In other words, there’s no need for BLM protesters to turn into lynch mobs, especially just to exact vigilante justice on Confederate monuments.
It is self-evident that President Trump is fighting yet another losing battle. For reasons that can make sense only to the white racists he panders to, he’s trying to protect and preserve the Confederate monuments that taunt black Americans – “from sea to shining sea.”
President Donald Trump said on Twitter Friday that he has signed an executive order on protecting monuments. …
‘I just had the privilege of signing a very strong Executive Order protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues – and combating recent Criminal Violence. … Long prison terms for these lawless acts against our Great Country!’
(CNN, June 26, 2020)
Except that this order could not be more at odds with the prevailing political trend. Nothing reflects this quite like Princeton University joining a long list of institutions making a public show of cutting ties with their racist past. What’s so remarkable in its case is that Princeton is cutting ties with no less a person than a former president of the United States:
Princeton University will remove Woodrow Wilson’s name from its public policy school and one of its residential colleges, the university’s president said on Saturday. …
The university’s board of trustees found that Wilson’s ‘racist thinking and policies make him an inappropriate namesake for a school or college whose scholars, students and alumni must stand firmly against racism in all its forms.’
(The New York Times, June 27, 2020)
But talk about a slippery slope. After all, given Wilson’s fate, surely it follows that former Presidents Washington and Jefferson’s status as slave owners makes them inappropriate namesakes for the same, to say nothing of national monuments and a friggin’ state to boot.
Clearly, conflicts and contradictions are as vexing as they are unavoidable in this respect. Moreover, I fully appreciate that I may have been the first to begin tightening the noose on these monuments with commentaries like “Washington Monument’s KKK Imagery,” October 2, 2011, and “Washington Monument, Father of all Monuments to Racists…?” August 18, 2017.
Nonetheless, the only thing that makes sense is to purge only those who were part of the Confederacy and its Jim-Crow spawn, and let all other sleeping dogs lie. As it happens, I first championed this more discriminating approach to tearing down monuments to racists years ago in “White Supremacy: The Tragedy and Folly of Charlottesville,” August 15, 2017.
Apropos of which, the wonder is not that Trump is fighting against this inevitable tide of history; it is that it took the infamous killing of George Floyd to get this tide rolling.
After all, those monuments have been standing for over 100 years as tributes to the confederacy of traitors who lost the Civil War. As such, they are reminders not just of America’s original sin of slavery, but of the legacy of racism that followed it.
Therefore, is it any wonder that a country that features such monuments is also one that countenances everything from denying blacks equal rights to education to having a white cop choke the life out of a black man in broad daylight?
I shall leave it to psychologists to explain why this killing triggered the frenzied tearing down of those statues. But, as I noted in my June 10 commentary, I do not condone this lynch-mob approach. Not to mention that those involved seem more interested in nihilistic grandstanding than in eradicating monuments to white supremacy.
Simply put, though, it should be as illegal to publicly display Confederate symbols in America as it is to publicly display Nazi symbols in Germany. But even legislators in the Deep South are heeding clarion calls to make this so. Mississippi just voted to get rid of the Confederate symbol from its state flag. And I suspect it’s only a matter of time before Alabama gives new meaning to “roll tide” in this respect.
Still, perhaps nothing reflects America’s changing racial tide quite like avenging those confederate statues by painting the slogan “Black Lives Matter” on some of America’s choicest streets (e.g., on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House and on 5th Avenue outside Trump Tower); and doing so in letters so big they can be seen from space.
Given all the sound and fury over statues, however, you’d be forgiven for missing the most symbolic development in this turning of the tide in race relations:
For the first time since the establishment of the District of Columbia 230 years ago, the House of Representatives voted to declare the city to be the nation’s 51st state, a legislative milestone that supporters say begins to right historical wrongs. …
The White House confirmed Thursday that it opposes statehood, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said he will not bring the legislation to a vote in his Republican-controlled chamber.
(The Washington Post, June 26, 2020)
This is yet another reason for those protesting and tearing down statues today to be sure to vote in November. And I cannot repeat enough that the categorical imperative is to vote to oust not just Trump but every Republican who has enabled his racist presidency.
If anti-racism protesters follow through, not only would a Democratic-controlled House and Senate vote for DC statehood, but a President Joe Biden would sign the bill.
But here’s the black irony: The DC petitioners propose naming their new state the Washington, Douglass Commonwealth – named, of course, for the father of white America, George Washington, and of black America, Frederick Douglass, respectively.
Unfortunately, it’s arguable that Congress has not passed a more racially suspect bill since it passed the Missouri Compromise in 1820 to balance power in Congress between free and slave states.
The DC-statehood bill envisions cordoning off all federal buildings to retain a distinct federal zone. But this is post-George Floyd 2020. So why are these petitioners requiring Douglass to share naming honor to this new state with the slave-owning Washington?
Not to mention that Washington already has a state named for him. But, if ever there were a chance for a clean slate, this is it. So why inaugurate the 51st state with the fate of continually conjuring up America’s original sin at the mere mention of its name. It makes no sense.
The (new) Washington DC should be named Douglass State. Period!
[Note: I’d be remiss not to cite “Mall at Last, Mall at Last, Thank God Almighty a Black Is on the Mall at Last,” November 14, 2006, and “Frederick Douglass Is the ‘Greatest Figure America Has Ever Produced’,” October 15, 2018. Juxtaposed they explain why this naming honor, even as proposed, is so long-overdue.]
Related commentaries:
Charlottesville… removing statues… Washington Monument…
The Mall at last… Frederick Douglass greatest American… anti-racism thread…
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