Heroes, holidays, monuments, and flags: reframing our history is not erasing it.

By / / Blog / 16 minutes of reading

I started writing this essay in late June 2020, and reworked it a few times over a month. It’s challenging to write anything in detail about current events, given the rapid fire news cycle. The news today is about a push for “patriotic education,”1 an alarming euphemism that is antithetical to what I’m calling for in this essay. The featured image at the top of this post is of The Upstanders Mural, located across the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, commissioned by Facing History and Ourselves in 2016. I took the photograph when I visited the museum and other sites in Memphis in 2017, learning much about US history I never knew before — this post is not explicitly about that trip, but the image fits well.

The more I learn about this country’s history, the more I learn about its celebrated heroes and holidays, the more I learn about hidden heroes whose stories haven’t been widely told and about historical events that haven’t been widely celebrated, the more I feel robbed. With each passing year, I have been quietly grappling with my growing frustration over the chasm between the aspirational ideals of the United States of America and its reality. How can we rid our future of this systemic racism if we can’t stop romanticizing and glorifying and glossing over the past? How can we confront the realities of our present systems if we can’t be honest about how they came to be? There are many interpretations of history, but certain narratives dominate. And these dominant narratives perpetuate racist systems.

Textbooks from my childhood included narratives about “savages” and “heathens” and “discovery” and westward expansion; the way these notions were presented always felt off and incomplete. Even in a school district where critical thinking was taught as a core skill set, and where diversity was celebrated, much of what I know now I realize I didn’t really start learning until well into adulthood. In the past, I had proudly told people that I learned about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad in second grade as evidence of how amazing my public school education was, but today, I question what was left out of our curriculum. Only recently did I learn that a dozen US Presidents were enslavers, some who owned hundreds of enslaved people. As a kid, I knew that Christopher Columbus failed to find India, but I didn’t learn until just a couple years ago that he never set foot in North America, and I certainly didn’t know about his regime of brutality. I didn’t know that many Confederate monuments were built during the era of Jim Crow to reinforce white supremacy. I knew that Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, but I didn’t know that Abraham Lincoln was not himself an abolitionist and did not believe in the equality of Black people.

Even though in retrospect I recognize that the stories I learned seemed off and incomplete even when I first learned them, I have begun to realize how much I’ve internalized a fear of criticizing our nation’s heroes and how often I’ve diminished my own voice over the years. Though we were taught “there’s no such thing as a stupid question,” certain interpretations of history were presented as fact, and there were subtle messages indicating that challenging these narratives would indeed be stupid. Hints about what I was supposed to believe, and often did believe were, and are, everywhere: our nation’s heroes and the symbols associated with them are pictured on our money, on our calendars as holidays, on the quotations that emerge from our lips with reverence. Government of the people, by the people, for the people. Equal — all of us are created equal. We all have the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. All….

Although dissent is core to the ideals of democracy, if you’re not part of the power-dominating majority, challenging the dominant narrative is frowned upon and seen as divisive. I’m tired of feeling this way, and more importantly, I see how much our collective silence is actively harmful. I don’t want to be quiet anymore, but the internalized fear isn’t gone. So now, I’m navigating finding my own voice and place in our country’s movements for racial justice. As an Indian-American cisgender woman of color and child of immigrants, I have lived experiences to share, but also, I have much to learn. I am a person of color, but I cannot claim the pain of Black and Indigenous people as my own. Everything I say here has been said by others, particularly by those closer to the pain;2 I’ve included footnotes with links to articles, videos, podcasts, movements, and organizations I’ve learned from. This post is admittedly bit heavy on the footnotes; included as citations of my sources but also as suggestions for further reading or listening. I have found the work of Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, architect of the New York Times Magazine 1619 Project, to be particularly transformative: take time to listen to the first episode of the 1619 podcast if you haven’t already. I’ve written this essay as a partial synthesis of my own awakening, and intend on writing more — there is so, so much to unpack.

This moment is rife with symbolic gestures: across the country, monuments are toppling and flags are coming down. “Heroes” are coming down off their pedestals: not only Confederate monuments,3 but also of Christopher Columbus,4 and statues depicting racial hierarchy including one in Boston “depicting Abraham Lincoln standing over a half-dressed, kneeling formerly enslaved man”5 and one of “Theodore Roosevelt, on horseback and flanked by an African man on his left and a Native American man on his right”6 outside the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The 126 year-old state flag of Mississippi7 is being retired. Monticello8 — the plantation enshrined on every nickel — is reckoning with the complex legacy of Thomas Jefferson: Founding Father, author of the Declaration of Independence, enslaver, rapist. Similarly, Mount Vernon is reckoning with George Washington: First President, also an enslaver9 who lived in a “multi-lingual world that included people speaking numerous Algonquin, Iroquoian, and Siouxan languages and dialects”10 and sought land from Indigenous peoples “for his own prosperity.”

