In March, I went to Louisiana with a group of students who were willingly spending their entire spring break building a house for a family who’d been living in a FEMA trailer since Katrina. One of the family members told me that seeing so many people (both from Guilford and Friends Disaster Service) drive so far to help them really made him feel better about people in general. While that made me happy – I viewed it as a form of ministry – I also wondered how much our service would really alter this family’s circumstances in the long term.
I’ve been thinking a lot about them this week, as an oil slick the size of the Jersey Shore floats toward the Gulf Coast, with 5,000 more barrels of oil a day leaking from an offshore well that exploded earlier this week. The husband/father is a shrimper; his brother-in-law is a shrimper, and most of their area depends on shrimping, crabbing and fishing for their living. The family’s dog was even named Shrimper.
On the last day we were there, this man told me how hard shrimping’s been the last few years. His overhead has gone up 40 percent since Katrina, even as the catch amounts have gone down and it’s become cheaper to ship shrimp from Asia. It’s not hyperbole to say that many Gulf shrimpers are barely scraping by. And now this oil spill comes just a few weeks before the start of shrimp season.
According to the Times-Picayune, the Gulf Coast brings in a quarter of fish caught in the U.S., and a third of the oysters. Most of us will feel the impact of the oil spill in the form of higher seafood prices over the next year or so. But thousands of families in the Gulf – a region that’s never been rolling in prosperity, and that’s still recovering from Katrina five years later – risk losing their livelihood entirely.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Open Season
Today in bad ideas: Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona signed into law a bill that will require local law enforcement to question people about their immigration status if they suspect that the person is in the country illegally. According to MSNBC, the law also “allows lawsuits against government agencies that hinder enforcement of immigration laws and make(s) it illegal to hire illegal immigrants for day labor or knowingly transport them.”
Now, I agree with Brewer that Arizona, the primary gateway of undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America, got impatient waiting for Washington to do something abut illegal immigration. But enforcing immigration law is federal jurisdiction, not local. And there are reasons for that, which will become painfully clear as this law takes effect.
For instance… I believe that this will have a chilling effect on reporting of crimes. If you are an undocumented immigrant, or someone who knows through past experience that you are likely to be suspected of being an undocumented immigrant (and let’s be honest – someone who looks like me could be undocumented as hell and never have to worry about being caught in Arizona), how likely are you to call the local police if someone robs you, or sexually assaults you? At times in this country, it was open season on African Americans and LGBT people, because everyone knew that crimes against them weren’t taken seriously (and still aren’t all of the time). This isn’t going to be any different. How is the cause of justice served when an entire class of people knows from experience to view the police as their enemy?
The “lawsuits against government agencies” piece is also disturbing. Is this intended to apply to any public social agency? For starters, from what I understand, a person who is in this country without documentation is the LAST person to, say, go apply for food stamps. One of the biggest problems social agencies have in serving immigrant populations is the perception among those immigrants that they’ll be harassed about their legal status. This law is only going to make their job harder. And what about schools? I don’t know about Arizona, but here in North Carolina the attorney general assured public, private and community colleges that it’s not their purview to determine the immigration status of their students. Is Arizona going to fine a school that admits an undocumented immigrant, or arrest the admission director? Talk about squeezing blood from a rock.
Schools do not have the responsibility for determining the status of their students because, a) it’s not our mission, and b) we don’t have the staff to do so. The same reasons apply to local law enforcement.
Let’s talk about Show Low, Ariz., a town I picked randomly off the map because its name jumped out at me. It’s a town in the White Mountains a little bigger than where I grew up, with about 4,300 households, according to the town Web site, and a small airport. The population swells to about 30,000 each summer because of the town’s tourism industry. Just to be clear with what I’m about to say, I in no way want to criticize the professionalism of the police department there, because I’m sure they do the best job they can. (And also, the man who answered the phone when I called a minute ago pretending that I was thinking about moving there was super-nice, and I feel a little guilty about fibbing to him.)
The police department has 35 officers, most of whom are on patrol. According to CityData.com, Show Low’s crime index (as of 2006, the most recent year stats are available) is higher than the U.S. average (470.9 per 100,000 people vs. 320.9). Most of those appear to be theft and property crime – it’s not like this is Gangland, USA – but I’m sure the police there have plenty on their plate without having to enforce federal immigration law.
