Dispatch #412: Some Thoughts on Racism

 

  Recently, an online controversy erupted when right-wingers angrily rejected the notion that Black folks can't be racist. As I see it, their problem stems from a continued refusal to acknowledge systemic racism. 

  Look, Black folks can exhibit racial prejudice against white folks, but while such behavior is bigotry, it isn't racism, for the simple fact that racism = prejudice + power.

 For Blacks to be considered racist, they would have to systemically benefit from that bigotry, and in the history of the USA, only one group has ever benefitted from such a system: white folks. 

  Of course, right-wingers also like to whine about "racism against white people"— which is not only something that doesn't exist (see the helpful formula two paragraphs above) but on Jeopardy would probably be known as "Things White Supremacists Say".

  To summarize: black folks can be bigoted, but not racist. White folks, on the other hand, can be both (re: Elon Musk and Bill Ackman)

  As an eternal optimist, I continue to believe that someday all of us will live together free from the blight of racial strife—but when one side fails to even acknowledge the existence of systemic racism, that struggle remains an uphill battle.

Update: Just read this interesting article from the UK's Guardian which contains this very pertinent quote:

 There's more to come in the next dispatch.

 ©2024 SummitCityScribe

249: Misguided Monument

 

Fort Wayne's Civil War Monument in Lawton Park.

 Allen County has had a monument to its Civil War dead since October 1894, when the one pictured above was dedicated in what is now Fort Wayne's Lawton Park. A plaque on that monument identifies it as a "Tribute for the patriotic citizens of Allen County who fell in defense of the Union 1861-1865". You can read more about the memorial here and here.

Of the over 4,000 soldiers Allen County sent into battle to defend the Union, 489 were lost. Two members of my own family served in Indiana's 85th Infantry Regiment (Company C) and lived to return home. A third Midwestern ancestor was not so lucky—captured by the Confederates, he died in their notorious Andersonville prison.

Because of that family connection, I was angered by the recent unveiling of a brand-new memorial at the Veterans National Memorial Shrine and Museum on O'Day Road in Fort Wayne.

The new "War Between the States" memorial

Rather than simply honor those who from Indiana who served in defense of the Union, this new monument stands for all veterans in The War Between the States—a term, by the way, which originated in the American South. 

An online article over at fwbusiness.com even states the monument was designed "to honor soldiers who fought and died in that conflict on both sides". In addition, the slab displays a map highlighting both the Union States and the Confederate States as well as blue and grey soldier's caps.

To me, this smacks of the very fine people on both sides comment made about Charlottesville back in 2017. The U.S. Civil War was a conflict between the States loyal to President Abraham Lincoln and the Union versus the rebel Confederate States who seceded from the Union and took up arms against it. Those Confederates—traitors who fought against the U.S. Army—were responsible for the deaths of over 300,000 Union soldiers (including my Midwest ancestor who died in Andersonville). 

The idea that there is now a memorial honoring Confederate soldiers in my hometown of Fort Wayne, in the historically Union-supporting state of Indiana, is outrageous to me. Any Civil War memorial in Indiana should only honor the brave soldiers who left their Hoosier homes to defend the Union, not the Confederate traitors who killed nearly 500 of those same men. 

There's more to come in the next dispatch.

©2023 SummitCityScribe