THINK ABOUT IT...

Here's a curmudgeonly article I concocted for the magazine. It was meant to be a companion piece to a article about the pulling down of controversial memorial statues, along with a article about one statue honoree whose contributions, in retrospect, are unpalatable to us today. None of the articles saw print. They were deemed to be a bit too controversial for our community content. 

Recent developments have seen the removal from Central Park of that statue honoree, Dr.J. Marion Sims, the "Father of Gynecology," who is now known to have experimented, without anesthesia, on slave women. The stature was moved to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Already exiled to that cemetery in 2012 was the statue memorial to Civic Virtue. A cemetery seems like great place for any controversial statues because the residents, including my in-laws in Green-Wood, really won't care, and their visitors are few and far between. 

Now - 

Think about it...

...Is it good – or is it bad - that we live in an age where not only are we aware of past and present injustices, we want to, and have the privilege and the means to, discuss them, dissect them, and deconstruct them? It’s unfortunate that we don’t have a magic wand to right them.

America’s history is, among other things good – and bad – a continuation of the history of the world. Man’s inhumanity to man has been a means of power, profit, and the promulgation of selected ideals and causes since time began.

Very few of us would score well on a test of our aptitude for being a judge, a mediator, or a diplomat. In any given situation, most of us will fall heavily on the side toward which our lifelong-learned biases propel us.

History is rife with injustices. For many reasons, the basic one being lack of widespread and timely communications, past generations knew less, had less to say, and few to say it to. An old Chinese proverb holds that “Heaven is high and the emperor is far away.” And so the local injustices, petty or serious, went on locally, and the emperor’s word, his laws, his injustices, often affected relatively few. We Americans are focused on our own problems, often only casually interested in the injustice going on in the rest of the world. Is that good, or is that bad?

Today we have mass, speedy communications. From the Washington Post in print and online, to Twitter, the word spreads quickly about injustice, perceived or real. Political, social, or economic, it all comes under the heading of human injustice. Every day the rhetoric seems to be more heated.

It is good – or is it bad – that people feel free to comment and criticize from their own personal pulpit and prospective? For example, trivial though it may seem, was it good - or was it bad – that the fashion industry was chastised for not complaining how the Neo-Nazis were dressed at a protest?

Is it good – or is it bad – that there is a movement to remove any statue or monument to those involved in the Civil War?

Is it good – or is it bad – that it has come to the point where our country is up in arms about arms?

Is it good – or is it bad – that our congressional leaders of opposing parties go back and forth with accusations, blame, and partisan posing?

Is it good - or is it bad - that a list of questions like these could go on for pages?

Everyone and anyone is free to voice and justify their opinion about injustice – it’s our right as Americans. More people are voicing and justifying their ideas for solutions, but too few are listening to them with open, educated minds.

Sometimes it’s thought that we really don’t want to wipe out injustice because all we’d have left to discuss would be the wind and the weather and what to have for supper. We’d have no different flags to fly or anthems to sing, no statues to raise or to tear down, no profit to be made. In this age of justification, that’s simplistic, but not far from the truth.

Is that good, or is that bad? Think about it.