Facebook, like most social media, has been a disappointment to me and I’ve taken to staying clear of it. But recently, after more than a half year’s absence, I did have an occasion to login and wish a friend well on a project. Naturally, I got sucked in…
It wasn’t long before I came across some attrocious posts. The most startling of which was one that reads, ‘So you tear down monuments that remind you of slavery… Then create a holiday to remember slavery‘. – Presented below with poster / commenters names redacted. (Although, I’m not entirely sure why I bothered, since, after all, they clearly shared this publicly from their accounts already. [I suppose, I want to make it less about the individuals and more about the flawed, ‘thinking’.])
I was tempted… SO TEMPTED to leave a comment to break down what is wrong with this, but wisely, I decided to not feed the trolls… Still, the stupidity of it was so overwhelming and the sentiment so sickening, I feel that I needed to vent somewhere, so… here we are.
The poster had written, ‘SMGDH’ = Smack my God Damn Head. – I volunteer for the duty!
I guess, for starters, I need to note how cock-sure the poster (and vast number of commenters) were, that this was a clearly an obvious sentiment and logical conclusion. And I’m struck about how cock-sure I am that this is unfathomably stupid and evil. But I’m going to outline the arguments and let the reader decide.
For starters, the poster seems to think that the confederate monuments are testaments against slavery, as opposed to being favorable memorials for the white supremacy, the confederacy and their traitorous and loathsome advocacy and support for slavery.
And / or, they seem to think that, the newly enacted federal holiday of ‘Juneteenth’ is an avocation in favor of slavery.
And / or that commemoration of liberty is equivalent morally to the celebration of the villains that tried to take away said liberty.
And / or that people simply want to, ‘forget that whole slavery thing already, so why are we making a holiday about it if we don’t also want statues… (?)’
When the reality is: the confederate statues are analogous to people erecting reverent statues for Osama bin Laden in the country’s town squares and then arguing that they’re there for the sake of ‘history’.
In this ever so slightly alternate world, not only would we have statues of Taliban leaders, nobly captured on bronze plinths and Taliban flags hanging from state capitals and as stickers on the bumpers of pick-up trucks, we’d also have memes that joked anyone who supported their removal couldn’t also, be advocates for the 9/11 memorial.
So, class, from the top:
• Statues to the confederacy are championing the leaders and concepts of people who advocated for the violent overthrow of the country, the subjugation of people, and in support of slavery.
• The Juneteenth holiday is in commemoration of the ending of the ugliest chapter in American history and is in celebration of freedom. (Editor’s note: I greatly prefer the other names for the holiday including Emancipation Day, Freedom Day and Black Independence Day which are far better ‘branding’.)
• Summary: Advocates for the holiday do not want slavery forgotten. They want to celebrate its defeat. They do not want to put slavery’s champions on literal pedestals.
“These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, and the terror that it actually stood for.”
~ Mitch Landrieu
Savvy?
Time to logoff of Facebook again and read a book.
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