The problem with this nostalgic view of the 1950's is that it was, as nostalgia always is, a veneer. It was a shallow notion of a different time, one of a blatant discriminatory and misogynistic pre-civil rights era America, that was no more pure and moral than times in which we live. The problem with passing this sort of nostalgia off as history, is that it is a revisionist retelling of history without context or consequence.
My son, who is 8, was taught about some history in school. The inherent trap of teaching history is that you cannot possible teach all of it, and that it is ever expanding. My son was taught cute facts about our founding fathers and the presidents. He had an idealized view of these historical figures, because he was only given a surface level nostalgic view of people and time periods. One day not so long ago, I watched tears well up in his eyes as he discovered that George Washington was a slave owner. Nobody in school had told him that fact, they told him only that George Washington was a hero, a president and a face on money.
It broke my heart to see my son's reaction to finding out this fact about our 1st president. The idealized nostalgic view of history he had learned was suddenly replaced by a hard truth. My son is African American, he like many others in this countries, has a family tree in which his ancestors his "heritage" includes names on a property sheet and the great genealogical brick wall that surfaces when attempting to access any census records prior to 1870. On a side note, I recommend to any white person who truly wants to become anti racist, study African American genealogy, understand the devastation and loss that is shown in records or lack thereof. It may change your paradigm from wondering "what is wrong with black America" to thinking "what a testament to the triumph, endurance and sheer will of African Americans, that they have done as well as they have."
It is a hard truth that so many men we practically worship as founding fathers, were what we would consider today to be human traffickers. Yet today in the United States, there are countless streets, schools, churches, colleges and even states, named for these men. They are even on the very money that we are forced to use.
History is full of very flawed men, guilty of inexcusable acts of cruelty. Yet so often, instead of honestly portraying these men as they were, we engage in a similar yet much darker revisionist nostalgia that gave rise to 50's restaurants and Happy Days. In so doing, we ignore the totality of history and instead cherry pick what we want to believe, often becoming apologists for our own fore bearers and ancestors.
In Richmond, we've seen the recent toppling of several confederate statues. I'll admit that I am inherently uncomfortable with statues and iconography that seeks to elevate the status of past leaders. I am wary of the heritage not hate argument that is floated so often in defense of the confederate flag and these confederate leaders. Yet my argument in what I see as a very shallow and dismissive defense of the confederacy, which admittedly also forms a part of my own heritage, is that hateful actions cannot be separated form heritage, they are a part of that heritage. This too is a form of nostalgic cherry picking.
It is not my job to define historical figures as bad or good, to do so would also be engaging in a form of revisionism that I am careful to avoid. Historical figures did what they did and were responsible for the totality of whatever legacy they left, yet so often our society and educators fail to present a complete version of a person. In the absence of historical accountability, nostalgia creates a convenient narrative that serves only to form a tradition of denial and create a false chocolate nougat covered coating, betraying that whatever lies beneath is a heaping pile of garbage flavored garbage.
As I said, I am ever wary of statues and monuments to individual people at baseline, it is admittedly an strange perspective for a Catholic (a church whose own historical reckoning could launch 1000's of condemning blog posts). There are thousands of statues all over the world to people who don't deserve them. Statues are always erected with an agenda. One of the first acts of dictators is create statues of themselves, their agenda in doing so, is remarkably clear.
As for the confederate statues that adorn, or formally adorned Richmond. These statues were erected during the Jim Crow era, to honor the heroes of a false narrative, that narrative being the great Lost Cause, defeated in the War of Northern Aggression. Make no mistake, the Civil War was about the preservation of slavery.
The US Civil War was about states rights, to preserve slavery. It was about preserving the southern way of life, to continue allowing slavery. It was about the economy, that was dependent upon the forced labor inherent in slavery.
It is bizarre to me that those who glorify the Confederacy and argue that it is their heritage (as it is mine), have such a difficult time understanding that the glorification of their confederate heritage is painful to the ancestors of slaves. This is prime captain obvious territory for me. It requires only a preschool level of empathy. It is also bizarre to me that the ancestors of confederates, as I am, so lovingly glorify the confederate cause.
Yes most of us whose ancestors fought for the Confederacy, have relatives who did not own slaves. At the time of war and in the antebellum period, most southern whites were poor and illiteracy was common. It stands to reason that many of the young men who fought for the confederacy simply did so because it was expected of them. There is also a revisionism to how these soldiers were ultimately remembered.
The economic system of the antebellum south was abjectly devastating for African Americans. Yet this same economy was not beneficial for poor whites either. This system of slavery suppressed wages and opportunities for poor whites as well. Most of the soldiers who went to war for the confederacy were poor and like in most wars, consisted of poor kids fighting a rich mans war for the right to preserve their riches. So is it ultimately honoring our own white-southern heritage, to glorify these rich men? Is it a service to our ancestors to glorify these wealthy landowners who sent poor white boys out to fight a war to preserve the economic and cultural systems that benefited only the wealthy and powerful?
A full understanding of the events of history and historical figures, is to understand the complicated relationship we have with history and heritage. It is precisely for this reason that we need to think and deliberate, before we make history our hero. Ultimately our engagement in nostalgia undermines our historical understanding and the purpose of learning history in the first place, that purpose being to learn from our experiences, not to glorify and venerate the experiences of others. What we may find ultimately, is that when taken in totality, most of the people whose statues we erect and defend, are really not all that deserving of the veneration.
Ultimately it all makes we think of a question to ponder. What is our reason for being here? Why are we here if not to learn and do better? As a Catholic it makes me think of the concept of purgatory. Purgatory is, among other things, a place of cleansing and learning. I wonder what these men, whose statues stand among the living, would think of themselves and their legacies now, in light of what they may have learned and who they may have become?
No answers, just questions, just things that make me go hmm!
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