Will removal of these symbols, or relocating them, or reframing them with a more complete accompanying narrative, lead to the systemic change we need? Certainly, we cannot focus on the symbols only, but I know that this moment has empowered me to learn more, to speak up, to listen, to do better. I know that much of what I’ve learned recently is not new for many Black and Indigenous folks. Between mostly living in predominantly white communities, perceptions of me due to the model minority myth, and other factors that have allowed me to experience relative privilege, I have what’s called “proximity to whiteness.” Over the past few years, particularly since the 2016 Presidential Election, I’ve noticed more white people and people of color with proximity to whiteness11 than I’ve ever seen before waking up to these persistent contradictions as well.

As a child, I thought it my patriotic duty to watch fireworks every year on the 4th of July. Even then, I knew my country was imperfect, but my understanding of its imperfection was still relatively superficial. I was taught to take a generous interpretation of the words “all men were created equal.” Even though the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence were all white men, I was taught to view the United States’ foundational documents as aspirational, and that “all men” meant “all people,” including all genders, races, and religions.

A couple years ago, while I was getting ready to head out to a 4th of July Parade, donning red, white, and blue, I decided to listen to a recording of the Declaration of Independence.12 I had realized that I knew the preamble well, but what did the rest of the document say? Listening to the audio, I stumbled over this passage; the last in a list of twenty-seven grievances against King George III and the British government:

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.13

I felt stunned. Not surprised necessarily, but… speechless and angry. Our frontiers?! Merciless. Savages. Known rule of warfare… Here it was, racist settler-colonialism,14 written plainly into this revered document. What I didn’t know at the time was that the passage regarding “domestic insurrections” was about some colonists’ wish to preserve slavery.15 This was noted in Hannah-Jones’ 1619 Project essay:

Conveniently left out of our founding mythology is the fact that one of the primary reasons some of the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery.16

The more I learn, the more I understand that the legacy of “independence” is complex and unsettling. All men really did mean white men, because other men were considered property or “savages”, and only cisgender white men were envisioned to have the full rights of citizenship in a newly formed country. Ostensibly, the people included in the vision of the founders was narrower than even to include all cisgender white men… members of society that were included in the vision likely needed to be wealthy elite Christians who owned property.

Certainly, there are multiple interpretations of our history, and the people who framed our foundational texts were ultimately fallible, mortal, human. They, like all of us, were a set of contradictions. They, like all of us, were products of their environment, even while they challenged, changed, reshaped that environment. I get it. My frustration is because patriarchal whiteness persists — these aren’t merely historical artifacts that we have reconciled in society today. Conversations about reconciling some of the contradictions of the past and healing some of the harm through reparations so frequently get stuck at the starting line, or shut down altogether. So often, we are stalled before we can even take meaningful action. But, as journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones said at the opening of her June 30, 2020 essay on reparations: “It feels different this time.”17

This year, awareness of Juneteenth outside the Black community seemed unprecedented, and questions about the meaning of so-called Independence Day in a nation where not all are free from oppression were being asked out in the open — or at least, widespread on my social media newsfeed.

A powerful video of Frederick Douglass’ descendants reading What to the Slave is the Fourth of July18 made the rounds in early July. Douglass delivered these remarks in 1852, before the Civil War. Yet, they still resonate. Another video, with remarks inspired by Douglass’ speech, written by a group of Black artists and delivered by actor Daveed Diggs, was released on July 2, 2020 by The Movement for Black Lives.19 It asks: What To My People is the Fourth of July.20

The chains of chattel slavery may be gone, but they’ve been replaced with the invisible chains of racist, anti-Black policies and practices. After a nation in quarantine bore witness to the brutal murder of George Floyd, more White and Non-Black people than ever are finally able to say aloud “Black Lives Matter.”