And I have no doubt that law enforcement in Show Low and in the rest of Arizona will do more with less in order to meet the new law’s requirements. But should they have to? For every extra tool this law gives police, I believe it will bring a dozen more headaches.
President Obama was right in saying that Congress needs to get off its ass and fix immigration policy one and for all so that local jurisdictions won’t have to spend resources doing so. When President Bush tried it, immigration reform was the only thing in eight years that Congressional Republicans didn’t rubber-stamp.
So, I have practical concerns about how this law will negatively impact law enforcement’s ability to do its job in protecting citizens – all of them. But there are larger concerns, too. As much as the Tea Partiers complain about health care reform being fascist, America has never been the country where you had to have your papers in order to simply exist. Want to drive, pay a fee to get a driver’s license. Want to collect Social Security, get a Social Security Number. But just to be? Not in Arizona anymore, apparently.
Now, I agree with Brewer that Arizona, the primary gateway of undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America, got impatient waiting for Washington to do something abut illegal immigration. But enforcing immigration law is federal jurisdiction, not local. And there are reasons for that, which will become painfully clear as this law takes effect.
For instance… I believe that this will have a chilling effect on reporting of crimes. If you are an undocumented immigrant, or someone who knows through past experience that you are likely to be suspected of being an undocumented immigrant (and let’s be honest – someone who looks like me could be undocumented as hell and never have to worry about being caught in Arizona), how likely are you to call the local police if someone robs you, or sexually assaults you? At times in this country, it was open season on African Americans and LGBT people, because everyone knew that crimes against them weren’t taken seriously (and still aren’t all of the time). This isn’t going to be any different. How is the cause of justice served when an entire class of people knows from experience to view the police as their enemy?
The “lawsuits against government agencies” piece is also disturbing. Is this intended to apply to any public social agency? For starters, from what I understand, a person who is in this country without documentation is the LAST person to, say, go apply for food stamps. One of the biggest problems social agencies have in serving immigrant populations is the perception among those immigrants that they’ll be harassed about their legal status. This law is only going to make their job harder. And what about schools? I don’t know about Arizona, but here in North Carolina the attorney general assured public, private and community colleges that it’s not their purview to determine the immigration status of their students. Is Arizona going to fine a school that admits an undocumented immigrant, or arrest the admission director? Talk about squeezing blood from a rock.
Schools do not have the responsibility for determining the status of their students because, a) it’s not our mission, and b) we don’t have the staff to do so. The same reasons apply to local law enforcement.
Let’s talk about Show Low, Ariz., a town I picked randomly off the map because its name jumped out at me. It’s a town in the White Mountains a little bigger than where I grew up, with about 4,300 households, according to the town Web site, and a small airport. The population swells to about 30,000 each summer because of the town’s tourism industry. Just to be clear with what I’m about to say, I in no way want to criticize the professionalism of the police department there, because I’m sure they do the best job they can. (And also, the man who answered the phone when I called a minute ago pretending that I was thinking about moving there was super-nice, and I feel a little guilty about fibbing to him.)
The police department has 35 officers, most of whom are on patrol. According to CityData.com, Show Low’s crime index (as of 2006, the most recent year stats are available) is higher than the U.S. average (470.9 per 100,000 people vs. 320.9). Most of those appear to be theft and property crime – it’s not like this is Gangland, USA – but I’m sure the police there have plenty on their plate without having to enforce federal immigration law.
And I have no doubt that law enforcement in Show Low and in the rest of Arizona will do more with less in order to meet the new law’s requirements. But should they have to? For every extra tool this law gives police, I believe it will bring a dozen more headaches.
President Obama was right in saying that Congress needs to get off its ass and fix immigration policy one and for all so that local jurisdictions won’t have to spend resources doing so. When President Bush tried it, immigration reform was the only thing in eight years that Congressional Republicans didn’t rubber-stamp.
