Trump Would Rather Have His Racism Than $20 In His Pocket


So, when redesigning the US$20 bill, the treasury department took a poll on the best person to next be depicted. You may remember that Andrew Jackson, the genocidal maniac who was critiqued by other slave holders for how cruelly he treated his slaves, graces your US twenties right now. Since the US has been notoriously bad at featuring women on its currency and since the new bill was due to come out in 1920, the anniversary of women gaining the right to vote in the US, and because US citizens have more sense than the government, the person selected to honor the new bill is Harriet Tubman… except the men couldn’t have a white guy replaced by a Black woman, so the new design was to keep Jackson, but move him to the reverse side of the 20 while putting Tubman on the front.

Creating a new bill is a time-consuming task, not least because after the old one has been out for a while, counterfeiters will have learned to mimic most of the features and the new bills, in addition to being durable in water, somewhat more tear resistant than most papers, and meeting US consumers’ subjective expectations that a bill seem “official” and not feel plasticky (which implies “fake”), new anti-counterfeiting techniques need to be designed into each new bill. Even when the person featured in the portrait does not change, the bills themselves do every so often and updating the counterfeiting countermeasures is a significant part of that. For this reason, the Treasury is literally in a constant state of research and development of new features that can be built into any new bills.

This time round, however, Steve Mnuchin, the US Secretary of the Treasury, has just told congress that despite the long lead time and the overwhelming poll support for Tubman, she will not appear on the $20 bill in 2020. Instead, Mnuchin suggests, 2028 is a more likely date. This would extend the current design to 25 years of use. We are already at 16, and the previous record for the longest use of a single design is about 15 years. In 2017 Mnuchin suggested that the Treasury might not release Tubman on the 20 because consumers become attached to particular persons on particular bills. This rationale was given despite the fact that the decision had already been made to keep Jackson’s image on the bill, if on the other side. But now, in 2019, Mnuchin has just announced that due entirely to needing to develop new anti-counterfeiting techniques, Tubman’s image cannot appear when originally intended.

The whole thing stinks, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Take a moment to think and you’ll realize that even if no new anti-counterfeit measures were ready to be placed in the 2020 series bill, changing the design and keeping the current measures is better at challenging counterfeiting than doing nothing at all. So why delay?

The real answer we can only guess, but I have three good ones: 2020 is a Presidential election year, and not only does Trump idolize Jackson, but I think he’s also afraid that his racist supporters will be furious at him if his treasury department releases a $20 with a Black woman on it – no matter how many white men are on it with her. If enough of his supporters are racist (a reasonable proposition), then pissing off the racists will hurt Trump’s chances at reelection.

And so here we are, we can’t have nice things because

  1. Trump idolizes a genocidal maniac who embarked on the ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples from the areas of US territories that were recognized states during his term, and generally from any economically valuable land,
  2. Trump’s supporters are too often racist to risk the US government promoting the picture of a Black woman during an election year, and
  3. Trump is his own racist supporter who doesn’t want to see a Black woman’s face on “his” money.

It’s amazing how Trump can combine the most obscenely consequential power grabs with the most trivial and petty exercises of that power.


PS. And will the Democrats call this out for the racism that it is? Of course not. We’ll get a few comments about how it’s disappointing that 100 years after the ratification of the 19th amendment we still have never had a woman’s portrait on US paper currency during a federal election in which women were entitled to vote. But they certainly won’t say anything about racism, or even about how Mnuchin’s assertions are literally irrational.

 

Comments

  1. Lassi Hippeläinen says

    The 2020 time slot is reserved for the all new $3 bill with Trump’s face on it.

  2. ridana says

    By 2020? Sure, I’d be ok with that. I wouldn’t have to use it, and you can only put dead people on money.

  3. ardipithecus says

    Images are easy to copy. Choice of image is not part of any security feature: Paper features, ink features, printing processes, and so on. Mnuchin may be even less rational than you think.

    It is not irrational on Trump’s part. He wants to get re-elected. The egalitarian decisions he makes are more likely to alienate his racist base than they are to convince People of Colour that he has had an epiphany and wants to better their lot. Pandering to his base is rational. Trump is not likely to gain anything from this decision, but he eviscerates the probability of losing something.

  4. says

    I prefer not putting any human faces on money. Just stick to buildings, animals, plants, whatever. Current European bills are nice, they just feature architecture, and don’t offend anybody. Old Latvian money used to be nice too—oak tree, house, ship, salmon, cow, ant, stork, etc. similar images were on it.

    I inherently hate seeing the faces of kings on money. I dislike the whole idea of hereditary royalty per se. The faces Americans have put on their money aren’t much better either. For obvious reasons. Maybe 100 years from now humanity will finally advance to the point where people will be willing to put on money only faces of human rights activists, artists, and scientists. In the mean time, while we wait for such a miracle to happen, it’s better not to put any faces on money. The last thing I want to see in my wallet are faces of racists, misogynists, warmongering politicians, mass murderers, and kings.

  5. StevoR says

    FWIW. Probly not very much – apologies if so but hopefully of interest and a contrast here.

    Australia has several Indigneous people on its currency incl. an Indigenous Elder based on Gwoya Jungarai “.. survived one of the last recognised massacres of Aboriginal people.” Source :

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5383491/The-REAL-story-man-2-coins.html

    Plus David Unaipon (born David Ngunaitponi) on our $ 50 note :

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Unaipon

    Plus Yolngu artist David Malangi’s Indigenous artwork featuring Indigenous figures (incl him?) on the original (now discontinued) $ 1 note among others.

    Our currency also features womenincl :

    1) journalist & poet Dame Mary Gilmore,
    2) social reformer & first female Aussie MP Edith Cowan,
    3) progressive 19th-century English humanitarian Caroline Chisholm

    & our current symbolic headof state Queen Elizzabeth

    Our notes also honour scientists, inventors & explorers :

    I) John Tebbutt, the astronomer who discovered the “Great Comet of 1861.”
    II) Howard & Baron Florey, who helped bring the use of peniccillin to the world
    III) Douglas Mawson, Antarctic explorer and scientist

    Plus aviation pioneers Charles Kingsford Smith & Lawrence Hargrave – who was also an astronomer.

    Our notes are also polymer based as this (sorry wiki) page listing and links of it note :

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_Australian_dollar

    We don’t put many if any political figures – certainly not recent ones – on our currency which I think is good.

    Harriet Tubman definiterly deserevs to eb theer already if you ask me.

  6. johnson catman says

    I heard this story on the news yesterday, and the very first thought that I had was what a bunch of racist shitbags are in this administration. There is no way that they can legitimately deny that, so they will do what they always do: lie profusely.

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