Yes, I know... what I've done right here, living in the Heart of Dixie, is damn near blasphemy.
So let me give you some history. Back in the day, I was the Personnel/Finance officer of the 3rd Battalion, 109th Armor. Our officer association was started before World War II and it was called "The Forrest Critters Officer Association," named for General Nathan Bedford Forrest who, for some reason, called the men in his command his "critters." I served as the Adjutant of the association for 12 years and as the Commandant for 2 years. Along with the title came a WWII vintage beaver service cap and a bronze ashtray shaped around a horseshoe that bore the names of all prior commandants. I was proud to be a member and proud to be the Commandant and I always will be. The men I served with were combat-ready, dedicated to this country, and sacrificed a lot to ensure its freedom. We were the best Armor battalion the United States Army has ever seen. I'm not looking for any thanks; just telling a story.
General Nathan Bedford Forrest, in addition to being a tactical cavalry genius, was, unfortunately, also one of the founders of the Ku Klux Klan. He founded it to combat northern carpetbaggers who were coming into the south to victimize the population after their defeat in the Civil War. When the Klan took on racist trappings, he disbanded the organization and disavowed all connections with it, but it lived on. He was the first former Confederate officer to embrace racial equality and oppose segregation. In 1875 he became the first white man asked to address the "Jubilee of Polebearers," a forerunner to the NAACP.
Now, that's history... and it's true.
Regardless, the Civil War was started by people intent on overthrowing the United States of America and one of the reasons it was started was because these people wanted to own other people. And what do we, in the south, call people we think want to overthrow the United States now? That's right--we call them traitors. So let's stop playing word games and be frank.
It's time for a major paradigm shift in this country. It's past time.
Take a look at Germany. See any monuments to Goebbels or Eichmann in Berlin? How about a towering statue of Adolph Hitler to "remember the past" that wasn't offensive to the descendants of the six million Jews he murdered?
Would that be okay with you?
Of course it wouldn't. Wouldn't be okay with anybody except a white supremacist neo-Nazi.
You can spin it any way you'd like, but the correlation between what I just wrote and a statue of Robert E. Lee in the center of New Orleans is exactly the same thing. So, it's not okay to honor Adolf Hitler because he's "part of history" when he killed 6 million Jews and it's not okay to honor Robert E. Lee because he's "part of history" when he fought to keep 4 million black folks in chains. You've got to understand that, right?
Sometimes irony is like Kryptonite to us here in the south. I hear a lot of folks complaining that "Black people just need to get over it--it's in the past" and these same folks have about a dozen mini-strokes when somebody wants to take down a Confederate flag.
So, who needs to get over it?
But see, I wasn't born in the south--so for some reason, I'm not supposed to get it. Well, I've lived in Middle Tennessee for around 50 years, so fuck you and your "you're not a real Southerner." Of course I am--ever heard me speak? Sure, if I have to, I can sound like a professor, but catch me working outside in the yard sometime and you'd think you were talking to Jeff Foxworthy. Just not as funny.
Along these same lines, when I came to Tennessee, I didn't see a single thing wrong with all the Confederate flags. They're kind of cool-looking, in fact. That doesn't make me a racist. And some of my friends in high school and college who had them tacked up in their rooms or apartments weren't racists, either. They had a Confederate flag, their fathers had one, their grandfathers had one, etc. Sure, some of these guys were racists, but that's not why they had that flag nailed into the wall next to the Farrah Fawcett poster. They had it up there because it looked cool.
The thing is, once you reach the age of reason, it's not cool. And it really doesn't matter what it means to you, it matters that it's offensive to somebody else. Why would you purposely remind someone that their forefathers were brought to this country in chains? Why would you purposely go out of your way to offend an entire group of people? Self-esteem issues?
Try this one on for size:
You're a Jewish teenager living in Berlin, Germany. You go to Adolf Hitler High School and there's a statue of Adolf Eichmann in the town center. Every day, you're reminded that these two asshats exterminated 6 million of your ancestors but the non-Jews in your town erected monuments to praise and honor them. Now imagine that you're a black kid in Mississippi who goes to Robert E. Lee High School and there's a statue of Stonewall Jackson outside your apartment building...
Sinking in yet?
Look, it's time to let this whole "honor our past" thing go, take down the statues and move them to museums or "national battlefields," rename the schools, stop claiming to "love America" while you're waving a Confederate flag, and leave all this stuff in the history books where it belongs.
No statues of Hitler in Germany, but nobody's forgotten about him. No statues of Pol Pot in Cambodia, but history still remembers him. Confederate soldiers and statesmen will always be remembered--we just don't need to venerate them or their cause.
There's something wrong with people who can't acknowledge a mistake... but there's also something wrong with people who can't accept an apology.
"Getting over it" is a two-way street but traffic's got to move.
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