The Black Lives Matter movement has recently made significant progress in righting some of the wrongs that Blacks have endured for a long time.
It intensified with the killing of a Black man, George Floyd, by a white cop in Minneapolis. The outrage was focused on police brutality, racism, the lack of police accountability, inequality and the indifference of the cops on the scene. Subsequent protests — some of which turned into riots — spread across the entire country. Many whites marched in common cause with Blacks.
The BLM protests came at the time when the country was already undertaking the task of removing and/or renaming all things Confederate. But that is not easy. There are 10 U.S. military bases named after Confederate general officers. Nearly 180 schools in 17 states are named for Confederate leaders — 53 of them named after Robert E. Lee. Across the country, there are 1,446 streets and highways named after Confederate leaders. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there are nearly 1,800 parks, buildings, ships, cemeteries, government buildings and other structures named after Confederate officials, and 775 of them are monuments and statues. It has even been proposed that the images George Washington and Thomas Jefferson on Mount Rushmore be removed, as both were slave-owners.
The focus of BLM is on slave owners from the country’s beginning and their enablers through the Civil War and after. Although not generally reported, there were several Native American tribes that fought for the Confederacy. In fact, each of the five Civilized Tribes fought on the Confederate side, and some were slave owners.
A kind of “Native American Lives Matter” effort also has started. While Black slaves were clearly treated inhumanly, the Native Americans were victims of genocide. That begs the question of whether Native Americans should demand the same or a similar response as the BLM.
I don't know if there are any monuments or statues for those who participated in the massacre of Native Americans, but to the extent genocide is as bad or worse than slavery, then, to be consistent, they ought to come down too. And it's already started. A statue of Stand Watie, a former Cherokee chief and brigadier general in the Confederate army, was removed from its place in the Cherokee Nation’s home in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.
Then there are the Asian Americans and the Latin Americans who also have felt the wrath of the European invaders. Any recognition by monument or otherwise of those who perpetrated barbaric crimes against these groups should also be removed.
Most of these history-altering efforts are evidence of an evolving morality. Slavery was once ordained by devout Christians. The idea that, “the only good Indian is a dead Indian,” as Gen. Philip Sheridan said, was perfectly acceptable by white Americans of the time. Thankfully, the ethos has changed over time. But we tend to apply current moral standards retrospectively.
America was to be a melting pot where all races, ethnicities and cultures could assimilate — e pluribus unum, from many, one, as our motto used to say. But that noble cause has never really materialized. We have become a heterogeneous society, a mix of many different tribes. To borrow from George Orwell, all tribes are created equal, but some tribes are created more equal than others. Maybe one day we'll become a bit more egalitarian. Or not.
On Sept. 1, 1877, as the Oglala Sioux Chief Crazy Horse sat smoking the sacred pipe with Sitting Bull, he offered this wish for the future:
“Upon suffering beyond suffering: the Red Nation shall rise again, and it shall be a blessing for a sick world. A world filled with broken promises, selfishness and separations. A world longing for light again. I see a time of seven generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the Sacred Tree of Life and the whole Earth will become one circle again. In that day, there will be those among the Lakota who will carry knowledge and understanding of unity among all living things and the young white ones will come to those of my people and ask for this wisdom. I salute the light within your eyes where the whole universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am that place within me, we shall be one.”
Four days later, Crazy Horse was assassinated.
Herb Van Fleet, a former Joplin resident, lives in Tulsa, Okla.
The Link LonkAugust 23, 2020 at 08:00PM
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Herb Van Fleet: The dream of America as a melting pot remains unrealized - Joplin Globe
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Herb
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