Quick Disclaimer: This is not Nancy. I (Derek, Nancy's husband) wrote this, but didn't really have any way for it to be visible online (I couldn't figure out how to post a pdf to Facebook). Anyway, all that to say, thanks Nancy for letting me use your blog.
Second (not quick) Disclaimer: I don't usually like to participate in online discussions. Not that I think that there is anything wrong with them, it just seems that when it comes to significant topics they mostly go in one of two directions:
1. People of similar perspective shouting into their silos about how right they are and how stupid the other side is, or...
2. People of different perspectives shouting at each other about how stupid the other is.
While this obviously isn't always the case, I would much rather (and do) have these types of conversations in person. I feel like this allows for much better give and take, non-verbal communication, and nuance. Maybe there are some people who are able to adequately communicate in online forums, but I feel like my communication ability is unclear, incomplete, and lacking in context unless I can just look at someone's face and talk with them.
However, online is where these discussions are happening in the broader context, and for this reason, I feel compelled to participate. I don't think that what I have to say is anything new (I have read several articles that articulate the ideas better than I could hope to), but I hope that this will stimulate some thought and discussion that leads to grace and empathy.
So I pray that if anything comes from anyone reading this, it would be that they are moved to sit with someone new and really hear them. Hear their perspective, and really soak in it. The more I try to do this (poorly sometimes), the more I see that I always have more to learn. Everything around us is much richer and complex and painful and beautiful. It's easy to see things simply. It's just not enough.
(end of disclaimers)
Monuments
What Do We Choose to Honor and Why?
As events have unfolded in our country over the last several months revolving around Confederate monuments, I have not been able to stop thinking about the idea. I have heard a wide variety of viewpoints on tv, in social media, and in person, and here is my best attempt to put into words my thoughts.
First, I suppose I need to say for context’s sake that I am a white male, born in Nebraska and raised since age 5 in Oklahoma. Honestly, these statues are not a concept that I have thoroughly considered until the last several weeks, mostly due to the fact that I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Confederate monument in person (or if I have, I was unaware), but my first question is simple: Why are they there? Before speaking to why these particular monuments exist, I think it’s important to ask why monuments in general exist. Generally speaking, I think it’s fair to say that monuments serve memorialize a specific event or greater concept, typically to evoke an emotion based on the tone of the statue. There are monuments in remembrance of a tragic event, such as a statue remembering the Trail of Tears featuring a mother next to a makeshift grave, in which the emotion evoked is sorrow for what took place. On the other hand, there are monuments (which I would think that most fall into this category) that are celebratory, with postures of nobility, strength, courage, and victory. These serve to evoke feelings of pride and honor for the event or idea represented by the statue.
Now to the specifics of these particular monuments. I have heard several supporting opinions (direct or indirect) ranging from “to remember/learn from the past,” to “because it’s part of our history,” to “honor our heritage.” To these replies, I have these questions: What about the past are we remembering? What about our history are we choosing to honor?
If the purpose of the statues are to “learn from the past” and “not make the same mistakes,” then why are the tones of these statues so obviously celebratory? Did anyone designing or building these monuments look at them and think “what an unspeakable tragedy that millions were enslaved and murdered under the idea that one human has the right to own another.” Surely the tone of the statue and this sentiment aren’t consistent. I would challenge someone making this argument to find a statue meant to “help us learn from the past” that features strong images of the inflictors of the tragedy rather than those who were afflicted. In fact, the majority of these statues were not build immediately after or during the Civil War, but 40-60 years later at the height of Jim Crow and the KKK. (http://www.businessinsider.com/confederate-statues-meaning-timeline-history-2017-8) These statues were not created in a vacuum. They were built in a time of significant pushback against advancement of rights of the Black population such as voting, due process, and equal protection under the law, and often in specific locations (courthouses, etc) where the continuation of their inequality was most evident.
