“This glorification of States Rights Doctrine—the right of secession, and the honoring of men who represented that cause, fosters in the Republic, the spirit of Rebellion and will ultimately result in the handing down to generations unborn a legacy of t Continue reading NO TAXES FOR CONFEDERATE MYTHS→
The Washington Post recently published a story (READ IT HERE) that took place where I live , Randolph County, North Carolina. It features local people but it is actually about President Donald Trump’s support of racism. Similar stories can be found in towns, cities and rural areas
To enter our historic courthouse for a meeting of the County Commissioners, one must walk past an armed Confederate Soldier who fought to preserve slavery. It’s perceived as a racist message by many descendants of slaves.
all across America. For reasons unknown to me, the writer picked the story of the Trogdon family and our community to make her point: overt racist activities are on the rise; and the President of the United States has encouraged it. Continue reading LET’S MAKE RACISM UNACCEPTABLE→
President Trump’s remarks about “Shithole” nations and his desire for more immigration from (white) Northern Europe are a perfect contrast to our January 15 national day of recognition for Dr. Martin Luther King Junior – born January 15, 1929. Except for an assassin’s bullet, he might have celebrated his 89th birthday today. Instead he was killed before reaching the age of forty.
Click below to hear singer-songwriter Patty Griffin’s reflection on Dr King’s final speech and what his final prayer might have been before he died
Dr. King is rightly remembered as a principal leader of the civil rights movement that brought legal equality for Americans of African descent, at least on paper. The struggle to fully achieve the promise of equality under the law continues to this day.
Today, I think it is important to remember that in his final years, Dr King had expanded his mission and ministry to encompass two additional concerns: He supported and expanded the peace movement that sought to bring American troops home from our military incursions into the affairs of other nations, principally Vietnam. The second new subject was economic justice. He saw, even in the 1960s, the concentration of extreme wealth among a few privileged Americans while laborers were unable to support families. On the day that he was killed, he was in Memphis to support the demands of sanitation workers for improved wages and working conditions.
Dr King was not abandoning his civil rights mission. He was expanding it. The war affected everyone, regardless of race, through unnecessary killing and through the waste of economic resources that could have been used to improve American lives. Economic inequality and injustice to working Americans affected minorities disproportionately but it was abundantly clear that a permanent, generation-spanning economic underclass existed in every race. Insulting labels from that era such as “poor white trash” and “nigger” have not lost or changed their meaning in the half century since Dr King’s death. They still refer to people who have had few opportunities for economic and educational advancement. They are the victims of an economy and a nation that has no need for their limited skills and little motivation help them find opportunities. How different, really, are the problems of the white Appalachian coal miner, the rural southern black, and the small town and urban workers of all races who lost jobs to automation?
Dr King saw clearly that we can all succeed together by creating opportunities for personal and economic growth through education and social safety net programs. How ironic is it that Norway (the nation from which President Trump would like to have more immigration) has done what Dr King suggested? Proponents of creating those programs here in the US are often derisively called “socialists”. It is precisely because of those socialist programs that very few people want to leave Norway. People like it there. Not only do they share their wealth, they have more to share. In Norway, the average economic output per person is $70, 392 compared to $57,436 for Americans. What a surprise! A nation that strives to provide opportunities for everyone is more productive than one which ignores the needs of its poorest citizens.
Americans have responded to our problems by forming a circular firing squad – shooting (sometimes literally) at each other rather than lifting each other up, as Dr King would have taught. Now we have elected a President and a Republican congressional majority who have cut taxes on corporations at a time when corporate profits are at record highs; cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans at a time when they already own a greater share of our national wealth than at any time on record; and will borrow money that we all have to repay in order to fund their gifts to the wealthy. They also plan to drastically increase military spending for the longest and arguably least justified wars in American history.