Poet Caroline Randall Williams’s searingly powerful essay makes the case for reframing history, opening with “I have rape-colored skin.” She makes the case for removing Confederate monuments, and makes the case for why pride in the Confederacy and its heroes is so shameful:

This is not an ignorant pride but a defiant one. It is a pride that says, “Our history is rich, our causes are justified, our ancestors lie beyond reproach.” It is a pining for greatness, if you will, a wish again for a certain kind of American memory. A monument-worthy memory.21

The case for removing Confederate monuments is clear: many of these statues were constructed specifically to reinforce racial hierarchy and perpetuate the myth of the Lost Cause.22 But this practice of wishing “for a certain kind of American memory” is not limited to those who revere the Confederacy.

Four faces are carved into the Black Hills: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. One way to look at Mount Rushmore is to behold its majesty — certainly, that is the feeling I was struck by when I visited it as a middle schooler. Another way to look at it is as an act of desecration, the violation of sacred lands and natural beauty, all for the cause of white supremacy and whitewashed history. Mount Rushmore exists on land that belongs to the Great Sioux Nation,23 per the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 and reaffirmed in a 1980 Supreme Court ruling. The creation of this monument was a violation of 1868 treaty, and President Trump’s July 3, 2020 visit to Mount Rushmore, which included fireworks, a military flyover, music, remarks by the President, and thousands of unmasked audience members24 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, was also a violation of the treaty. At a highway checkpoint where ticket holders for the President’s event were being screened, “more than 100 treaty defenders and other protesters gathered.”25 These treaty defenders and protestors were largely wearing masks, taking precautions against spreading COVID-19. The sculptor of Mount Rushmore was documented to have white supremacist leanings, and the project was partially funded by the Ku Klux Klan.26 In his remarks, President Trump made clear that he views the removal of monuments and statues, or the retelling and reframing of US History, is “a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children.”27 What, if anything, should happen to Mount Rushmore? PBS Newshour’s Hari Sreenivasan asks special advisor to the President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe Chase Iron Eyes, who says:

That’s a very important question that cooler heads need to think about because some people want to blow it up. And some people want to worship it like their gods. And so somewhere in the middle of that, we need to have a frank truth-telling and a reconciliation so we can go forward in this country together. We need to decide should we add another face? Should we leave it alone? Because if we destroy it, that is also an act of desecration.28

Each of the presidents depicted on Mount Rushmore has a mixed legacy, and the relatively hidden legacy that surprised me most was that of the man most associated with the end of chattel slavery. In the Fall of 2019, I listened to the New York Times Magazine‘s 1619 Project’s Podcast Episode 1: The Fight for a True Democracy by Nikole Hannah-Jones,29 and later read the print essay. It’s deeply moving, and as I mentioned earlier, it was transformative for me. The part where I stopped short — I was out running errands on my first listen, and had to pull over my car to cry and scream — was regarding Abraham Lincoln. He, too, did not truly believe in equality, even though he emancipated the enslaved:

The president was weighing a proclamation that threatened to emancipate all enslaved people in the states that had seceded from the Union if the states did not end the rebellion. The proclamation would also allow the formerly enslaved to join the Union army and fight against their former “masters.” But Lincoln worried about what the consequences of this radical step would be. Like many white Americans, he opposed slavery as a cruel system at odds with American ideals, but he also opposed black equality. He believed that free black people were a “troublesome presence” incompatible with a democracy intended only for white people. “Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals?” he had said four years earlier. “My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not.”30

The dissonance of this passage struck a chord because it is the same dissonance I see around me today. Do those in the power-holding majority, who profess these American ideals, truly believe in equality of all people? If this were an equitable society, Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) would have the same opportunities and outcomes as their white counterparts. But it is well-documented that there are persistent racial disparities in our society, and that these disparities are particularly acute and harmful for Black people.

In spite of several movements for civil rights in the past century, we find ourselves back where we started: people of African descent continue to insist on the inherent humanity of Black lives while remaining squeezed between a self-serving narrative of liberal multiculturalism and an emerging white nationalist movement. Ever since Reconstruction, African American pursuits of civil rights have been fixed in the endeavors—legal, political, and economic—to achieve what is seemingly and ideologically American, but increasingly unattainable: that is, to abolish the racialized economic construction of Blackness from African American humanity and citizenship.31

