US arts committee resigns over Trump’s ‘un-American values’

Members of the US Committee on the Arts and the Humanities have resigned in protest over President Donald Trump’s “un-American values.”

Over a dozen top members of the US arts committee, which were selected by President Barack Obama during his tenure, released a resignation statement on Friday, while also offering advice to the current president over his visceral words on terrorism in the recent deadly Charlottesville attack.

“Ignoring your hateful rhetoric would have made us complicit in your words and actions,” they wrote, adding that, “We took a patriotic oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

They went on to say that American values do not include supremacy, discrimination, and vitriol.

“Your values are not American values. 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 statement addressed the US president.

On August 13, a man with ties to right-wing groups drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters in Charlottesville, killing a young woman and injuring some 20 other people.

Trump’s failure to immediately condemn the incident as a domestic terrorist attack has drawn criticism against his administration, in which white supremacists are among the top aides of the commander in chief.

Members of the US Committee on the Arts and the Humanities said that they had expected to resign once Trump took office, but they were asked to stay on by Trump’s team, at least during a transition period.

However, the arts committee had not gotten direction on what the plans were going forward, and some members said that they were not sure that the president knew that the group existed.

AI/AI