Those of you who follow my humble little domain on the internet
might have noticed a slight absence recently. This happened for a few reasons,
namely that I was out of the country for much of May and the beginning of June.
Never fear, constant reader (and intermittent reader, because I’m fairly sure
my only constant readers are my mother and grandmother). I am back, and I’m
going to try to post more regularly than I have been the last few months.
My escapade through Trump’s America was a (relative) success.
I saw some incredible things, met some wonderful people. Aside from hoeing a
field, meeting an elderly civil rights activist, and accidentally seeing the
orange man in the flesh, I got to spend a lot of time in museums contemplating
memory and history, the role these things play in our everyday lives.
All of us, regardless of how or where we live, are affected,
in one way or another, by the stories of those who came before us. Museums,
hallmarks of how a particular area chooses to remember its history, shape that
memory. Take, for instance, Richmond’s Museum of the Confederacy. This example is
incredibly relevant, given the controversy that has been
steadily
growing around Confederate monuments. A blatant shrine to the separatists
of the Civil War, my impression of its visitors was that they had little
exposure to the darker side of Civil War history.
Yes, these people think, of course the Civil War involved
slavery. But it wasn’t about slavery.
The war was fought by a brave few who wished to preserve their state’s
independence.
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| First time hoeing a field... |
Yes, perhaps state’s rights was an aspect of the War: the
right for a state to condone slavery. And yet it is not hard to see where skewed
understandings of history, like the example above, come from. If all one
understands is the history one is shown, that being a skewed story that excuses
a racialized institution of slavery, it is to be expected that such history
becomes the dominant memory of the Civil War.
It is for this reason that Confederate memorials and
Confederate flags are being removed. Not to dampen the spirit of state’s
rights, but to avoid condoning the continued manipulation of cultural memory.
Such attitudes must no longer be normalized. By moving these artifacts to
places where they can be viewed in a well-rounded context, we are helping to
avoid this normalization.
So, there’s my two bits for today. Read history, and read
all sides of history. Try to understand where the other is coming from. Whether
you are Jeremy Corbyn avoiding disaster in the general election or a hard core libertarian
arguing with your leftist friends, try to see the other side.
On that poorly written and sleep deprived note, stay tuned
over the next few weeks as I try to post a bit more regularly.
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