Charlottesville and Lessons of History

Have we forgotten history, or just not been instructed in it? As a people, have we forgotten that prior to World War II, thousands, tens of thousands, of our citizens rallied in support of the German-American Bund, an organization dedicated to the principles of Nazi Germany?

It is not just today that we are confronted with a fringe element of society that harbors fascist thoughts that advocate white supremacy, anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia. It is part of our history.

Let’s face it. Buried deep in many an American soul there is latent prejudice. Maybe not outright bigotry, but definitely a feeling that some of our fellow residents are not as equal as we are. 

Over more than a century our culture has masked that bias, has tried to alter reality by substituting a sepia-tinged fictional record of history. From James Fallows of The Atlantic, I learned today on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show, that in the aftermath of the Plessy v. Ferguson U.S. Supreme Court decision of 1896, permitting legal segregation in public and private institutions, many Confederate Civil War monuments were erected until 1919 when race riots broke out in numerous cities. Yet Confederate monuments are still being built in this century, even in states outside the South.

The monuments revere men who fought to break up the Union, who believed it was God’s will to permit the enslavement of another person because they were inferior beings. 

Popular culture portrayed Southerners as high-minded, virtuous and chivalrous. No poor white trash among them, except one scene in Gone with the Wind when Scarlett O’Hara is assaulted as she tries to drive her wagon passed a camp of unemployed white men disaffected by Reconstruction, fiction’s link to today’s angry Trump alt-right supporters. Not to worry. The “good folks” of Atlanta knew how to deal with those miscreants. 

Few older movies portrayed slavery as a reprehensible assault on human dignity and family relations. Only in the last few years have we witnessed a collection of films from a black person’s perspective, movies such as Django Unchained, 12 Years a Slave, The Birth of a Nation (not to be confused with the silent film by D.W. Griffith that heralded the origin of the Ku Klux Klan). 

It wasn’t just the templars of Southern society who exuded righteousness. From 1959 to 1961 the TV show The Rebel, starring Nick Adams as Johnny Yuma, chose to portray the defeated Southern soldier as a knight errant wandering the West righting wrongs. Two decades later the General Lee, an orange Dodge Charger with a Confederate battle flag painted on its roof, was a prominent part of The Dukes of Hazzard. The Dukes fought the swamp of political corruption in their own comical way. 

(A personal digression: I watched The Rebel, but never The Dukes of Hazzard, though my father for some reason did. Indeed, when our son was young, less than 5, they would watch the show together. I found this out one day when we drove to a friend’s house and Dan asked to get out of the car “like the Dukes do.” I didn’t understand, so he explained that the General Lee had no windows so the Dukes would shimmy out through the window slots. I let him do it that one time.) 

No one is more exalted by Southerners than Robert E. Lee, the commanding general of the Army of Northern Virginia. Given a choice of fighting to preserve the United States, Lee, a West Point graduate, chose to fight to shatter it.

Facts have a way of hiding behind the seams of history. Take, for instance, the evil of slavery in the United States as I was taught in school. As you might recall from past postings, I attended 12 years of Hebrew school education. We learned to call it the Civil War, not the War Between the States, as Southerners preferred to categorize the conflict. But I cannot recall ever learning about Jewish complicity in the slave trade, nor were my classmates and I advised that Judah P. Benjamin, a Jew, was a prominent member of the Confederate cabinet, at various times serving as attorney general, secretary of war and secretary of state.

When a people are oppressed it is not uncommon for them to react violently to symbols of that oppression once it is lifted. Think back to the toppled statues of Saddam Hussein and the image of the man beating the sculpture with his shoe, a potent act of disdain in the Arabic world. Likewise, when the Iron Curtain was lifted, monuments to Lenin and other Communist leaders came tumbling down. Others were removed to less public places. 

Removing Confederate monuments from display in public places should be a priority for all levels of government.

The heritage of the South is part of our nation’s history, but it is not one we should venerate. As dedicated as the common Confederate soldier and their generals were, they swore allegiance to a vile, repressive society. There can be no excusing their treason and inhumane actions any more than one can accept a president of the United States, or any citizen, failing to remonstrate most violently and without equivocation against Nazi ideology. 

The moral authority of the office of the presidency and of the United States of America as world leaders has been tarnished and diminished by Donald Trump. 

Reporting the News: Here’s an interesting comparison of evening news outlets. Following Trump’s explosive news conference Tuesday afternoon, CBS News, currently anchored by Anthony Mason, devoted its full telecast of reports (roughly 21 minutes) to the ongoing coverage of the Charlottesville, VA, violence and its political aftermath. 

The multi-faceted story generated just 11 minutes of coverage from David Muir of ABC News. Lester Holt of NBC News spent 14 and a half minutes on the story.

Teaching Hate: Bragging rights for the most liked tweet of all time belongs to former president Barack Obama. He quoted former South African president Nelson Mandela: 

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion … People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love … For love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

A noble sentiment which reminded me of a song written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II for their Pulitzer Prize winning musical South Pacific. The 1949 musical included the following song, “You've Got to Be Carefully Taught,” a warning about racism. Here are the lyrics:

You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear

You’ve got to be taught from year to year

It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear

You’ve got to be carefully taught

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid

Of people whose eyes are oddly made

And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade

You’ve got to be carefully taught

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late

Before you are six or seven or eight

To hate all the people your relatives hate

You’ve got to be carefully taught

To hear it sung, click this link: https://youtu.be/l0Kam23fsMg

A Not So Warm Welcome Home

A perverse welcome home greeted the eight Israeli trauma care providers who spent the last two weeks enjoying R&R in New York and Washington, DC. Even before they boarded a return flight home, their country had to defend itself against Arab extremists who would deny its very existence. The storming of border crossings was not a message of support for Palestinian statehood. No, it was a repudiation of Israel’s right to exist, period.

While they were away, the Sha’ar Hanegev region they live in and serve, on the edge of the Gaza Strip, was mostly quiet. It’s doubtful it will remain so.

Just hours before she left Westchester, Orly, a social worker, related to me a family story that epitomizes life for many of the young residents, on both sides of the border. Born and raised in conflict, children are conflicted by the everyday sights and sounds of battle.

Her nephew has known few days without gunfire or shellfire during his 10 years. Several months ago he was to go with his family to China. He exhibited abnormal anxiety. He was more afraid of light than darkness. He feared there would be too many lights on the streets of China at night. To him, light meant snipers would have an easier time sighting targets.

His brother, one year younger, had developed fear of the outdoors. He would leave the house only if his grandmother held an umbrella over his head, a shield, soft though it was, to keep him safe from falling rockets.

During a visit to Central Park last weekend, Orly watched children freely running around and playing. She became sad. She realized it was because Israeli children in her settlement restrict play to areas near bomb shelters.

Children are born into conflict, but the enmity and bigotry of their parents must be hard-wired into them. In the year I was born, 1949, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific exposed this sorry state of the human condition in a poignant, honest song, “You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught.” Read the lyrics and ponder that until we break the cycle of intolerance, children will continue to fear the sunshine:

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!