If the follow-up is then, “it’s not about the intension of the builders, it has a different purpose to people now.” That very well may be true to some extent. I doubt that the majority of the supporters are supportive because they want to emphasize the continued domination and oppression of the Black population. However, what is it that these statues will help avoid or help to be learned. Surely literal slavery is off the table, so if not that, what? To me (and maybe it’s just me), this argument then sounds like “we need these monuments honoring people who fought for the world view that Black people are inherently and naturally inferior to us (and so we should then own them) to remind us that we are all equal and should treat each other well.” I’m sure that’s not the intention of the speaker, but I feel that this it is a highly illogical thought process.
As to whether the Confederacy = racism, I don’t believe that this is a North = good, South = evil situation. There is certainly a case to be made that it was easier for the Northern states to let go of slavery because their economy was not nearly as dependent on the institution, and they utilized political influence to use slavery as a leverage point to gain power over the Southern states and their resources.
However, framing the discussion around states’ rights versus over-reaching power of a central government doesn’t change the point that the Confederacy was fighting for states’ right to determine that it was acceptable and right to own other people and treat them as cattle. While I’m sure there was a wide spectrum of individual beliefs of Southerners at the time, these are the words of Alexander Stevens, Vice President of the Confederacy in his “Cornerstone Address” on March 21, 1861:
“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science.”
Also, to the point given that “you can’t judge them by today’s standards;” this is certainly true to some extent (It must be noted that this point assumes that when discussing the standards of that time, we are talking about White standards, ignoring the views of the millions of enslaved people who I’m sure felt that slavery was wrong). BUT, the United States was far from the forefront of culture change in this regard. The Abolition of Slavery Act of 1833 abolished slavery in the entire British Empire. Abolition had been a worldwide topic for decades, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom) , and the Founding Father’s (the late 1700’s) even utilized compromises to delay the addressing of the topic of slavery for a period of time in order to convince the Southern states to ratify the Constitution. This was not some new concept that they hadn’t had time to consider.
So then, if it is established that the cause of the Confederacy hinged on the belief that they (White Southerners) had the right (and were willing to fight for it) to own and do whatever they please to other men, women, and children, and that the statues erected to honor the war heroes and leaders who spearheaded this cause were created in a time and manner that had the effect of punctuating the truth of continued inequality and oppression, where does that leave us today?
While I hope that it is evident that support of the cause of the confederacy (even if Slavery was just the central point of multiple points, it was the self-stated central position), there are those who still want to “honor the past.” I honestly believe that the significant majority of people who support these statues today don’t feel the way they do because they want to emphasize a continued gap in the execution of justice in our society, so what value do these statues bring that are worth memorializing. It seems to me that there are two main factors.
1. It does not feel threatening or hurtful, so it doesn’t really feel like anything needs to be done.
While I know that not everyone who is supportive of the monuments is White, I feel that it is safe to assume that the significant majority of non-White Americans either feel negatively or, at best, neural/indifferent towards them. If I am being honest for myself, it is easy for me to fall back into a perspective of indifference in issues such as these because the weightiness of these topics is one that I can choose to ignore if I don’t want to think about them. This is generally not the case for those who don’t look like me in America. If we cannot admit as White Americans that these are memorials to figures who fought for the right to enslave (Civil War), which were often later used as symbols of continued superiority, power, and violence (Lynching, Jim Crow, Civil Rights Era – only 50 years ago), and that this had and has real effects on our fellow citizens, we will not be able to understand why it matters.
2. It is human nature to want to honor our ancestors.
I think that this is the larger point. I have no biological ties (that I know of) to the Confederacy, but I think that we inherently want to be proud of who we are and where we came from. This is a good thing. Southern Whites should not be exempted from being allowed to be proud of their ancestors, but why choose to celebrate the themes and ideas central to the Confederate cause of the Civil War (Slavery)? I am not enough of a history student to know without researching, but surely there are figures that struggled for noble causes, causes worth celebrating.