So, I have practical concerns about how this law will negatively impact law enforcement’s ability to do its job in protecting citizens – all of them. But there are larger concerns, too. As much as the Tea Partiers complain about health care reform being fascist, America has never been the country where you had to have your papers in order to simply exist. Want to drive, pay a fee to get a driver’s license. Want to collect Social Security, get a Social Security Number. But just to be? Not in Arizona anymore, apparently.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
What Ben needs to learn
So, the NFL has suspended Ben Roethlisberger for six games (four definitely, plus two more at the NFL’s discretion). Commissioner Roger Goodell has the prerogative to suspend players, even if they haven’t been charged or convicted of a crime, if he feels their conduct is detrimental to the NFL (which is, after all, an entertainment industry dependent on approval of fans and sponsors).
“…You are held to a higher standard as an N.F.L. player, and there is nothing about your conduct in Milledgeville that can remotely be described as admirable, responsible, or consistent with either the values of the league or the expectations of our fans,” Goodell wrote Roethlisberger today.
I’m pleasantly surprised that the NFL took this so seriously (Roethlisberger, a two-time Super Bowl winner, will lose almost $3 million as a result of the suspension). It would’ve been very easy for the NFL to use its considerable clout against Roethlisberger’s accuser, but they didn’t.
I have an issue, though (as always). Goodell ordered Roethlisberger to have something called a “comprehensive behavior evaluation” before he can rejoin his team. What, exactly, does that involve? Is it talk therapy? A.A.?
It’s my sincere hope that any treatment or evaluation will involve Roethlisberger being made to confront the reasons why, less than a year after another woman sued him for sexual assault, he was apparently out getting hammered and buying shots for underaged women, and then, by his own admission, trying to hook up with one of those women. Even if you disbelieve everything the woman in question reported to the Milledgeville police, Roethlisberger is guilty of first-class boneheadedness.
The NFL is rightly concerned with its reputation. But Roethlisberger should worry about not just playing at complying with his punishment, but actually learning something and growing up. I’m not the only one of his fans who will never quite be able to cheer for him with a clear conscience again.
If Roethlisberger wants to change – and I hope he does, for his sake – he needs to listen. He needs to listen to women who’ve been on the receiving end of sexual assaults, and put in their place the women he cares about, his mother, his sister. He needs to stop seeing other people as objects of his own ego.
“…You are held to a higher standard as an N.F.L. player, and there is nothing about your conduct in Milledgeville that can remotely be described as admirable, responsible, or consistent with either the values of the league or the expectations of our fans,” Goodell wrote Roethlisberger today.
I’m pleasantly surprised that the NFL took this so seriously (Roethlisberger, a two-time Super Bowl winner, will lose almost $3 million as a result of the suspension). It would’ve been very easy for the NFL to use its considerable clout against Roethlisberger’s accuser, but they didn’t.
I have an issue, though (as always). Goodell ordered Roethlisberger to have something called a “comprehensive behavior evaluation” before he can rejoin his team. What, exactly, does that involve? Is it talk therapy? A.A.?
It’s my sincere hope that any treatment or evaluation will involve Roethlisberger being made to confront the reasons why, less than a year after another woman sued him for sexual assault, he was apparently out getting hammered and buying shots for underaged women, and then, by his own admission, trying to hook up with one of those women. Even if you disbelieve everything the woman in question reported to the Milledgeville police, Roethlisberger is guilty of first-class boneheadedness.
The NFL is rightly concerned with its reputation. But Roethlisberger should worry about not just playing at complying with his punishment, but actually learning something and growing up. I’m not the only one of his fans who will never quite be able to cheer for him with a clear conscience again.
If Roethlisberger wants to change – and I hope he does, for his sake – he needs to listen. He needs to listen to women who’ve been on the receiving end of sexual assaults, and put in their place the women he cares about, his mother, his sister. He needs to stop seeing other people as objects of his own ego.
Monday, April 12, 2010
"You about to get fired up?"
I freely admit that I had unusually adult tastes in TV for a kid growing up in the late 80s and early 90s. For one thing, we weren’t allowed to watch MTV. I barely watched “Saved by the
Do you know when this aired on network TV? 1987. In later years, when I’d run up on the prejudice that, as a Southerner, I was supposed to be a cross-burning, ignorant rube with three teeth, I knew that wasn’t true in large part because of “Designing Women.” I know it sounds strange to credit a TV sitcom with shaping my feminist and political consciousness, but I think it’s true.
