Category : Blogs

Sub Category : Politics

To all my white Southern brothers who are having a hard time understanding why many African Americans find public displays of confederate statutes offensive,  maybe this will help.

Say you're a sports fan. Visualize the worst moment in your favorite team's history. You know, the one you can't stand to see replayed. The one you try to avoid seeing at all costs.The one that always makes you slightly nauseous.

I'll go first. 1993 World Series. Phillies vs Blue Jays. Game 6, bottom of the 9th. Joe Carter hits a game winning, series winning walk off 3 run homer to defeat my Phillies.

Now imagine that every day driving to work, I have to pass a large outdoor Jumbotron screen in the public park next to the entrance of my office building. That Jumbotron plays one single clip exclusively, over and over in a continuous loop. That clip is Carter's walk off homer and his teammates rushing to surround him at home plate. For the love of God, make it stop! Please, just make it stop!

Okay, your turn.

This, I imagine, is what it may be like for many African Americans who walk past a statute in a public park glorifying a Confederate General. What is a statute for other than to glorify someone, you know, put him up on a pedestal.

I have heard some make the fallacious argument that statues simply represent history and to remove them denies history. I believe these Confederate statues and the Joe Carter Jumbotron screen belong in a museum, not a public park. For those of you who feel the need to see Robert E. Lee or Joe Carter, you should be able to do that, without question. Just see them in the proper setting, not an open public park where they assult the senses by reminding people of a horrible time in the past.