This post was written in response to a progressive friend who took exception on some comments I made on social media as they referred to the erasure of select Civil War and Revolutionary War Icons and memorials erected in their honor. I am one who encourages open dialogue. Without discourse, knowledge and understanding are mere words.
The North should never be "ashamed of winning the Civil War." All things considered; we are a better nation for it. Reference Confederate monuments, why the rush to rid the country of these tangible reminders of the practice of racial segregating within America at the time and the action of arranging laws or rules according to an implemented system of white, dare I say, even Arian supremacism. For the sake of time and subject matter, Arian supremacism is a subject deserving scrutiny that can be shelved until a later date.
Back on topic; we need to be aware that people in power at the time thought it was appropriate to do what they did, to include slavery, even Jim Crow? I believe making these monuments/artifacts disappear allows certain persons to re-write history. Do you think to keep them in place might stand as a salient reminder of times past? Last comment on Civil War monuments: As a society, we benefit from learning about our own historical past in all its complexity.
Now the Founding Fathers are being besieged for some of the very reasons why Confederate Leaders were and are still being targeted. There is a difference between the two groups. Yes, many Civil War and Revolutionary War notables were slave owners. Without, Washington, Jefferson, Adams…there would be no United States of America. The Founding Fathers, a group of predominately wealthy plantation owners and businessmen, united thirteen distressed colonies, fought for independence from England and penned a series of influential governing documents that steer the nation to this day. Why then are there persons/groups advocating Washington and Jefferson’s faces removal from Mount Rushmore? Why are some of these same persons/groups promoting these same Founding Fathers names be removed from public buildings, streets and federal monuments? Even many of our post-secondary education institutions are renaming institutional structures previously named in honor of Washington, Jefferson…One might ask why? Does it have to do with identity politics, political correctness or historical ignorance? It is certainly an immense moral failing on the part of many of our Founding Fathers that they owned slaves, and probably not something we spend enough time recognizing. However, you’ll notice that I used the term “Founding Fathers” to refer to Jefferson and Washington. Whatever their personal failings, these were men who played an undeniable and critically important role in the creation of the United States of America. They did great deeds and shaped our very history. There are, therefore, understandable and reasonable arguments for their public commemoration. Washington owned slaves, but helped win the war, and played a critical role in national stability and shaping the presidency. Jefferson owned slaves, but he also authored the Declaration of Independence.
You can argue that one aspect might outweigh the other, but there is an argument worth exchanging views. There is an exchange of views to be had about whether Washington and Jefferson’s positives outweigh their moral failings. To an extent, that same debate can be made about America’s more recent or more contemporary political leaders/events. The historicity of a claim about the past is its factual status. This being so, does not historicity denote historical certainty, validity, factuality and focuses on the true value of knowledge claims about the past? Historical revision does not alter historicity past.
No comments:
Post a Comment