Unfortunately, I must agree with President Trump that there is indeed a “shithole”. He and the Republican congress are pushing us into it. We’ll have to climb out using the remaining resources that they haven’t wasted. We can do that if we will quit blaming the victims of poverty for their condition and begin focusing our efforts on creating opportunity for every American to achieve her or his full potential. Success in that endeavor will be the measure of a great nation.
In a conversation about the state of our world, a friend asked what my subject would be for a “Christmas column”. My immediate reaction was cynicism. It seemed unfitting to celebrate Christmas in a world where borders matter more than starving refugees, where the wealthy get a tax cut paid for with borrowed money, and where self-professed Christians in movements like Aryan Nation Church of Jesus Christ and Westboro Baptist Church preach racism and intolerance in Jesus’ name.
A day passed by before it occurred to me that Jesus was born, lived and was crucified in a world not so different from our own. His teaching, preaching and example were about living in a flawed, unfair and sometimes hostile world. What better time and place to celebrate his birth, life and sacrifice than here and now, in our own darkness? The light that he brought to his world can brighten our own.
The land where Jesus lived was ruled by the most powerful military force of its time, the Roman Empire. They allowed significant local autonomy as long people paid taxes to the empire and didn’t attempt insurrection. Regional government was based on Jewish religious laws under Roman supervision. Political and financial power were often abused. The temple tax, owed by everyone, enriched the high priests. It also paid temple employees including musicians, janitors, decorators, guards and those who sold animals for sacrifice. They sustained the mystique of the temple and the belief that High Priests could influence God through rituals. Little tax money trickled down to the poor.
There were a lot of itinerant preacher/teacher/rabbis in Jesus’ time. People were angry, especially in rural areas where taxes were collected to support Rome and Jerusalem while poverty reigned locally. Jesus directed his ministry to the poor, the working class, the disenfranchised, and much of the time he simply ignored Rome and Jerusalem. He recruited fishermen, laborers, and other common people as followers.
Stories of his work include miracles to benefit the sick and poor. The lepers who were healed were outcasts under Jewish law. The prostitutes (identified as “sinners”) with whom he reportedly dined at a tax collector’s invitation are thought to have been hired as after-dinner entertainment – women who had only their bodies to sell.
Jesus did far more than heal and feed people. He taught a better way of living that became a movement. It was based on two principles – love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. Today people sometimes debate what “God” and “neighbor” mean. Nevertheless, Jesus’ teaching is so clear that we can apply it to our 21st century lives.
It’s almost as important to recognize what Jesus didn’t do as what he did. Did Jesus ever pray for rain in the desert, military defeat of the Roman invaders or other intervention in daily life? He taught others to pray for enough food to get through the day, forgiveness of sins and recognition of temptation – nothing more. He never tried to enforce his values through civil laws. People were free to follow or not. He never asked for contributions to build a cathedral, a megachurch or even a small one. Nor did he urge placing a monument to the Ten Commandments at every courthouse.
Jesus cared about individuals but he also spoke to and about government when he overturned the money changers’ tables where the poor were legally cheated by a government sanctioned religion. He engaged in civil disobedience to save the life of a woman caught in the act of adultery. The prescribed penalty was for her to be stoned to death. Jesus halted the stoning with this challenge, “Let anyone who is without sin cast the first stone.”
Who was this man who changed our world so much? Once, when he was asked, he replied with a question of his own, “Who do you say that I am?” Do you say he is Son of God, Messiah and Savior? Or is he a teacher whose powerful ideas will, if we follow them, allow us to live peaceably together?
Regardless of our 21st century answer to his question, his birth, his life and his sacrifice are worthy of celebration. By applying his teaching today we can bring light to a dark world.
Are we willing?
