The Reconciliation Monument: It’s time to cancel “cancel culture”
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By Robin Ferruggia
??????????? The U.S. Department of Defense is moving forward with plans to remove portions of the ?Reconciliation Monument in Arlington Cemetery in Virginia that depict a controversial scene in a bronze frieze connected to it. The portions of it that are going to be removed will be relocated.
The decision was made by a bipartisan Naming Commission created by Congress in response to protests over the murder of George Floyd by Black Lives Matter and during on ongoing effort to remove Confederate monuments It is adamantly opposed by many Republican members of Congress, the governor of Virginia, and others. The governor of Virginia wants the monument relocated to New York.
The dispute appears to center upon the life-sized figures depicted in a bronze frieze on the monument that some perceive as supportive of the Confederacy and not a genuine effort of reconciliation.
A lawsuit filed in an effort to prevent the removal of the monument was dismissed a few days ago on the grounds of insufficient public input.
Whether the Reconciliation Monument supports reconciliation or supports the Confederacy remains in dispute despite the decision, and is driving yet another wedge between opposing groups and reinforcing the divisions driving the country apart.
What is happening with this monument should give one pause as to the ongoing role of “cancel culture,” which has taken hold in this country and continues to subject history to judgment, as though history is a reflection of good and evil and needs to be “corrected” by imposing contemporary values on historical events.
There are many articles about the disputes over the significance of the Monument. ?
In one of them, The Nation magazine, Erin L. Thompson states in what appears to be an opinion piece (but that the magazine does not ?identify as “opinion”), that it is a “lie” to portray slaves as loyal. She interprets the bronze frieze on the monument showing “a Confederate soldier handing his baby to an enslaved nurse, who weeps to see him go, and an enslaved valet stoically marching alongside his master” as a “mythological” portrayal of the relationship between slaves and their “masters,” and therefore,? in her opinion, justifies the removal of the monument.
She then justifies her opinion and implies it is a fact based on what she alleges is “totally debunked” by a historian named Kevin Levin in his book Searching for Black Confederates.
But there have been innumerable books and articles written on the subject of slavery in the South, and I suppose you don’t have to look hard enough to find one that supports the opinion you want to put forth. Slavery was indeed a controversial practice that became more so as we moved into the Industrial Revolution and created machines that could do the work slaves were doing inexpensively.
It may be an unfortunate attribute of human psychology to not be sensitive to the pain being inflicted upon others as long as those others are perceived as being necessary to provide goods at low cost.
It is to be expected that different authors had different perspectives on the subject.
But the relationships between slaves and their self-proclaimed “masters” can also be understood, as can many things, in the writings of those who lived in the South at the time.
History is not the Bible. It is not a “morality play.” It is a record of the past, of things that happened and how people responded to them. It is something for us to learn from. It is not about right vs wrong, and thus cannot be “corrected” by cancelling parts that do not align with contemporary opinions by some groups intent on judging what constitutes “right” vs “wrong.”
Although the people who lived through the Civil War are dead, they left us remnants of how slaves were perceived and the nature of the relationships between them and their “masters.”
One of the most prolific authors of the time was Mark Twain. Mark Twain was honest to the point of cynicism, he called it as he saw it. He wrote both fiction and non-fiction. He did not write fantasy or science fiction.
Mark Twain’s portrayal of the relationship between Huckleberry Finn and the slave, Jim, does support the reality of relationships between white people and slaves that were benign, caring, loyal and compassionate.
“Huck and Jim begin Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as companions. As the novel progresses,?they grow into friends and look out for each other. Finally, Jim acts as a father figure to the boy, protecting him from the sight of his drowned father and watching out for him.” (study.com)
“Jim, fictional character,?an unschooled but honourable runaway slave?in Huckleberry Finn (1884) by Mark Twain.Oct 20, 2023” (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Jim)
This does not mean that the stereotypical version of slaves being cruelly beaten, abused and even sometimes killed by their “masters” did not actually co-exist. What it means is that different ways of relating with each other did co-exist.
Thus, it may indicate that the people who supported the creation of the Reconciliation Monument were, in fact, not “lying” in their representation of their relationships with slaves. Many different meanings can be inferred in the intent of the frieze. The fact that the people of the time and their leaders saw the Reconciliation Monument as a testament to a genuine desire to come together says a great deal, but that does not appear to make much impact upon those intent on applying “cancel culture” and justifying making anything they don’t approve of disappear.
But it doesn’t disappear. It scars the present by deepening the divides between us.
If we have learned from the past, we can choose to do something different.
Although at this point changing to a more constructive path is unlikely, we can create a statue that reflects our contemporary understanding of the importance of black and white people coming together and moving forward with mutual respect and dignity in a manner both sides see as sincere.
Perhaps such a statue can be dedicated, and placed side by side with the Reconciliation Monument on Martin Luther King Day. In this way, we show mutual respect to each other’s positions, and add our voices to the past, not try to silence it.
We do this kind of thing all the time. It’s called an “update.”
We don’t need to tear down every statue or burn every book that is perceived by one group or other as somehow offensive.
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Removing the Reconciliation Monument will not stop racism, nor will putting it someplace else remove racism from the military or from society in general.
More likely, as current history has shown, it may result in an increase in animosity between those who support the removal and those who see it as an important, patriotic and respectful effort supported by presidents Teddy Roosevelt, Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson to unite the country.
“Cancel culture” is not a way to unite the country. It’s a way to tear it apart. As anthropologists have pointed out, history has taught us that efforts at reconciliation and cooperation are what enabled the human race to survive as long as it has, despite conflicts along the way.
In the spirit of reconciliation, we can choose to leave the Reconciliation Monument in Arlington National Cemetery and add a statue that shows contemporary people coming together, accepting each other’s differences, and becoming the best they can be in the process.
Who said “Be the best you can be” in situations like this?
Michelle Obama.
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