed outside the White House more times than I can count. I’ve done this for a range of issues, including but not limited to abortion rights, economic justice, LGBTQ rights, and the environment. A few tours or one-time meetings with lower level staffers aside, I’m not exactly a White House insider.

But, to see the White House treated like a set piece on the Las Vegas strip has me more upset than I can say.

Yesterday I was outside the White House. What has historically been known as The People’s House is in rough shape. Pennsylvania Avenue is blocked off, and there is massive construction in Lafayette Square. The fences and barricades keep getting higher. While I understand security needs evolve and change, what is happening is far beyond the realm of security.

There is a message, and the message is: This is mine. Not yours.

The destruction of American history is happening because the times we are living through are baldly un-American. To attempt to destroy history is to attempt to destroy our context to say, a dictatorship of one isn’t who we are.