Tuesday, August 15, 2017

…and now a word from our sponsor



I live in the Capitol City of the Commonwealth of Virginia. A town of 200,000+ folks of all ages and colors and backgrounds and oh yeah, 150 years ago this was the Capitol of the Confederacy. You know the Civil War or as referred to down here, that time of Recent Unpleasantness or the Northern Aggression or the War Between The States, even though we are a commonwealth. The Rebs could have picked any town like Roanoke or Norfolk but they decided they’d settle for the city that had a citadel on the hill designed by Thomas Jefferson and gave us “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” by Patrick Henry. There is a lot of history here.
Well the recent events in this land I’ve lived in all my life have me reflecting on the past and the future.
This city does have some gigantic statues, monuments if you will, to that time when the Cause was lost. The city was burnt and occupied after years of isolation and depravity.
From what I can understand, the soldiers came home and picked up the pieces and rebuilt and started over under regulations and learned a new lifestyle and the little town grew.
Still there was resentment as in any lost. Check your blood pressure after your team loses.
Idols were created and monuments built and a heritage of belief that the South Would Rise Again was formed and it was called ‘Jim Crow’. Economy was still in the hands of the white folk so people still knew their place and as long as you played your role, everything was fine.
Then the government of the United States (that included the CSA) decided to make it a law it was illegal for people to have to use separate bathrooms.
The tradition of what was an acceptable daily interaction between ‘races’ made the War Between the States seem like a cakewalk.
If you didn’t like the change then federal troops were brought in with fixed bayonets. The change came and schools were integrated and then women made their stand and then gays and then….
It was a time of change.
The Stars and Bars were put away no longer displayed in parades and football games. Any reference to what some said was a heritage became a museum. Still proudly these statues stood tall and proud on what is called Monument Avenue. They became a familiar a sightseer attraction for visitors and forgotten by the locals.
I’ll add that growing up in the ‘former’ Capitol of the Confederacy was an education in intolerance, it was a lesson learned. Yet Stonewall Jackson rode high next to my church.
So now up in a mountain village an invasion came to preserve a block of cement and metal. If this had been a group of artisans declaring the statue a work of art rather than a symbol of bigotry, would there been a battle?
 The folks who showed up for this past weekend’s confrontation are truck drivers, factory workers, students, fathers, sons, and daughters. That guy might be throwing your burger or processing your driver’s license. He might be picking up your trash or she might be caring for your grandmother.
They all will go back home and declare victory that feeds their anger.
So take down all the monuments to history and hide them under the rug or place more and more statues like a cemetery.

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