I had a great car in high school. I still remember it fondly as the slack mobile. It's long dead & gone but I still remember it, even without a monument to it. History books used in schools (mostly written in the 1950's, that have had little to no updating done) don't mention me or my car. It doesn't mean we didn't exist or that I never happened, we were just not significant to the writers of the book at the time that they wrote/updated the history. I think that my life matters.
Can you see where monuments are not the only history that we have? History books have omitted a lot of things over the years that the men who wrote them didn't want to remember, so they wrote them focusing on what was important to them at the time. As we have matured in our thinking and understanding it is time to adjust the things that we have held onto as being our heritage and history. It is not that one group is owed something, or that one group is going to rise above the over but rather we are at an intersection that calls for a merging lane, and both sides need to yield!
I do not believe that the friends on my social media pages are really neo-nazi supporters but I see them re-posting things about "What's next? removing the pyramids?" or "Washington had slaves too!" or probably the hardest for me to understand "Black Lives Matter are thugs who are just as racist as the KKK." I also have friends on social media who say "Where are the cops? IF BLM protested they called in the National Guard!" "All cops are racists!" It makes me wonder if they don't secretly believe that ALL WHITES are racists too? (We're not!)
I actually feel like I do have an answer, not just lamentations! First, white people need to realize that white privilege IS a real thing. We need to understand that being equal is not being "over ran" or "replaced." Secondly, I tried to explain on social media that Robert E Lee was a general for another country. Jefferson Davis was the president of another country. The confederate flag was the flag of another country. When you look at it like that it does seem silly to have a monument to them here in our country. That would be like Texas having a monument to Santa Anna who was the defeated president of Mexico that once owned this land, and people flying the Mexican flag on poles in their yard! It is time to let that part of history live on in textbooks and not monuments glorifying that time in history. Thirdly, it's time to do a self analysis of why all of this makes you so angry. What is it that causes you to become so angry that you lash out at others or say/post something that you KNOW is hateful, hurtful and wrong but you think it's "too funny not to share."
Likewise, on the other side of the isle, if you want to protest that BLM, please understand that not all whites are racist. It's just as wrong to condemn "all" of anyone. I don't really have a lot of suggestions as to how /what you can do to help unite our nation. I don't know what it is like to be black in America. I am not qualified to offer you suggestions, but please be willing to talk to me and other whites who are earnestly seeking an end to this hate.
Jant.
