An Historical Lack Of Perspective
Robert E. Lee was a confederate general. He viewed slavery as a moral and political evil, although his wife's family owned slaves, he opposed succession prior to the war, and Abraham Lincoln asked him to serve as the Union's top general. Robert E. Lee was opposed to the erection of any civil war monuments. In a speech that was famous at the time he said: "I think it wiser not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered."
In a world of single issue voters, hyperbole, sensationalist media, and elitist politicians, it is impossible to understand why General Lee chose to fight for the South. It is impossible for so many historically illiterate news reporters to even fathom the motivations of any man who, despite his opposition to the wisdom of a cause, may still choose to follow it. Because we do not teach our history in a fair or legitimate way, modern thinkers refuse observe any moral complexities in the historical figures they study. When they do, they immediately compare them to our own morality, anachronistically, erasing the validity of the comparison. The result leads to absurdity.
As General Lee stated, slavery was a moral and political evil. Some intelligentsia like to call it America's "original sin," although I find that offensive as a Christian. Slavery is certainly the result of man's original sin, which was turning from God, not from founding this nation without liberating slaves.
Slavery is an institution that can be traced back to the first human civilizations and has been practiced in nearly every culture at some point in its history. Slavery was not invented by white people. Documentary history as far back as Hammurabi show that the regulation of slavery and slave owners was subject to frequent government action. The Bible, yes, the Bible, addresses slavery without condemnation. Jesus Christ himself did not call on humanity to abolish slavery, but merely to treat slaves well. He instructed slaves to obey their masters. Both commands when viewed in contemporary terms are morally repugnant.
Despite 10,000 years of slavery as a widely practiced institution, our freedom loving Founders and their progeny actually quickly eradicated the intuition. That's right, quickly. Abolition was hotly debated during the drafting of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It seemed, rightly, ridiculous to say that all men are created equal, but then continue to enslave a large percentage of the population. The issue never went away, and less than 74 years after the ratification of the Constitution, 620,000 American soldiers died in the Civil War. Hundreds of thousands of more civilians died indirectly from war, famine, and disease, and still tens of thousands more perished during Reconstruction. The Civil War is, still to this day, the single most destructive war in the history of our nation, by several orders of magnitude.
Ten thousand years of slavery, abolished in the United States after 74 years. We are indeed a great and moral nation. In fact, slavery was abolished in the United States before it was abolished by Native Americans in North and South America, who held conquered opponents as slaves. It was abolished in the United States before it was abolished in Africa.
To view the institution of slavery without the context of the time period in which it was widely practiced is intellectually dishonest and creates an impossible standard of moral judgment. For example, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Andrew Jackson all owned slaves. They were in power, had an opportunity to use that power to end the institution and did not. By current standards, we should tear down their monuments. But what about Woodrow Wilson? He was an early promoter of eugenics, an ideology also embraced by the Nazis and used to justify the Holocaust. He too should be stricken from our history. What about Robert Byrd, Hillary Clinton's mentor in government, who was a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan? There should be no glorification of him. Franklin Roosevelt interned 100,000 Japanese, depriving them of due process, their property and in many cases, their lives. He and the Supreme Court justices who supported that racist and un-Constitional decision should be stricken. What about Christ? He could have come to Earth and condemned the institution of slavery, but He did not. Perhaps all Christian monuments should also be stricken.
Slavery is and has always been a morally indefensible and evil practice. Many human beings have sacrificed their lives, across many cultures to end slavery. Many Americans gave their lives and continue to give their lives to protect the civil rights of others. Today, we have had the benefit of 300 years of Enlightenment thinking. To condemn historical figures for failing to recognize that which to us is so obvious now, is improper.
A Political Lack Of Perspective
Ambassador Andrew Young, by every measure one of the greatest men still living in our country, recently said that fighting to remove the Confederate Flag from Georgia may have been a mistake. He went on to say: "I think it's too costly to refight the Civil War." He said that flags and statues are just symbols and, "I'm always interested in substance over symbols and if the truth be known, we've had as much glory and agony under the United States flag."
Ambassador Young has perspective. As I wrote some time ago in Man and His Symbols, it was the American flag flying when General Sherman exterminated Native Americans living in the West. General Sherman, of course, was a Union general known for burning his way to the Southern coast during the civil war, resulting in the displacement and deaths of tens of thousands of Southern civilians. It was the American flag that flew as we dropped atomic bombs on civilians in Japan, firebombed Germany and Tokyo, and "relocated" villages in Vietnam. These symbols are a reflection of who we are as a nation, both good and bad. Eradicating them does not change our history. http://libertyswindow.blogspot.com/2015/07/man-and-his-symbols.html
I have spent my entire career in court both defending and prosecuting civil rights. I have, sometimes at great personal expense, helped African Americans find justice, and sometimes peace, by vindicating those rights in front of their fellow citizens. I know first hand that racism exists, and I know the enormous emotional toll it takes on a person to be the victim of racism. Those who think these laws are silly have never had grown men in their office, getting emotional as they describe the truly unfair treatment they've experienced as the result of nothing but the color of their skin. They lack perspective.
However, like Ambassador Young, I believe this focus on eradicating symbols covers up the real and systemic racial problems we still face as a nation. It blunts the impact of prosecuting real racism. It gives reactionaries an argument that frustrates our ability to bring real, current institutional racism to light. It is an ill advised attack on the wrong targets.
The vast majority of Americans, black and white, are not thinking about Charlottesville, or Confederate monuments, or Robert E. Lee or Donald Trump's press conferences. The vast majority of Americans are thinking about whether they can get up tomorrow and make it to work on time with their aching knees. The vast majority of Americans are thinking about whether their plant is going to close, or whether their children will make it to practice. They are thinking about whether they can pay the bills or whether they will have to move into a smaller home. Americans are worried about their kid's school, or maybe a child's addiction, or their own. Americans are thinking about the cookout they planned for this weekend, their marriage, their friend who is having an issue.
My father, who came from very humble beginnings, taught me the most important lesson of my life at a very early age. It doesn't matter where you come from, the color of your skin, or who your daddy is. We all put our pants on the same way in the morning, we all care about our families, our jobs, our kids. In the end, we have far more in common with one another than we have that divides us.
The current populist movement in this nation is a reflection of that reality. Coal miners in West Virginia share the same real life concerns as manufacturing workers in Ohio, or a waitress in Nebraska, or an out of work trucker in Kentucky. The governing elite have completely lost touch with the plight of regular Americans, focusing instead on the minutiae spoiled rich people have time to focus on. The media glorifies conflicts like Charlottesville making it appear that this is what Americans really care about. The coverage lacks perspective. It is not even accurate. It does not reflect the concerns of most Americans.
Politicians that focus on things like Charlottesville will not be in power for much longer. Americans have clearly had enough. As I've said before, Donald Trump is an imperfect messenger, but he is the only politician even willing to speak to the everyday issues facing most Americans. There will be others who hopefully will strike a more balanced tone. But, the vast majority of Americans didn't go to Harvard or know how to articulate their positions in perfect language. Most Americans do not expect that from their leadership either. I give you as Exhibit A, Donald Trump. However, underestimating his support, or condemning his supporters will be the final mistake most current politicians and pundits will make in their careers. The needs of 99% of Americans can only be ignored for so long.
Perhaps it's time to keep things in perspective.
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