[Magdalen] Whoops. We've got the Southern slavers' battle flag in the National Cathedral.

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

​
On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 10:07 AM, Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote:

> You cannot
> revise history. People try all the time, of course, but facts are facts.
>

​Facts?  It comes down to who's writing what those facts were. Just saying.​

That window was put up to represent RECONCILIATION, which IMO is a very
> good thing. The Civil War is a sad and bad fact of our history and it needs
> to be remembered as such, but reconciliation needs to be celebrated


​By all means, let us turn the national cathedral into an educational
center, not a house of prayer.​


history records that Lee and Jackson both made their peace with former foes
>

​How does this relate? It is not portrayed in the window in question.​


​If a white person from the south visits the Cathedral, they will have a
reaction to the window, I have no doubt. And if an African-American were to
visit, perhaps their reaction is trivial????

The discussion here is as if we have nobody in the country who is an
African-American citizen, entitled to basic consideration and respect.  It
is as if the only people who matter are those morons from the south who
still think their slaver cause was just.  And they were always very, very
clear about the fact that it was all about slavery. ​And yes, I agree that
we need to strive for reconciliation too, even when the one side represents
reprehensible wrongs done again and again over centuries, and continuing to
be done still.

The discussion here is a kind of unfortunate illustration of an aspect of
White Privilege.  In all of the discussions, the interests of the
African-Americans simply fall through and are discarded simply because they
simply don't have any importance.

"Yes, of course it is horrible what happened to them, but we cannot lose
sight of the need for reconciliation with our brothers and sisters of the
South."

See what I did there?

So, more discussion, and let us not leave anyone out this time.

If this is unpleasant, well, it sure ought to be.  It was unpleasant to be
kidnapped from your home and stuffed in a obscenely crowded, disease ridden
boat to travel to another country where you didn't count, and where your
labor enriched a few wealthy and stoked the furnaces of American prosperity.
​It was unpleasant to be freed and then have that freedom deliberately and
carefully taken away.
It was unpleasant to have to live in a land where those in power loathed
you without cause, and at the drop of a hat murdered you, and were never
accountable. I could go on.

Anyway, if it's unpleasant, it SHOULD BE. Resolving these issues is not
going to be easy, and we will continue with the running sores that sap our
moral essence until we deal with this vast enormity of sins, and just one
tiny thing is this stained glass window which means very different things
to different people.  ​

James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy