Some people seem to think they’re immune to change – and some of them live in the Tennessee State Legislature:
Protesters rallied outside of the Tennessee state Capitol Wednesday after lawmakers voted to keep a bust of a Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan leader on full display in the capitol, following arguments that removing it would erase history and could be offensive to some.
A House committee in Nashville voted 11 to 5 Tuesday to continue displaying the bronze bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, which has survived public protests and demands for its removal since it was erected in 1978.
Venita Lewis, who helped organize protests outside the Capitol this week, argued that keeping symbols of racism and white supremacy on public display does nothing but hurt current and future generations of Black people. [HuffPost]
Not to mention the families of those who voted against the proposal yesterday, if current societal trends continue. My Arts Editor remarked last night that it seems to her that the younger generations – we’re both nearing sixty – seem far more open to change than the older, more invested folks, and of course that’s no surprise. Middle-aged white guys are deeply resistant to change even when it’s to their, their family’s, or greater society’s advantage.
And this, of course, is easily countered:
The bust of Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest was likened to a monument to Adolf Hitler. Supporters said removing it would erase history.
A monument out in a public park, symbolically overseeing public life, is an honor for the person serving as the model of the monument; it is also a warning to those who consider themselves enemies, passive or active, of that person and to what they were closely associated.
However, a monument in a museum is shorn of that implicit power; indeed, it has been symbolically neutered, because museums are places of putative knowledge and societal interpretation. Stick ol’ Forrest in a history museum, and none of that history is lost, but now an interpretation that emphasizes his lack of humanity and consideration for the black community of the day can be made public, while any glorious connotations can be mentioned but, since they appear to be all about violence, not emphasized.
That’s what the racists and Confederacy groupies really have to fear. Monuments needn’t be lost, just removed from their positions of power.
And while I should stop here, this idiot really needs to be slapped upside the head with a history book:
“It was not against the law to own slaves back then. Who knows, maybe some of us will be slaves one of these days. Laws change,” [Rep. Jerry Sexton (R)], who is white, told the legislative panel. “But what about the people that I represent, that it will offend them if we move this? They’ll be offended. They won’t like it. But it doesn’t seem to matter.”
By the time the Civil War came along, the moral questions surrounding slavery had been resolved throughout nearly the whole of the Western world – except the American South, which clung to the wealth they made off of the slaves’ deprivation of liberty while rejecting the obvious moral conclusions. This is well known, Rep Sexton; your argument is disingenuous and should never have been deployed.
And be a fucking leader. Part of being an elected official is representation, but another part is to stand up and lead, to take part in the public discussion on an important subject. And if you really believe Forrest should be honored with a public monument – erected in 1978! – then perhaps it’s time you retired and let someone who understands morality & ethics better than you do the leadership thing.
