“Like an open and inviting classroom, America is and always will be an environment ripe for learning…with hard lessons illustrating its growth.”
If there is one thing I am acutely curious of lately, it is where statuesque memorials are being sheared from the annals of American history. The details of each statue transitioned into an empty patch of land unfailingly involve illustrations of people clamoring for attention in the most unruly and grotesque ways. Vandalism using a lasso in the name of eradicating freedom-fringed pieces of America you don’t agree with? It seems counterintuitive. How does acting out with hostility somehow justly trump the reason to be purportedly hate-based and demonstrably hostile? Where is the rationale?
It is undeniably unimpressive to watch the antithesis to United States’ system of unity, taking an alt-route rife with abrupt, unsafe, physical turmoil despite the enormous risk to self and passersby.
America?
I watched the statue removal trend spread, at once thinking Oh, I read this one already — until I adjusted my reading consumption and realized newer episodes of statue-Houdini behavior is afoot.
Then, removals of statues segued to other categories of disassembling America. Petitions and filings with courthouses have been floated so as to remove Confederate billboards along the eastern seaboard’s I-95 corridor.
At the junction of I-4 and I-75 in Brandon, Florida is a huge confederate flag jutting high in the air. I have seen that flag for over two decades. It sits on private property —Confederate Memorial Park— and has been a fuse for contention several times. Lo and behold, it is in the news again. As Jacksonville.com reported, “Marion Lambert is unapologetic about the abundance of Confederate flags that surround him.” Mr. Lambert, 69, is the property owner upon which the flag flies.
Referring to the Charlottesville, Virginia melee, Lambert said, “It seems like we’re heading toward bad times — Armageddon.” Many more may share his diagnostics. Mr. Lambert does not hide his pride over outfoxing county government some time ago: “I tricked the county,” he says, referring to buying the land so that his intent to fly the Confederate flag could be done so without government interference. He intimates how the location was ideally suited whereby thousands of motorists per day will see the flag.
Heck, even the courthouses where petition affidavits are filed are subject to statue removal. That is uncanny and certainly a berserk one-stop-shopping ideal. I envision such a petitioner filing papers with a pen in one hand and a tool box of destructive apparatus in the other, like Bob the Builder in a destabilizing mood.
“We are on the precipice of engaging civil war in the name of forgetting one.”
For me, it is as close to home as it gets. Today I woke up to read that my beloved Brooklyn, a place where I grew up and will always refer to as “home,” is poised to unfasten every single street name having anything to do with the Confederacy and Civil War prominence. Boy, paper map printers and electronic GPS system manufacturers have some homework in store. As do NYC’s sign makers and workers who erect new signage, all at taxpayer expense.
To start with, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio authorized removal of a handful of signs whose streets are named after Confederate generals. On August 16, 2017 Mayor de Blasio proclaimed a 90-day review of “symbols of hate on city property.” The ball is rolling in Brooklyn.
Because it is a de jour item garnering traction across the land, many partake in erasing reminders of what mistakes, indiscretions and travesties culminated many years ago, in effect depriving any would-be inquirer a complete set of facts for anyone who wishes to tread painful memories so as to comprehend and grow in myriad ways.
It is tantamount to a Greyhound chewing off its own leg and expecting to cross the finish line before any others…and still be rewarded a prize bone.
Current Situation
Transplanted from skyscrapers to sunshine, the current situation has to do with where I reside now: Tampa, Florida. The Hillsborough County courthouse is located in the City of Tampa. The county commissioners held a council hearing and, the motion was to remove a Confederate statue on the external premises of the courthouse. One catch though: albeit divided 4-2 regarding public spending, the statue removal work is not to be fully paid for by tax dollars.
So, the donation process was launched and went, well, quite successfully.
As the story unfolded, a curious thing happened. The mayor of Tampa, Bob Buckhorn, put up $1000 of his own money —even though the statue is not in his governmental domain. Mayor Buckhorn cited it is his “moral responsibility” to contribute to the cause. The former owner of the Tampa Bay Storm soccer team, Bob Gries, fronted $50,000. The contributors’ list grew. The money poured in.
Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Tony Dungy added $5000. Mr. Dungy then challenged all Tampa Bay athletic teams —Tampa Bay Bucs, Tampa Bay Lightning and the Tampa Bay Rays— to partake in the fundraising efforts. As a quasi-repository, the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce collected $70,000 in donations from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers organization, the Tampa Bay Lightning hockey club, and the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team.
Then it got a tad testy. The Chamber of Commerce publicized opposition to private funding, lambasting county government for not expending tax resources to fund the statue removal.
Collectively, all three aforementioned teams released a statement, saying, “this monument does not reflect the values of our community.” Two city streets away from where this statue once stood for many years are the regular cadre of homeless folks whose rain-or-shine residence is Gaslight Park, roughly 20 yards from the front doors of Tampa Police headquarters. When referring to “reflecting values of our community” are we denying the human experience down the street or tacitly embracing it as an acceptable foundation of Hillsborough County?