My wish is not to erase the legacy of any historical figure. My point is that the legacies we’ve commonly learned about are incomplete, bordering on fictitious if not outright fiction. My wish is for us to learn fuller, more truthful interpretations of history. For us to make space for the many national heroes and historical events we never learned about, or that were relegated to sidebars or blips or whitewashed attention during the shortest month of the year. Learning that George Washington owned 300 slaves32 doesn’t change the facts that he was the First U.S. President and played a key role in the American Revolution. Learning that Abraham Lincoln was not an abolitionist doesn’t change the fact that he played a critical role in the emancipation of enslaved people. Removing symbols and statues of the Confederacy doesn’t change the reality that the Civil War really happened, nor does it prevent us from learning about it. I’m glad I learned a little bit about Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass as a kid, but I wish I’d learned about what emancipation without reparations really meant for the formerly enslaved, who were “freed” but with no money or property of their own. I wish I had known about the Fort Laramie Treaty when we were planning our west-bound road trip from my childhood hometown in Iowa: would we have still gone to Mount Rushmore? I wish I had learned more about present-day Indigenous people and cultures, to better understand how First Nations continue to endure, while still having to fight for their sovereign lands.33 The next time I go to Washington, D.C., will I still feel the deep awe I’ve felt in past visits, looking out over the National Mall from the Lincoln Memorial? It won’t be the same, but it will still be the podium from which Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. told us about his dream for a better America, and where a 23-year-old John Lewis, then chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and later Georgia Congressman from 1987 until his passing on July 17, 2020, pushed for a revolution34 at the August 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

The symbols we use to commemorate our history have been emblematic of the whitewashed, un-nuanced, sanitized understanding of this country and its legacies. So much erasure has taken place, and this erasure harms all of us. I love this country and its people. I want to know our stories. I want us to heal. As we look towards the changes needed in policy, education, culture, and economic practices, having a better understanding of where we have been will hopefully help to inform the paths we take as we move forward. I want us to live up to our aspirational ideals, and our mythology is getting in the way of achieving these ideals.

Citations/Further Reading:

