Chasing Off Haunts

Lee Monument pedestal June 5, 2020 (my photo)

In June of 2020, Richmond's Fan District residents found themselves living at the epicenter of a cultural earthquake. The demonstrations here that erupted in reaction to the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis gathered a spirit of outrage and focused it on a local controversy about old statues. Once galvanized, that spirit chased most of the city's Confederate statues off of their pedestals, pronto.  

Like plenty of others who grew up in the shadows of Richmond's Confederate memorials, I had been hoping for a long time the era for tolerating the galling platform of lies that supported the "Lost Cause" viewpoint would end during my lifetime. It was stubborn to the very end, but now it's easy to see that a year ago it ended.

When last summer's self-appointed statue-removers pulled down the Jefferson Davis statue that blatant act was naturally seen as an anti-Confederate statement, as well as an anti-racism statement. However, upon reflection, now it seems to me more was at work. After all, Davis had been atop his imposing Monument Avenue perch since 1907 ... then poof! 

Immediately, folks all over town started marveling at how easily the relic came down. Richmond's most mocked statue was kaput. Then the air cleared and the City began removing Confederate statues. Since last summer's purge of statuary it has been plain to see that those around here still noisily pushing the Lost Cause mindset have now become a wee minority. 

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However, as it happened, the night before the toppled Davis bronze struck the pavement, a partying mob yanked the Christopher Columbus statue from its plinth in William Byrd Park. The Columbus statue was then dragged down a hill and dumped in the park's Fountain Lake. Still photos and videos of the rude ceremony showed up on Facebook, which documented the rather mirthful tone of the occasion for anyone to see. 

In my view that act of defiance was not just spotlighting Columbus' now tarnished image as a heroic figure in history. Part of what prompted those two unauthorized statue-removals was a rejection of the concept of forced reverence that was in the air. 

A good part of the energy for that rejection seems to be coming from 16-to-35-year-olds who now appear to have developed the modern equivalent of a William Tell attitude. Somewhat like Tell, the 14th century legendary Swiss archer, when they find themselves confronted by today's equivalent of Albrecht Gessler's hat, they simply can't stand being compelled to show it respect. 

Fast-fowarding to more recent times, with his taking-a-knee gesture, Colin Kaepernick was right. Forced reverence should be challenged.   

As a Richmonder who has lived near the Robert E. Lee Monument for a long time and has given the subject of public art some thought, it looks to me like the era in which most people have had a sort of automatic sense of respect for heroic sculpture depicting yesteryear's political celebrities is on it last legs.    

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In March of 2021, Gov. Ralph Northam signed the law (which passed overwhelmingly in the General Assembly) to banish the statue of Harry F. Byrd from the grounds of Capitol Square. That's the same Harry F. Byrd, who, for decades, ran Virginia's statewide political organization that ruled -- the ultra conservative, anti-union, pro-segregation Byrd Machine.

On June 8, 2021, the Virginia Supreme Court heard arguments aimed at blocking the removal of the statue of Lee, still presiding at Allen Avenue and Monument Avenue. The plaintiffs want the Court to reverse Gov. Ralph Northam’s order to take down that state-owned memorial. The Court's decision seems likely to be revealed soon and we'll see what follows. 

Meanwhile, the Byrd statue was hauled off on July 7th. Which demonstrated that the quake of cultural change which began on the Fan District's streets last year is now being felt by most of Virginia's most powerful politicians. 

What to do with all the statues currently in storage is being studied. It should be and there's no good reason to rush to apply an artificial deadline. When it comes to considering the installation of new statues of whoever happen to be popular today, let's not rush into that either. It's also worth remembering that public art doesn't always have to be a 3-D depiction of a person (usually a man) striking a corny pose.   

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Hopefully, by now most Richmonders have accepted that because of last summer's cultural earthquake, the city took steps toward a brighter future. Yes, some good things happened. And, in a charged atmosphere with such upheaval underway, many bad things that could have happened, didn't happen. That should be seen as to the city's credit. 