The county commission gave a 30-day lead to aggregate the necessary funds for the statue removal. A local attorney headed-up the cause and tabulated a fundraising bar set at $140K. In one day, the till is filled with over $180,000. The work has already begun. In the interests of safety, work crews have constructed boards (safety barriers) around the court house statue in question.
If only such deep passions and endowed pockets were as focused and diligent in ameliorating circumstances of homeless veterans and/or starving children. We’d be organically holding each other up instead of bringing inorganic structures down. It flusters how swiftly we can disassemble rock and metals while we struggle (or turn a cheek) regarding lifelines for people suffering immensely right at our toes.
Can-do spirit is infectious. It is inspiring. It emboldens. It bonds people. But if it is rife with malice, obscenity, ill-will, anti-counter perspectives…what have we really accomplished other than more political pornography?
In time and without the Charlottesville violence and mayhem, Tampa’s Robert E. Lee statue will be un-perched in civil fashion, loaded onto a truck, and quietly carted roughly 20 miles southeast to a small family-owned cemetery.
Provocations and Provocateurs
It didn’t take very long for folks to realize and ask Why now? Why only now is it that these statues aesthetically weathered from when they were planted are…a thing to be immediately reckoned with? An observer need only prance around the US Capitol to see many historical silvers, bronzes, pewters, marble or granite materials molded in the shape of a figure relevant to our history. Imagine the Capitol’s politicos viewing these statues from their elected-office windows. Imagine further them strolling by on their way to lunch. Heck, how many even perched their bottoms against any of these historical monuments to take in the day and lend a few moments to watching pigeons peck for errant crumbs.
With all this antiquated furniture moving and landmass rearranging, our satellites in orbit have some editing to do.
“Take the u out of statue and you have state, 50 of ‘em, united by the Constitution, not divided by whim with self-sustaining sanctimony.”
Incidentally, legislation being considered seeks to outlaw “distracted walking” in Stamford, Connecticut. Should this law take root and go into effect, perhaps the only good thing is fewer statues for folks to walk into, getting extra distance on whatever occupies the mind at the moment. This law is already implemented in Honolulu, Hawaii. So, it may be coming to a crosswalk or cliff near you.
Liberal-minded lawmaking and anti-constitutional amending is going on in city halls and capitol venues nowadays. Vision appears blurred. Plotlines are zig-zagged. Scripts are changing before we can obtain and read what leaders have drafted. Evolution at a rapid clip is not evolution at all, but a blip on the pulse-screen of who demands what, without self-deferred gratification. Gimme, gimme, gimme is the rooting trend. In that context, many people lose, and that is not the equality so many are presently demanding.
As Chris Wagoner wrote recently on OpsLens , “We cannot pick and choose what amendments to the Constitution we want to honor and what we do not.” Albeit a ton of rhetoric, self-entitlement looms large nowadays, and it festers like the malignancy it truly is. We have a national game-book in our Constitution…and we are all on Team America.
Take the u out of statue and you have state, 50 of ‘em, united by the Constitution, not divided by whim with self-sustaining sanctimony.
Hillsborough County Commissioner Victor Crist nut-shelled the removal (relocation) of the 106-year-old Memoria en Aeterna statue in Tampa with these words: “Now the liberals should be happy it’s moving, the conservatives should be happy that the taxpayers are not paying for it, and the Confederate enthusiasts, while they will still be angry because it’s moving, should at least be grateful that it’s going to be moved safely and erected properly at a site where they could still go and enjoy it.”
The winds of change are disturbing the nation’s dust; some are allergic and some are not. We are on the precipice of engaging civil war in the name of forgetting one. We are exhuming historical artifacts to make space for the likelihood of newer ones. The scent of constitutional victory is not wafting the air, hatred is. Children are watching. Youngsters are surely impressionable. And our current state of national flux exemplified by the fire-branding in Charlottesville, Virginia is a bevy of lessons which have a high potential to haunt us…at the hands of young ones repeating the wrongs they were exposed to.
More and more are acting out of a mountain of hate. Instead of processing woes and emotions constructively many are signing-on for destructive operations, to the extent all parties are pushed to the brink. Refined responsibility or irrevocable irresponsibility is a choice.
How we pour toxicity in public venues is unwieldy for a child’s mind…and how (if) we settle tectonic shifts translates to happy feet on a grounded society. Whether we take six steps forward or four steps back, it will not matter when we are all on the ground scouring otherwise avoidable carnage.
Somewhat presciently, the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song “Teach Your Children” (1970) sums up cross-generation reliance, teaching, sharing love, and co-existing in peaceful accord among all ages, no matter the stripe.
Rock group White Lion exemplified my point in their song “When the Children Cry”:
Little child, dry your crying eyes
How can I explain the fear you feel inside
Cause you were born into this evil world
Where man is killing man and no one knows just why
What have we become just look what we have done
All that we destroyed you must build again
The winds of change are swirling with dire consequences. I am not a fan. Like an open and inviting classroom, America is and always will be an environment ripe for learning…with hard lessons illustrating its growth. The lesson plan? Hate begets hate; Love begets love.