History under further review
The late Hunter S. Thompson, or
some like-minded soul, put it best: “When the going gets weird, the
weird get going.” That’s about as good a summation of what’s happening
these days in the previously hallowed, but now hollowed out, halls of
academe as I can find.
Case in point: The Black
Student Union at Lebanon Valley College is demanding that the college
rename Lynch Memorial Hall. The building is named after Clyde A. Lynch,
an alumnus who served as president of the college from 1932 to 1950 and
who died in office. As far as anyone knows, Lynch was not a racist and
was never associated with any racist practices or statements. And he was
widely praised for managing to keep the college open throughout the
depression. Students of color, however, find the name itself an
offensive reminder of lynching.
It occurs to me that the city
of Lynchburg, Virginia, is equally insensitive. Lynchburg was named
after John Lynch, who received a charter to found the city in 1786.
Given the tenor of the times, Lynch may or may not have been a hateful
racist or even a slave holder. But that’s irrelevant. His name alone is
liable to remind people, especially people of color, of the practice of
lynching.
But a river runs through it — the James River. Hence, I suggest Lynchburg be renamed New Jamestown.
Closer to home, the current DEX
directory reveals that at least 11 people and one business bear the
name Lynch here in Kitsap County. I recommend they change their names
lest they find themselves accused of a “micro-aggression” — academe’s
current term of art for expressing attitudes or invoking associations
deemed to be offensive or politically incorrect.
As if by uncanny foresight,
the bard of my generation, Bob Dylan, put it best: “Look out, kid./It’s
something you did./ God knows when,/but you’re doing it again!”
And no one’s safe. The liberal ideologues on campus today feel entitled to judge the quick and the dead.
At Princeton, in mid-November,
students occupied the president’s office demanding that the university
rename the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
The school was named after Wilson because of his leadership in founding
the League of Nations after World War I. The problem, however, is that
Wilson was not so progressive on the racial front.
While he campaigned on a promise of fair treatment of blacks, once
elected, he segregated the federal government. Only after being
promised that the university would consider renaming the Woodrow
Wilson School would the students leave the president’s office.
As of this writing,
Princeton’s trustees have not reached a decision. The issue, of course,
is whether Wilson’s progressive accomplishments outweigh his
regressive position on race. In all fairness, Wilson may have been a
visionary about international affairs, but he was not able to convince
his own country to join the ineffectual and shortlived League of
Nations. Hence, I’ll punt on this one.
A more problematic figure is
Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was a slaveholder who not only bought and
sold slaves but also fathered a child with one. Because of that,
students at William and Mary, Jefferson’s alma mater, have begun posting
disparaging notes on his statue there, and students at the University
of Missouri are circulating a petition demanding the removal of his
statue from their campus.
Historians have given
Jefferson mixed reviews on the issue of slavery. His economic security
depended on the institution. But, later in life, he did support a
gradual end to slavery, believing that African-Americans were inferior
in intelligence and that a sudden emancipation would be a disaster for
both races. To fall back on modern psychobabble, he seems to have been deeply conf licted about slavery throughout his life.
But Jefferson was also the
author of our Declaration of Independence, and without his moral
courage on that front, American independence may have had to wait a
century or so. Still, his detractors tend to compare him to Washington,
who in his will freed his slaves. The debate centers on which man more
accurately reflected the attitude of his day regarding slavery.
That debate, however, is moot.
As the late professor and
cultural critic Edward Said reminded us, no one completely transcends
the cultural and social constructions of his or her time. We’re all
shaped by the manners and mores of the times in which we live, and it is
inherently unfair for future generations to summarily dismiss all our
accomplishments because some of our practices or attitudes may fall
outside of their enlightened standards.
In the end, we’re all subject
to the balance scale of history, and to my mind, Jefferson’s positive
accomplishments outweigh his commitment to slavery. And I suspect that
he, and not Washington, reflected the conventional wisdom toward
emancipation in his day.
Ed Palm of Silverdale is a Marine Corps veteran and former dean at Olympic College. Contact him at efpalm@ centurylink. net.
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