Now a special challenge is facing us: Assuming the Lee statue is eventually removed, there are weighty decisions to be made about the future of the Lee Monument's graffiti-adorned pedestal. That, as well as the surrounding grassy circle that picked up a new name last summer -- the "Marcus-David Peters Circle." 

That site's central role in the story of chasing off Lost Cause and Jim Crow haunts is something worth commemorating. At the very least, that circle could become another of the Fan's distinctive little parks -- a place for a peaceful respite for travelers on foot. Maybe with a fountain? 

Anyway, if we're lucky, wise and creative heads will come upon the right call to make concerning the fate of the pedestal and the circle. And, as we wait to learn what's shaking with the mammoth 131-year-old Lee memorial, we can already say with a smile, "Goodbye Columbus and bye bye, Byrd."    

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Pickled History

When pundits, politicians and poseurs complain about "erasing history," particularly to do with dismantling Richmond's Confederate memorials, what in the world do they mean?

Are they really suggesting that most folks will simply ignore Stonewall Jackson's contributions to history, such as they were, because his equestrian statue on a plinth no longer looms over a busy traffic intersection?

Likewise, when some Virginians say they want history to be taught today, just as it used to be taught in the Commonwealth during their youth," are they talking about the teaching of verifiable truth or warmed-over propaganda? It seems the current brouhaha over Critical Race Theory is mostly about trying, once again, to perpetuate a version of the past that never existed.

Most of my life has been spent living in Richmond's Fan District, which used to be home to four statues on pedestals honoring heroes of the Confederacy. During last summer's statue purge three of them were removed from their pedestals -- Jackson, JEB Stuart and Jefferson Davis. With its now famous, graffiti-covered base, the mammoth Robert E. Lee Monument's fate is still tied up in court. 

To know what it was like in Richmond in the past, we look to old stories handed down, discussions with family and associates, popular culture sources, schooling from lectures and books, etc. Speaking of local history, now I’d like to better understand the slave market business that once thrived in my home town. Until the baseball stadium controversy put a spotlight on that evil truth, most Richmonders I know had no idea how significant that market was before the Civil War. Since that particular aspect of Shockoe Bottom's gnarly history seems to have been rather effectively covered up for generations, wouldn't it be useful to know more the burial of that story?

Accordingly, isn't it about time to shine a new light on how our history books were cooked in the 20th century. A fresh and thorough look needs to be taken at how the truth was systematically processed into Lost Cause fantasies. 

For instance, in 1961, my seventh-grade history book, which was used in all of Virginia's public schools, had this to say at the end of Chapter 29:

Life among the Negroes of Virginia in slavery times was generally happy. The Negroes went about in a cheerful manner making a living for themselves and for those whom they worked. They were not so unhappy as some Northerners thought they were, nor were they so happy as some Southerners claimed. The Negroes had their problems and their troubles. But they were not worried by the furious arguments going on between Northerners and Southerners over what should be done with them. In fact, they paid little attention to those arguments.

Well, in 1961, I had no reason to question that paragraph’s veracity. Baseball was my No. 1 concern in those days. Now, of course, those words of pickled history read quite differently than they did 60 years ago. 

Living through the struggles of the Civil Rights Era, with its bombings, assassinations, marches, sit-ins, boycotts and school-closings, did much to open my mind, to do with reality and fairness about racism. 

However, for me, there was no moment of epiphany, no sudden awareness of how I was growing up in a part of the world that officially denied significant aspects of its past. More than anything else, it took time. Life experience taught me to seek out credible sources and to look more deeply into things, in general.

In 2021, I know that old history book, crafted in the early-1950s by malleable "historians," hired and directed by the General Assembly, was an other essential cog in the machinery that maintained the Jim Crow Era. And since that same history book was used for a long time, that made sure yet another whole generation of Virginians was subjected to what was a traditional, systematic torturing of the truth about the institution of slavery, causes of the Civil War, its aftermath, etc.

Yet, while the aforementioned Virginia history book has been retired, along with other foolish throwback movements, now there are mischievous calls for once again teaching pickled history. Let's make damn sure that isn't done. 

Moreover, regardless of what has been done in the past, it’s our civic duty today to do the right thing in our time. In 2021, Richmonders of all political persuasions should find a way to band together to put truth itself on a pedestal.