Permission for use of this Hugh Haynie cartoon was granted by the Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, College of William and Mary
“Lest we forget” – That inscription is carved into the stone foundation upon which a bronze Confederate soldier stands, fully armed, at the entrance to the public building where my County Commissioners meet. A century and a half after the Civil War, it’s time to free this young man, probably a draftee forced to fight for the long defunct Confederate States of America. And it’s time
Confederate Soldier at Randolph County Courthouse
to move ahead in creating the future of the United States of America. “Lest we forget”, the outcome of the Civil war was preservation of the Union, our nation, and it’s flag to which we pledge allegiance. The failed purposes of the Confederacy included breaking that Union – treason.
Some argue that we can’t (or shouldn’t) change history. Certainly they are correct that facts and events of history are what they are. We fought a long and bloody civil war. Its events are well documented. The statue was placed to honor the memory of Randolph County veterans who served the Confederacy. Those are facts of history that we couldn’t change even if we wanted to.
There’s more to our history than a list of events and dates. The war arose from a conflicting sense of right and wrong – values – regarding slavery, economics and national unity. Today our decisions about whom and what our government will officially honor are based on the values of today’s Americans. Change is part of our history, as it is for every nation and civilization.
When Rome became a Christian empire, it replaced the statues of Greco-Roman Gods with statues of saints and old-testament figures. They didn’t change the facts of their history or the mythology of Roman Gods. They did change who was honored in public buildings.
When Germany lost World War II, the Allies took down many Nazi era statues and symbols. The Germans removed the rest from places of honor but they relocated some and re-interpreted their history. German schoolchildren are required to visit museums and learn the horrors of Nazi rule – lest they forget.
The slogan “Lest we forget” comes from a Rudyard Kipling poem about the military conquests of the British Empire. Its original meaning in the poem is similar to the maxim “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” We should keep that meaning in mind today.
Here in North Carolina, the majority of citizens voted against secession. In Randolph County, the reported vote was 2579 against secession and only 45 in favor! They did not want to dissolve the Union or join the Confederacy. But in order to preserve slavery, the basis of their wealth, legislators seceded from the union and joined the Confederacy – overruling the will of voters.
Then the Confederacy created a military draft. North Carolina provided more soldiers than any other Confederate state. North Carolina’s Governor, Zebulon Vance called the conflict “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight”. There were so many draft resisters and deserters in Randolph County that the Confederacy imposed martial law. If our statue represents a Randolph County soldier, there’s a good chance that he was a draftee, not a volunteer.
Surely there were many Tarheel soldiers who fought courageously for the Confederacy, as German soldiers did for the Third Reich. Today’s values judge that their sacrifices were on the wrong side of history – in support of slavery and in absolute opposition to the proposition that “…all men are created equal.” Confederate statues and battle flags are part of our history but they don’t belong in places of honor financed and maintained by the governments of free people.
Blood has again been shed over white supremacy, and it should come as no surprise to see Confederate battle flags waved by people shouting Nazi slogans such as “blood and soil”. White supremacy ideology was suppressed but now its advocates parade on our streets carrying clubs reminiscent of the axe handles distributed by racist governor Lester Maddox of Georgia. Our President’s election campaign was eerily similar to George Wallace’s nationalist/racist campaigns in 1964 and 1968. Both railed against polite (politically correct) conversation and both helped unleash pent-up racist rage.
We may never be totally rid of supremacists, but our government should not honor their ideas with statues, license plates and flags. Lest we forget, issuing license plates with Confederate battle flags and honoring Confederate heroes on public property is honoring both white supremacy and treason against the United States.
Today I am publishing word-for-word nine responses to last week’s column about “Silent Sam” because they reveal white supremacist beliefs that persist in our community and nation 150 years after our Civil War. I’m doing this for two reasons.
We can deal effectively with racism only after it is visible.
Our best hope to successfully deal with racism lies in developing personal acquaintances and friendships with people of other races – bonds strong enough to tolerate frank discussion of personal experiences.
Maybe a few readers will share this with friends and use it to begin a dialogue. If so, I would be pleased to know about your experience doing that.
I must add that there were readers who agreed and others who did not and who made civilized responses. What follows are only the ones written from a white supremacist perspective.
