In Season

Let me start by saying that I don’t have a problem with the removal of statues of Confederate military and political figures and related symbols of the Old South. To everything there is a season, and that season is here. .

You may hear a “but” coming. Let’s stipulate, as the lawyers say, that I’m using the word because I’m white, but there’s a little more to it.

I guess what concerns me is the level of demonization in the air. Pulling down statues doesn’t seem like enough for some people. Those who were on those pedestals are called losers and traitors. By extension, that means those whose culture honors them as well.

I wonder if every Confederate general fought in the Civil War specifically to preserve slavery. How about the average foot soldier, who died at Shiloh or Antietam? When he charged to his death, screaming the Rebel yell, was it  in the name of slavery? More likely, he was fighting for his home, his family, and his way of life, which indeed had been built on slavery. That part was probably not top-of-mind for him. Maybe that made it even worse.

I am not apologizing for anyone here. What I am saying is that by raising fists and shouting in someone’s face that their culture is built on a falsehood is not apt to instantly change a mind.

Black people may say, we’ve been waiting 400 years for white people to get it, and we’re out of patience. But changing hearts and minds takes time, as wars have taught us. A natural solution is for those incapable of change to die off. But the living will have to be persuaded. For them, it’s not an epiphany but a process. Change is not impossible. George Wallace, one of the most virulent Southern racists of the last century, did come to the light in later life. It just took him a while.

There are many wrongs to be righted, and Black people are not the only victims. But speaking just for myself, repeatedly telling me that I owe something to someone for centuries of oppression won’t work. I’m not into guilt trips.

When it comes to righting wrongs, the Founding Fathers, flawed as we now understand they were, did manage to leave us pretty good road maps for cleaning up the messes we’re in, like the Declaration of Independence. This and other iconic documents of that era contain what we really should be honoring this time of year. In the end, the people on pedestals and the names on buildings are secondary. Let’s read those road maps and follow them. They will take us where we need to go.

A New Tent

The Republican Party is alternately known as the GOP, for “Grand Old Party.” It’s old, all right, but is there anything still grand about it? Not according to conservative figures like George Will and William Kristol, who say they can’t call themselves Republicans anymore, insisting that they did not leave the party, but rather that the party left them. There are others who cling on to Republican identification, but openly admit they won’t vote for the re-election of the current President. And there are still others, who won’t oppose the President, preferring silence. So is it time to fix up the old tent or put up a new one?

The GOP was formed in 1854, primarily to oppose the expansion of slavery. Many of its members were former Whigs – yes, we had them. Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican President. He signed the Emancipation Proclamation in the middle of the Civil War to free the slaves. and much of Reconstruction occurred under another Republican President, Ulysses S. Grant. With that sort of history, you would think most African-American voters would feel a connection to the GOP.

Fluidity is a popular term these days, but it’s really nothing new. I am old enough to remember when the colors blue and red meant the exact opposite of what they mean today. Coziness with Russia was unthinkable to true-blue Republicans, and even moderate lefties were considered “pinkos.” In the party,  there were the likes of Howard Baker, Jack Kemp, Ed Brooke, and Margaret Chase Smith. The other side was not the devil. Republican legislators could even confront a flawed leader of their own party when it was time to talk turkey. When did the GOP become the party of yes people, conspiracy theorists, and mask resistors?

We may not be quite there yet, but if it’s felt the Republican brand is beyond repair, let me suggest, and I’m sure I’m not the first, that the new party to replace it be called simply Lincoln. “The party of Lincoln” is already a common phrase, and prominent Republicans who oppose the President have created the Lincoln Project, producing all those devastating new ads we are starting to see.

The benefits of the two-party system have long been debated, but this is not a binary world anymore. Maybe two big tents are no longer enough to accommodate the new politically homeless out there, of which,  it seems, there are way more than a few.

Statues of Limitation

Why does it suddenly feel like the French Revolution around here? The frenzy of statue-toppling and name-changing brings that event to mind. This modern revolution isn’t exactly new, though. It started way before the killing of George Floyd.

It began several years ago with the effort to de-romanticize the Old South, the campaign to take the Confederate “stars and bars” off state flags and remove tatues of Confederate military and political figures.

After the tragedy in Minneapolis, those statues have really been taking it on the chin, or the pedestal, as it were. I do understand the anger about the battle flags and the renderings of prominent Confederates, like Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, or even US President Andrew Jackson, a racist and Indian persecutor. But hey, why be upset with General (and President) Ulysses S. Grant? Didn’t he fight on the right side in the Civil War? Didn’t much of Reconstruction happen on his watch? Yes, but he was wobbly on slavery in his early years. He married into a family of slave-owners and he actually owned one himself, but freed him in 1859. Francis Scott Key, who wrote the Star Spangled Banner under the rockets’ red glare during the War of 1812, owned slaves. His statue came down in San Francisco recently.

So what, exactly did Theodore Roosevelt do wrong? Well, nothing really related to all this, but a statue of him on a horse with a Native American and a black man standing on other side, in front of New York’s Museum of Natural History, is offensive to many.

In the name-change department, Monmouth University in New Jersey plans to remove President Woodrow Wilson’s name from one of its major buildings because of Wilson’s support of segregation in federal offices. Several years ago, at Princeton University, of which Wilson had been president, the prestigious Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs almost had its name changed for the same reason.

Some think it may even be time to talk about replacing the names of Washington and Jefferson because of their relationships to slavery. I’m almost afraid to mention Christopher Columbus, actually said to have been a slave trader himself. If we start changing these names, it could prove touchy.

Statues come down and names change as heroes morph into villains. I was thinking that one solution might be pedestals with standard detachable brackets to allow sculptures and nameplates to be easily swapped out as attitudes change. Toppling statues when the blood is boiling, however, is clearly more satisfying. But in the end, it’s not about what needs to be torn down. It’s about what needs to be built up -- societal structures that aren’t made of stone and bronze.