This Is What We’ve Been Waiting For…Maybe
We are who we’ve been waiting for.
The Alabama governor has ordered the flag to be removed, and statues of Confederate leaders and founding fathers are being debated to come down all over these United States of America. This may not be the violent revolution that some have called for, and is certainly not the “quiet assimilation” that some meekly whisper for on the other. It’s the second concrete step forward (along with the election of the “black” President with the Muslim name, and his very “black” family representing America in the White House) I have seen in my 33 years of an America recognizing all of its citizens.
What We’ve Been Waiting For
My grandfather loved history and politics and lived in a segregated North Carolina, served in a segregated military, and lived in a segregated and “desegregated” Baltimore after his service working in the coke ovens at Sparrow’s Point. I can only imagine what he would think of today. As people are aghast that we are not only questioning confederate monuments, but monuments of our founding fathers, I can only think is this it? Not in whether monuments, names, and flags come down or not, but in the very questioning of how we have arrived to where we are as a nation and where we want to go. Is this the first step by all people in saying that, in spite of having done good, we can do better?
How should we view our Founding Fathers, creators of this nation? “Men” as referred to in the Bill of rights seem to literally only refer to men, and a particular type of man, a white man. The history needs to be acknowledged, commemorated, studied, built upon, and most importantly learned.
Personally, I would prefer if there were a few less Jefferson Davis Highways, Christopher Columbus High Schools, Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridges. I think they should all be replaced by anyone, including women and people of color, who strove to make the United States a more free and equal place within our history for all, but it’s not my call.
The value in all of this to me is in the conversation we are now having concerning the truths and misconceptions that are essential in understanding what it means to be an American today. That’s what Killing The Breeze is all about.
