Erasing history

[Bill Richter]

The trouble with history is that it rarely pleases both or all sides, unless one wishes to remove conflict and build consensus. That's what happens in modern ecumenical religion. We forget why people divided and died over things that are deemed unimportant by those with the biggest megaphones nowadays. The South and the Confederacy have fallen accordingly. It is like Neil Simon or my mentor on my Master's Thesis (a man from Indiana) arriving in WW II Camp Shelby Mississippi only to find that the North did not win the war down thataway. I know of no way that Nathan Bedford Forrest can be pleasing to all races or all points of view, unless one culture is destroyed by the other. Similarly, the Dutch are ashamed that thousands served in the Waffen SS in WW II. They get around it by ignoring it, just like we do with our own cultural differences. Hence down come the cultural monuments deemed honorable to some and "bad" by someone else with more current political pull. That is erasing history.

[Hess1865]

In Memphis they recently changed the the name of Forrest Park, where NBF is buried.
I'm waiting to see when they remove Forrest and his wife's bodies from there.
Thing are really get out of control in PC world....

[L Verge]

Bill, that was an excellent and accurate summary of the situation. Thank you. And what it leaves me with is the wish that I could take away half of the megaphones in this country without spoiling Freedom of Speech. IMO, we are losing many of our other values in the effort to "protect" that one.

[My Name Is Kate]

So Lee was a slaveholder...?

Anyway, it seems to me (FWIW) that it should be up to the people (not the government) of the state of Georgia what to do with the monument. Majority rule. Was the proposed monument put to a vote before it was ever created?

[Liz Rosenthal]

It was "majority rule" that kept black people from voting for 100 years after the end of the Civil War. Majority rule isn't all it's cracked up to be. I'm not saying I'm against majority rule, but sometimes majority rule has to take the minority view into account.

Yes, Robert E. Lee was a slaveowner. He's been quoted as saying he wished there didn't have to be slavery, no one likes it... but the part they don't quote is where he goes on to say the same thing that other slaveowners in the South said, time and again, about slavery. That it was necessary that the black race live in subjugation to the white race, as black people could not survive on their own, and they needed the civilizing influence of Christianity to advance as a people. Blah, blah, blah.

Lee also personally whipped his slaves.

With regard to Holland in World War Two, sure - there were plenty of Nazi sympathizers and collaborators there, as there were in France and many of the other countries that Hitler's armies invaded. The locals were very helpful in rounding up tens of thousands of Jews to send to the concentration camps. I don't know whether the Dutch have made any effort to reflect on Nazi sympathizers and collaborators, but I do know that Dutch schoolchildren are required to learn about the Holocaust, and Anne Frank, every year - based on what a lifelong friend of mine who lives in Groningen told me, as her son went through the curriculum. And, of course, you've got the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, which I visited when I was there. While at the house, I paged through a book the size of the Manhattan telephone directory itemizing the names of all the Dutch Jews who perished. I didn't see any memorials to the Nazis as part of the Anne Frank House nor any attempt to give the Nazi side of the story. And I'd be very surprised if, anywhere in Holland, there were any monuments to Nazi sympathizers and collaborators. So even if the Dutch don't actively observe or discuss the fact that a portion of their number served Hitler, you can bet that they don't honor 'em, either.

Every country should come to terms with the shameful parts of its past; every country has something bad in its past that its people need to acknowledge. I'm pleased to see that things are changing in Poland - that they are finally acknowledging and even celebrating Poland's vanished Jewish communities and sponsoring museums to educate the public. Ukraine now remembers the atrocities at Babi Yar, where tens of thousands of Jewish men, women, and children were systematically shot to death in 1943 in the span of only two or three days. (If you want to talk about Nazi collaborators, you had loads of them in Ukraine, who were especially happy to help in getting rid of Jews, and were instrumentally involved at Babi Yar.)

These developments are wonderful. So, too, can America educate its own citizens with respect to its history involving slavery, Jim Crow, civil rights, the annihilation of Native Americans, and more. I don't think that Stone Mountain serves that purpose. As far as I know, all it does is celebrate the Confederacy.

I was in Birmingham AL not long ago visiting friends. We all visited the Vulcan Statue, a monument to Birmingham's days as a center of steelmaking (beginning after the Civil War, as Birmingham wasn't founded till after the war). At the base of the statue, there was a museum dedicated to all aspects of Birmingham's history. That is, we learned all about the industry, and the history of all of Birmingham - white and black - through the decades and centuries. The museum also chronicled some of the more notorious civil rights incidents of the early 60s. I'm sure a lot of people would have preferred to not have the bombing of the black church where little girls died or Martin Luther King's jailing chronicled, but whoever was in charge of putting the museum together did an admirable job. Bravo!

[L Verge]

I'm afraid that our system of government has forgotten about the phrase in the Constitution that does leave some matters to the state governments to determine. When the majority in any given state votes for something nowadays, someone figures out a way to sue them in federal court. I will now stand by for attack.

BTW, Kate, I believe that Lee's wife may have been the slaveholder in the family, having inherited from the Custis family. Martha Washington married into the Custises, and Mrs. Lee descended through that line (as did Mrs. Dr. Richard Stuart). I believe that Mrs. Washington owned a number of slaves in her own right.

[Rsmyth]

As anyone can plainly see we have a variety of caring, knowledgeable and passionate participants on this site, which creates interest. Which is why I check it out every day. Thanks Roger for providing this digital soapbox!