It’s interesting that Carter herself was a political conservative, given that she played the apparently liberal Julia Sugarbaker. It’s a credit to Carter as an actor that she was able to so convincingly play a character whose pronouncements she didn’t agree with. The character she created certainly had an impact on me.
How to do Confederate History Month
There’s been a lot of brouhaha this week over Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell’s decision to revive Confederate History Month in the state during April, which previous governors had either declined to do or issued a proclamation with specific mention of slavery.
The governor says it’s mostly about promoting Civil War-related tourism in the state where much of the war took place and which was home to some of its primary generals, since next April is the 150th anniversary of the war’s beginning. (This April, by the way, marks the 145th anniversary of its ending.) As a Civil War buff who’s visited several war-related sites in Virginia, I can understand that, and I absolutely think Virginia should do everything it can to tell its story of the Civil War – before, during and after.
So, if you’re planning on a Civil War tour of the commonwealth, here are some places you just must visit, in no particular geographic order:
Arlington National Cemetery - Arlington, Va.
A lot of people don’t know this, but the family of Robert E. Lee’s wife had an estate outside of Washington, D.C., whose family ownership dated back to George Washington’s adopted grandson. According to the cemetery’s official Web site, after Lee became major general of Virginia’s military – necessarily needing to flee U.S. territory – the estate was confiscated by the federal government for non-payment of taxes for "government use, for war, military, charitable and educational purposes.” Brigadier General Montgomery Miegs’ “intention was to render the house uninhabitable should the Lee family ever attempt to return. A stone and masonry burial vault in the rose garden, 20 feet wide and 10 feet deep, and containing the remains of 1,800 Bull Run [ahem, Manassas] casualties, was among the first monuments to Union dead erected under Meigs' orders.” Arlington House is still there, but the Lee family never lived there again.
Harpers Ferry, W.Va. (formerly Va.)
As all good Civil War buffs know, the site of John Brown’s infamous 1859 attempt to rob a federal arsenal in order to start an armed slave revolt. Brown and Co. were defeated by a U.S. Marine detachment led by our friend from the previous entry, Robert E. Lee, who was, let’s not forget, a career officer in the United States armed forces. While we’re in the neighborhood…
The entire state of West Virginia
When Virginia seceded from the United States, several mountain counties seceded from Virginia, becoming their own state in 1863 (secession suddenly not bothering the U.S. at that point). This is a good spot for discussing the mixed feelings, and often downright hostility, toward the Confederacy in Appalachia. West Virginia may have successfully attained statehood, but people in large regions of North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia felt the same way. (Somewhere I have a picture of a tombstone in Cades Cove, Tenn., stating that the departed was “murdered by Confederate traitors,” or something to that effect.) Also a good spot for thinking about how and when (and why) modern Appalachian residents appropriated the Confederate imagery that their ancestors hated. Just for kicks, let’s also discuss Confederate sympathies, and lack thereof, in other “border states,” along with President Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus in same.
Virginia Military Institute, Washington & Lee University – Lexington, Va.
Lexington is a mini-Mecca for Civil War buffs, since it’s home to both VMI (where Stonewall Jackson taught before the war) and Washington & Lee University, where Robert E. Lee was president after the war until his death in 1870. When I visited Lexington several years ago, I didn’t make it to the VMI museum because it was ridiculously crowded. (Apparently, Jackson’s horse, Little Sorrel, is there. Stuffed. Really.) At one point in my life I seriously considered W&L for my college choice solely because of the Lee connection (note: this is not a good reason to pick a college), so on my visit I wanted to see the campus, including Lee Chapel. That’s where the Lee family is buried, and where you can see a statue of the general lying in state. The other visitors and I processed to the front of the chapel and circled the marble statue in almost total silence. It was the first time in my life I felt deeply uncomfortable being a Civil War buff. I couldn’t help thinking that Lee – by all accounts a deeply religious, humble man – would’ve been embarrassed by the whole thing. Also, Lee’s horse Traveler (after whom I named my second car) is buried outside. People leave things on his tombstone, which I suppose is more dignity than Little Sorrel gets.