Speaking of celebrating, have you ever wondered how many monuments there are celebrating the emancipation of millions of Americans? Sadly, I had not until these last few months. Even more sadly, there are strikingly few. (https://www.vox.com/first-person/2017/8/16/16156540/confederate-statues-charlottesville-virginia). If there were one thing that everyone should be able to celebrate, it would be that men, women, and children were literally released from their chains. What does it say that this is not something that is visibly celebrated?
In the above referenced article, it describes countries in the Caribbean and South America that have monuments honoring the emancipation of slaves, and the thing that appears most different about those countries and ours is that they are predominantly populated and governed by people of color, whereas the United States is not. I think that this is a matter of perspective and power. In those countries, the citizens of power and government visibly celebrate the liberty of the slaves because it is obviously a beautiful thing to celebrate, but also because they are the descendants of those slaves. However, in this country, many of the citizens of power and government (especially in the regions where the monuments are most prevalent) are the descendants of those who were forced against their will to release their slaves. We must consider, as a country, what events and virtues of this time period are most worth celebrating.
It is said that history belongs to the victors, and so that begs the question: Who were the victors here? I am not suggesting that the Confederates and their descendants should not participate in the telling of the history, or that only one group “gets to tell the story.” To the contrary actually. I am suggesting that this discussion is important because the narrative in dominant, mainstream culture and education regarding the Civil War was driven by the group that remained in power (White people), whether Northern or Southern, and as a result will be projected through that lens. Seeing something through the lens of our own perspective is a natural thing, but the story can’t be comprehensive unless we recognize that our vision is not entirely objective, and that voices from the other side of the experience are equally valid and equally true history. The goal should not be to eradicate the view of one to replace it with the other, or to continue to allow one to dominate at the expense of the other, but to TRULY give both equal weight, time, and legitimacy.
Again, I am certainly not for “re-writing history,” or “erasing history” as some have said, but I think that there is a difference between studying/knowing a part of history and glorifying it. We must ask ourselves what we are choosing to glorify, and why. History as it is passed down is never comprehensive, at least from a point of emphasis perspective.
Every day, we do choose.
I don’t think that it is honest or helpful to speak in binary terms when we are speaking about the human condition. I would imagine that many Southerners who knew deep down that the cultural norm was wrong, but the idea of the devastation of their economy, political status, and identity was enough to justify or just ignore that feeling. And before we snub our noses, how often do we use functional reasons to justify our inaction regarding what is right, if only on a lesser scale? Obviously, this is not a defense of slavery or of silence in its presence. Men and women of that time and place were called to speak and act for truth and justice, even when it hurts.
But, so are we. Right now.
The current state of justice in our city/state/country is not something that can be solved by words on a page or screen, and even if it were, I would certainly not be one wise enough to do it. But we have to ask ourselves, in what way am I called to speak and act today, even when it hurts?
I can’t answer that question for anyone other than myself, but I know that in order to ask that question honestly, especially (but not exclusively) as a white person, I must be willing to accept that the lens with which I have viewed our society is not comprehensive. There are perspectives that I do not, and cannot have. I must trust others to educate me in experiences that are not my own, and believe that those experiences are as valid as my own, even if I don’t (especially when I don’t) understand.
Lastly, I feel that I must speak specifically to those who are my Christian brothers and sisters. Our highest aim and calling is not what is spoken and taught and insidiously permeated throughout our culture. We are called to be holy (set apart) and fearless givers of grace. For we have been given Grace fearlessly. Given the Way, the Truth, and the Life, fearlessly. Any mindset that pulls us away from knowing Him and making Him known is a lie and an unsatisfactory substitute. We must speak hope and grace and salvation to a world that needs it, just as much as we have and do, as well as to give of ourselves, even when it hurts.
How that plays itself out in each of our daily lives is at the leading of the Lord, but I was moved by Micah 6:8 in this context. “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