  1. “Trump Announces ‘Patriotic Education’ Commission, A Largely Political Move,” Alana Wise and Roberta Rampton, NPR Politics, September 17, 2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/09/17/914127266/trump-announces-patriotic-education-commission-a-largely-political-move
  2. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley is known for saying ““I fundamentally believe that the people closest to the pain should be closest to the power, driving and informing our policymaking.” I attribute the phrase “closest to the pain” to her.
  3. Confederate Statues are Being Removed Amid Protests Over George Floyd’s Death. Here’s What to Know, by Jasmine Aguilera, Time, June 9, 2020, https://time.com/5849184/confederate-statues-removed/
  4. Christopher Columbus Statues Beheaded, Pulled Down Across America: Protesters in three U.S. cities targeted sculptures of the Italian explorer and colonizer, by Theresa Machemer, Smithsonian Magazine, June 12, 2020, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/christopher-columbus-statues-beheaded-torn-down-180975079/
  5. Boston to remove controversial monument depicting Lincoln standing over freed slave, by Jeremy C. Fox and Meghan E. Irons, The Boston Globe, June 30, 2020, https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/06/30/metro/city-remove-controversial-emancipation-group-monument/
  6. The Racist Statue of Theodore Roosevelt Will No Longer Loom Over the American Museum of Natural History: As plans emerge to remove the controversial figure, the 26th President’s legacy still remains sullied by his colonialist ideology, by Nora McGreevy, Smithsonian Magazine, June 23, 2020, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/statue-theodore-roosevelt-removed-reexamination-racist-acts-180975154/
  7. Mississippi lawmakers vote to change state flag: No Confederate emblem, by Luke Ramseth and Giacomo Bologna, Mississippi Clarion Ledger, June 28, 2020, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/statue-theodore-roosevelt-removed-reexamination-racist-acts-180975154/
  8. Slavery at Monticello: Thomas Jefferson enslaved over six hundred people throughout his life. Four hundred men, women, and children lived in bondage at Monticello, https://www.monticello.org/slavery/
  9. Slavery: Mount Vernon was the home of George Washington. It was also home to hundreds of enslaved men, women, and children who lived here under Washington’s control. George Washington’s Mount Vernon, https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/slavery/
  10. Native Americans: George Washington had a complicated relationship with Native Americans. George Washington’s Mount Vernon, https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/native-americans/
  11. Dear Brown Girl: Proximity-to-Whiteness Does Not Make You White, by Divya Kumar, EmbraceRace, https://www.embracerace.org/resources/dear-brown-girl-proximity-to-whiteness-does-not-make-you-white
  12. The Declaration of Independence as read by Max McLean, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uE-tqe0xsQ
  13. Transcription of the Declaration of Independence from the National Archives, https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
  14. What is Settler-Colonialism? by Amanda Morris, January 22, 2019, https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/what-is-settlercolonialism
  15. The Shameful Final Grievance of the Declaration of Independence: The revolution wasn’t only an effort to establish independence from the British—it was also a push to preserve slavery and suppress Native American resistance, by Jeffrey Ostler, The Atlantic, February 8, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/americas-twofold-original-sin/606163/
  16. “Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true.” by Nikole Hannah-Jones, The 1619 Project, New York Times Magazine, August 14, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/black-history-american-democracy.html
  17. What is Owed: If true justice and equality are ever to be achieved in the United States, the country must finally take seriously what it owes black Americans.” by Nikole Hannah-Jones, The New York Times Magazine, June 30, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/24/magazine/reparations-slavery.html
  18. ‘What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?’: Descendants Read Frederick Douglass’ Speech, NPR, July 3, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBe5qbnkqoM&feature=youtu.be
  19. The Movement for Black Lives https://m4bl.org/
  20. Daveed Diggs asks: “What to My People is the Fourth of July?”, Movement for Black Lives, July 2, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuCeUyItpzE
  21. “You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body is a Confederate Monument: The black people I come from were owned and raped by the white people I come from. Who dares to tell me to celebrate them?” by Caroline Randall Williams, The New York Times, June 26, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/opinion/confederate-monuments-racism.html.
  22. The ‘Lost Cause’ That Built Jim Crow: Southern “Redeemers” snuff out the first black power movement, by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The New York Times, November 8, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/08/opinion/sunday/jim-crow-laws.html.
  23. Trump’s Mount Rushmore speech showed why our battle over history is so fraught: Mount Rushmore embodies America’s promise — and its failings, by Stetson Kastengren, The Washington Post, July 5, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/05/trumps-mount-rushmore-speech-showed-why-our-battle-over-history-is-so-fraught/
  24. Trump got his crowd and his fireworks, and peddled his fiction, by Robin Givhan, The Washington Post, July 4, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2020/07/04/trump-got-his-crowd-his-fireworks-peddled-his-fiction/
  25. Treaty defenders block road leading to Mount Rushmore, by Mary Annette Pember, Indian Country Today, July 3, 2020, https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/treaty-defenders-block-road-leading-to-mount-rushmore-ctPNfZ1W0UiABOWreb-srA
  26. The Sordid History of Mount Rushmore: The sculptor behind the American landmark had some unseemly ties to white supremacy groups, by Matthew Shaer, Smithsonian Magazine, October 2016, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/sordid-history-mount-rushmore-180960446/
  27. Remarks by President Trump at South Dakota’s 2020 Mount Rushmore Fireworks Celebration | Keystone, South Dakota, White House website, July 4, 2020, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-south-dakotas-2020-mount-rushmore-fireworks-celebration-keystone-south-dakota/
  28. “Native Americans protest Trump’s Mt. Rushmore rally” by PBS NewsHour, July 4, 2020, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/native-americans-protest-trumps-mt-rushmore-rally
  29. Episode 1: The Fight for a True Democracy: America was founded on the ideal of democracy. Black people fought to make it one. 1619 podcast, hosted by Nikole Hannah-Jones, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/podcasts/1619-slavery-anniversary.html
  30. “Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true.” by Nikole Hannah-Jones, The 1619 Project, New York Times Magazine, August 14, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/black-history-american-democracy.html
  31. “Black Lives and the Fourth of July: After Juneteenth, it’s hard to overlook the hollowness of American freedom.” by Westenley Alcenat, The Nation, July 3, 2020, https://www.thenation.com/article/society/juneteenth-independence-day/
  32. George and Martha Washington enslaved 300 people. Let’s start with their names. by Michele L. Norris, The Washington Post, June 26, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-and-martha-washington-enslaved-300-people-lets-start-with-their-names/2020/06/26/d3f7c362-b7e7-11ea-a510-55bf26485c93_story.html
  33. Supreme Court ruling ‘reaffirmed’ sovereignty by Kolby KickingWoman, Indian Country Today, July 9, 2020, https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/supreme-court-ruling-reaffirmed-sovereignty-4KQXSMEtlUW4lpBGSw6pzA
  34. At the 1963 March on Washington, civil rights leaders asked John Lewis to tone his speech down: Before his death Friday, Rep. John Lewis was the last living speaker at the march where Martin Luther King Jr delivered his famous ‘I Have a Dream’ address, by Gillian Brockell, The Washington Post, July 18, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/07/18/john-lewis-was-last-living-speaker-march-washington-civil-rights-leaders-asked-him-tone-it-down/
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