Appomattox Court House - Appomattox, Va.
I was pleasantly surprised when I visited this very quiet spot in central Virginia that it’s not Confederate Disneyland (or at least it wasn’t then). The tiny town where the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered to General U.S. Grant on April 9, 1865 (effectively ending the war, though the last C.S.S. warship wasn’t captured until November) is now a National Park. If you’re even a medium-Civil war buff, you know that the McLean family moved from Manassas (don’t call it Bull Run) after the war started to Appomattox, only to have the surrender take place in their living room. Notables: Lee and the other Confederate leadership weren’t summarily executed for treason; they were allowed to go home. Grant issued the Confederate troops rations, which is important because they were starving. *** soapbox alert*** It turns out that confederacies of states with a weak/nonexistent central government, where states pay taxes if they feel like it, are really bad at conducting big projects that require centrality, like feeding armies. This could be why the U.S. itself abandoned a confederacy system in the 1780s, and why Jefferson Davis could’ve used some George Santayana.
Petersburg National Battlefield – Petersburg, Va.
The designated national battlefield doesn’t remotely get across the vastness of the Siege of Petersburg, which basically lasted months and encompassed the whole city and surrounding area, and only ended when the Confederate troops retreated in spring 1865, a retreat that ended in Appomattox. When my family visited the battlefield, I made my parents and sister stand in a line several feet apart; this represented the distance between Confederate soldiers toward the end of the siege, when they were vastly, unbelievably outmanned by Grant’s U.S. troops. Then I made them stand about a dozen feet apart, facing each other; that’s how far the Confederate and U.S. lines were from one another – for months. It’s also home to the Crater, where U.S. troops attempted to break the siege by tunneling under Confederate lines and blowing up a whole bunch of explosives. It didn’t turn out well. I often hear my fellow Civil War buffs talk about the honor of the troops. If you really want to pay tribute to the men who fought the Civil War, go to Petersburg. It’ll knock the Scarlet O’Hara right the hell out of you.
Lumpkin’s Slave Market – Richmond, Va.
Since Gov. McDonnell’s original proclamation of Confederate History Month didn’t have any mention of slavery, we want to make sure we don’t miss this. Called “The Devil’s Half-Acre,” Lumpkin’s Slave Market was THE hub of slave trade in Virginia from the early 19th Century until the Confederacy abandoned Richmond, fleeing from U.S. troops. It was the largest slave market in the entire country. And no, it wasn’t a rooming house where people went to await crappy jobs. After Richmond fell, and days before his assassination, President Lincoln visited the slave market in Shockoe Bottom. Freed slaves mobbed him in thanks. The market’s site was turned into a parking lot, and even now is threatened by trendy bar/condo development in the area… which I guess is like building Hard Rock Café Auschwitz.
I’ve left out some of Virginia’s other dozens of battlefields and sites, which are of course important. Any historian of military tactics should study the battles at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, for instance. But I get really frustrated with people who think the Civil War was only about glorious Confederate cavalrymen and hoop-skirted belles waiting back home.
It was about men who commanded troops opposite men they’d known their entire lives, and other men in those battle lines who sometimes didn’t have food, or shoes, or weapons (many of whom weren’t there voluntarily). It was about families devastated by death and deprivation. And yes, Gov. McDonnell, it was about men and women held captive on pain of death, disjoined from anything you are I would consider to be basic human dignity, just because they had black skin. Frankly, it’s also about the fact that people in Virginia see nothing wrong with preserving every mansion where Lee, or Washington, or Jefferson ever paused for lunch, and paving over the site of the industry that gave those men their wealth.
I welcome study of the Civil War – real study, including its before and after, excluding legends about your ancestor that shot a Yankee marauder. It’s fascinating because it’s the singularly American event – as my high school history teacher said, the war we’ve been fighting every day before and since. It’s a discussion we need to have, but we need to have it honestly.
