Donald Trump's entire arts council quits in protest with letter containing secret political message

Mythili Sampathkumar
Updated
CEOs and artists have publicly resigned from White House councils in light of Donald Trump's comments after the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images
CEOs and artists have publicly resigned from White House councils in light of Donald Trump's comments after the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

Every member of Donald Trump's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities has resigned in protest at his comments on the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Mr Trump has maintained his view that "many sides" were to blame for the tragic deaths of Heather Heyer, a counter-protester to neo-Nazis, the Klu Klux Klan, and other white supremacists, as well as Virginia state police officers H Jay Cullen and Berke MM Bates.

“Ignoring your hateful rhetoric would have made us complicit in your words and actions,” the letter read. It was posted by actor and former Obama White House administration adviser Kal Penn on Twitter.

The strongly worded letter said Mr Trump's values "are not American".

When taken together, the first letters of each of the paragraphs in the letter also read "RESIST"

“Supremacy, discrimination, and vitriol 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 letter reads.

The council was composed of Mr Penn, best-selling author Jhumpa Lahiri, painter Chuck Close, lawyer and arts consultant to the Smithsonian Jill Cooper Udall among others.

They wrote that they felt Mr Trump's defence of what he called some "innocent" protesters on the side to keep the statute of Civil War Confederate General Robert E Lee statue intact was reprehensible.

His denouncement of those wanting to keep a reminder of traitors to the US and horrific slavery was not nearly as full-throated as it should have been - “reproach and censure in the strongest possible terms are necessary".

The President's "false equivalency" of counter-protesters' violence and that of neo-Nazi "further emboldens those who wish America ill," the artists said.

The move follows a mass exodus from two of the President's business-related councils, which saw CEOs lambasting the President for his comments. He later disbanded the committees.

Apple's Tim Cook has decided to donate $2 million to the anti-hate groups as a result as well.

"Speaking truth to power is never easy Mr President. But it is our role as commissioners on [this commission] to do so. Art is about inclusion".