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Addicted to Choice

Note: A version of this piece I penned in 2004 was published by STYLE Weekly in that year. Regarding the premise, in spite of the pandemic, not all that much has changed.

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Obsessions, compulsions and addictions have always been in play. Now we see a somewhat new twist in driven behavior: In a time of plenty, many Americans seem to have become addicted to the act of choosing between this and that. This group has unwittingly developed what amounts to a jones for choosing from a smorgasbord of options.

Yet, as with any buzz, when it subsides the anxious feelings it allayed return with a vengeance. Thus, choice addicts find themselves living in a continuous loop of making choices in order to cope with their habit. While this is somewhat about consuming, it's really more about just choosing.

Of course Madison Avenue, the great facilitator of this shoppin' 'round the clock scenario, has long depicted “choice” as utter bliss. Choice has also been a hot political buzzword for some time. 

To a person wanting to express a belief that a woman is absolutely entitled to opt for an abortion, choice is a useful word for a slogan. It implies that ending the pregnancy is a matter of a person having dominion over her own body, rather than submitting to an authority claiming to represent society’s collective will. Of course, those calling for “choice” in this case see the individual’s right to choose an abortion as trumping whatever damage, if any, might be done to society by the abortion.

The notion that it should be fine for any citizen to pull his tax money out of the funding of public education, in order to finance sending his own child to private school, has been called “choice” by its advocates. While this argument may appear, at first, to be resting on logic, it ignores the long-held American tenet that everyone in the community has a stake in public education, regardless of how many children they have.

In both cases, the sloganeers show a telling awareness of the lure the word “choice” has today. Perhaps this is due to some new collective sense of powerlessness in the air. Or maybe the scam aspect of selling folks their own freedom is as old as dirt.

In “One-Dimensional Man,” German-born philosopher Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) warned us in the 1960s about illusions of freedom: 

Free choice among a wide variety of goods and services does not signify freedom if these goods and services sustain social controls over a life of toil and fear.

Marcuse’s keen eye saw the counterfeit aspect of the processed brand of freedom wielders of easy credit felt, even then, as they exercised their prerogative to select one set of time-payment obligations over another. Marcuse laughed at a man feeling free to choose between a new Ford or Chevrolet, then being chained to years of monthly payments. But Marcuse’s hard-nosed take on what he saw as controls over modern society is out of style today. Still, his view of how language is predictably used by a few of us to manipulate the rest of us remains as valuable as ever. Propaganda works better than ever.

French diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord’s (1754-1838) words on the topic of language remain crisp today. Talleyrand offered: 

Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts.

British philosopher/mathematician Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) went further: 

Speech was given to man to prevent thought.

OK, so tricky lingo has long been used to shape perception. However, as a true believer in the unfettered streaming marketplace of ideas, I expect tortured language and agenda-driven slogans to come and go. My point is that the act of choosing should not be so highly valued that it comes at the expense of appreciating what happens after the choice is made.

Some folks put a lot of store in choosing the perfect mate. They shop and they shop. But from what I’ve seen, it's what couples do after their choice/commitment that has more to do with the success of the relationship than the perfection of the choice, itself. Of course, some just keep shopping, vows or not. They can’t stop shopping and choosing.

Can constantly switching TV channels for hours really be a more satisfying experience than watching one interesting program? Well, the answer probably depends on whether you value what comes after the choice. After all, in order to be able to surf 200 channels, as opposed to only 50 or 100, customers gladly pay extra, although many of them never watch any program in its entirety.

Much of television’s most popular programming feeds its audience a steady flow of information about people who act as if they have genuine clout -- rich celebrities who cavort about with enough bread to buy anything. Then, quite conveniently, every few minutes, commercials interrupt the program to offer the viewer/schlemiel a chance to un-jitter their jones by calling a phone number, or getting online.

Anytime your options are limited to what’s on a menu that was put together by someone else, by choosing from that prepared list you are surrendering some control to the list-maker.

And, the mountain of disposable schmidgets grows, evermore, as choice addicts cast off yesterday’s tarnished urge, to grab after today's sparkling urge ... just to get through the night.

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