The governor says it’s mostly about promoting Civil War-related tourism in the state where much of the war took place and which was home to some of its primary generals, since next April is the 150th anniversary of the war’s beginning. (This April, by the way, marks the 145th anniversary of its ending.) As a Civil War buff who’s visited several war-related sites in Virginia, I can understand that, and I absolutely think Virginia should do everything it can to tell its story of the Civil War – before, during and after.
So, if you’re planning on a Civil War tour of the commonwealth, here are some places you just must visit, in no particular geographic order:
Arlington National Cemetery - Arlington, Va.
A lot of people don’t know this, but the family of Robert E. Lee’s wife had an estate outside of Washington, D.C., whose family ownership dated back to George Washington’s adopted grandson. According to the cemetery’s official Web site, after Lee became major general of Virginia’s military – necessarily needing to flee U.S. territory – the estate was confiscated by the federal government for non-payment of taxes for "government use, for war, military, charitable and educational purposes.” Brigadier General Montgomery Miegs’ “intention was to render the house uninhabitable should the Lee family ever attempt to return. A stone and masonry burial vault in the rose garden, 20 feet wide and 10 feet deep, and containing the remains of 1,800 Bull Run [ahem, Manassas] casualties, was among the first monuments to Union dead erected under Meigs' orders.” Arlington House is still there, but the Lee family never lived there again.
Harpers Ferry, W.Va. (formerly Va.)
As all good Civil War buffs know, the site of John Brown’s infamous 1859 attempt to rob a federal arsenal in order to start an armed slave revolt. Brown and Co. were defeated by a U.S. Marine detachment led by our friend from the previous entry, Robert E. Lee, who was, let’s not forget, a career officer in the United States armed forces. While we’re in the neighborhood…
The entire state of West Virginia
When Virginia seceded from the United States, several mountain counties seceded from Virginia, becoming their own state in 1863 (secession suddenly not bothering the U.S. at that point). This is a good spot for discussing the mixed feelings, and often downright hostility, toward the Confederacy in Appalachia. West Virginia may have successfully attained statehood, but people in large regions of North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia felt the same way. (Somewhere I have a picture of a tombstone in Cades Cove, Tenn., stating that the departed was “murdered by Confederate traitors,” or something to that effect.) Also a good spot for thinking about how and when (and why) modern Appalachian residents appropriated the Confederate imagery that their ancestors hated. Just for kicks, let’s also discuss Confederate sympathies, and lack thereof, in other “border states,” along with President Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus in same.
Virginia Military Institute, Washington & Lee University – Lexington, Va.
Lexington is a mini-Mecca for Civil War buffs, since it’s home to both VMI (where Stonewall Jackson taught before the war) and Washington & Lee University, where Robert E. Lee was president after the war until his death in 1870. When I visited Lexington several years ago, I didn’t make it to the VMI museum because it was ridiculously crowded. (Apparently, Jackson’s horse, Little Sorrel, is there. Stuffed. Really.) At one point in my life I seriously considered W&L for my college choice solely because of the Lee connection (note: this is not a good reason to pick a college), so on my visit I wanted to see the campus, including Lee Chapel. That’s where the Lee family is buried, and where you can see a statue of the general lying in state. The other visitors and I processed to the front of the chapel and circled the marble statue in almost total silence. It was the first time in my life I felt deeply uncomfortable being a Civil War buff. I couldn’t help thinking that Lee – by all accounts a deeply religious, humble man – would’ve been embarrassed by the whole thing. Also, Lee’s horse Traveler (after whom I named my second car) is buried outside. People leave things on his tombstone, which I suppose is more dignity than Little Sorrel gets.
Appomattox Court House - Appomattox, Va.
I was pleasantly surprised when I visited this very quiet spot in central Virginia that it’s not Confederate Disneyland (or at least it wasn’t then). The tiny town where the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered to General U.S. Grant on April 9, 1865 (effectively ending the war, though the last C.S.S. warship wasn’t captured until November) is now a National Park. If you’re even a medium-Civil war buff, you know that the McLean family moved from Manassas (don’t call it Bull Run) after the war started to Appomattox, only to have the surrender take place in their living room. Notables: Lee and the other Confederate leadership weren’t summarily executed for treason; they were allowed to go home. Grant issued the Confederate troops rations, which is important because they were starving. *** soapbox alert*** It turns out that confederacies of states with a weak/nonexistent central government, where states pay taxes if they feel like it, are really bad at conducting big projects that require centrality, like feeding armies. This could be why the U.S. itself abandoned a confederacy system in the 1780s, and why Jefferson Davis could’ve used some George Santayana.
Petersburg National Battlefield – Petersburg, Va.
The designated national battlefield doesn’t remotely get across the vastness of the Siege of Petersburg, which basically lasted months and encompassed the whole city and surrounding area, and only ended when the Confederate troops retreated in spring 1865, a retreat that ended in Appomattox. When my family visited the battlefield, I made my parents and sister stand in a line several feet apart; this represented the distance between Confederate soldiers toward the end of the siege, when they were vastly, unbelievably outmanned by Grant’s U.S. troops. Then I made them stand about a dozen feet apart, facing each other; that’s how far the Confederate and U.S. lines were from one another – for months. It’s also home to the Crater, where U.S. troops attempted to break the siege by tunneling under Confederate lines and blowing up a whole bunch of explosives. It didn’t turn out well. I often hear my fellow Civil War buffs talk about the honor of the troops. If you really want to pay tribute to the men who fought the Civil War, go to Petersburg. It’ll knock the Scarlet O’Hara right the hell out of you.
Lumpkin’s Slave Market – Richmond, Va.
Since Gov. McDonnell’s original proclamation of Confederate History Month didn’t have any mention of slavery, we want to make sure we don’t miss this. Called “The Devil’s Half-Acre,” Lumpkin’s Slave Market was THE hub of slave trade in Virginia from the early 19th Century until the Confederacy abandoned Richmond, fleeing from U.S. troops. It was the largest slave market in the entire country. And no, it wasn’t a rooming house where people went to await crappy jobs. After Richmond fell, and days before his assassination, President Lincoln visited the slave market in Shockoe Bottom. Freed slaves mobbed him in thanks. The market’s site was turned into a parking lot, and even now is threatened by trendy bar/condo development in the area… which I guess is like building Hard Rock Café Auschwitz.
I’ve left out some of Virginia’s other dozens of battlefields and sites, which are of course important. Any historian of military tactics should study the battles at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, for instance. But I get really frustrated with people who think the Civil War was only about glorious Confederate cavalrymen and hoop-skirted belles waiting back home.
It was about men who commanded troops opposite men they’d known their entire lives, and other men in those battle lines who sometimes didn’t have food, or shoes, or weapons (many of whom weren’t there voluntarily). It was about families devastated by death and deprivation. And yes, Gov. McDonnell, it was about men and women held captive on pain of death, disjoined from anything you are I would consider to be basic human dignity, just because they had black skin. Frankly, it’s also about the fact that people in Virginia see nothing wrong with preserving every mansion where Lee, or Washington, or Jefferson ever paused for lunch, and paving over the site of the industry that gave those men their wealth.
I welcome study of the Civil War – real study, including its before and after, excluding legends about your ancestor that shot a Yankee marauder. It’s fascinating because it’s the singularly American event – as my high school history teacher said, the war we’ve been fighting every day before and since. It’s a discussion we need to have, but we need to have it honestly.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Unto others
It’s being reported in a number of places that Constance McMillen, the Mississippi teenager who successfully sued her school because its officials told her not to attend her prom with her girlfriend, was tricked into attending a fake private prom on the same night that her classmates held another private party.
If this is true, it’s pretty sad. Not for Constance, who will go on with her life. It’s sad to think about so many people in one community deliberately ostracizing a teenaged girl just because she’s different from them. Seriously – it takes a lot of people to plan a party. I grew up in a small town, and it’s darn near impossible to think that something as large as a dance for (most of) a high school’s students could go under the radar.
Some of the reports have seven other students showing up at the faux prom, including some disabled students. If THAT’S true, then wow. I shudder to think about how many students at my high school, including me, probably would’ve been excluded if my senior prom had been held privately.
What’s really saddening me is the knowledge that at least some of the people involved in this probably think if themselves as God-fearing Christians. Some of them might even be telling themselves that their religious beliefs are the very reason they need to toss out students like Constance McMillen.
Well, I’m a Christian, too. One of the most beautiful things about my religion is that it centers on a man who intentionally chose to work at the margins of society – the poor, lepers, adulterers and other outcasts. Jesus preached that the most important thing his followers could do was to embrace what he called “the least of these,” and to treat everyone in society – everyone – with the compassion we would ask for ourselves.
What would Jesus do? I can’t believe he’d be at the top-secret “let’s exclude people we don’t like” prom, that’s for damn sure.
If this is true, it’s pretty sad. Not for Constance, who will go on with her life. It’s sad to think about so many people in one community deliberately ostracizing a teenaged girl just because she’s different from them. Seriously – it takes a lot of people to plan a party. I grew up in a small town, and it’s darn near impossible to think that something as large as a dance for (most of) a high school’s students could go under the radar.
Some of the reports have seven other students showing up at the faux prom, including some disabled students. If THAT’S true, then wow. I shudder to think about how many students at my high school, including me, probably would’ve been excluded if my senior prom had been held privately.
What’s really saddening me is the knowledge that at least some of the people involved in this probably think if themselves as God-fearing Christians. Some of them might even be telling themselves that their religious beliefs are the very reason they need to toss out students like Constance McMillen.
Well, I’m a Christian, too. One of the most beautiful things about my religion is that it centers on a man who intentionally chose to work at the margins of society – the poor, lepers, adulterers and other outcasts. Jesus preached that the most important thing his followers could do was to embrace what he called “the least of these,” and to treat everyone in society – everyone – with the compassion we would ask for ourselves.
What would Jesus do? I can’t believe he’d be at the top-secret “let’s exclude people we don’t like” prom, that’s for damn sure.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
The end of pointless articles proclaiming "The End of" anything
About a decade ago, when I was in college, getting up early on Saturdays in order to hit the quality supply at the thrift store bag sale, smoking bidi cigarettes and driving around with my hall mates rocking out to pop music we made fun of a few years earlier, apparently I was a "hipster." I always just assumed I was a typical 19-year-old trying to discern my identity, but whatev.
Unfortunately, what I wasn't smart enough to do was label my very average late-teen exploration as some sort of defined cultural movement, start an ironic blog about it and then land a book deal. I also wasn't smart enough to move to a large northeastern media market and convince some Baby Boomer editor that I was hip, which means that, 10 years later, I have a steady job with benefits and a mortgage, rather than spending my days writing Web-based "cultural criticism" about the death of my youth. Or something.
I officially feel like my parents and their friends, who most definitely did NOT spend the 60s and 70s smoking pot in Haight-Asbury, and yet constantly have to remind their children that they weren't at Woodstock because they were in eighth grade. The sad fact is that, just like the vast, vast majority of people my parents' age weren't really part of the counter-culture, the vast, vast majority of people in their 20s today do not live in fashionably shabby outer boroughs of NYC wearing trucker hats and drinking PBR, or even wishing that we did.
But teenagers still dig thrift stores. Maybe it's not "hipster" culture that should die, media.
Unfortunately, what I wasn't smart enough to do was label my very average late-teen exploration as some sort of defined cultural movement, start an ironic blog about it and then land a book deal. I also wasn't smart enough to move to a large northeastern media market and convince some Baby Boomer editor that I was hip, which means that, 10 years later, I have a steady job with benefits and a mortgage, rather than spending my days writing Web-based "cultural criticism" about the death of my youth. Or something.
I officially feel like my parents and their friends, who most definitely did NOT spend the 60s and 70s smoking pot in Haight-Asbury, and yet constantly have to remind their children that they weren't at Woodstock because they were in eighth grade. The sad fact is that, just like the vast, vast majority of people my parents' age weren't really part of the counter-culture, the vast, vast majority of people in their 20s today do not live in fashionably shabby outer boroughs of NYC wearing trucker hats and drinking PBR, or even wishing that we did.
But teenagers still dig thrift stores. Maybe it's not "hipster" culture that should die, media.
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