Confederacy Stains Church Windows

In 1953, was it really wrong to commemorate Gen. Robert E. Lee in the stained glass of Washington, D.C.'s National Cathedral? For context, a typical statement from this post-war unifier from March 15, 1866:

“We shall have to be patient, and suffer for awhile at least; and all controversy, I think, will only serve to prolong angry and bitter feelings and postpone the period when reason and charity may resume their sway.”

Politically correct progressives, it seems, are in a cultural jihad with his ghost. A modern-day McCarthyism-style fervor to annihilate the famous figures populating their own Confederate history. It's analogous to a real-life “Fahrenheit 451”: tearing down statues of their forebearers instead of burning books. However, the goal to eradicate threatening ideas—both sets of objects represent—is identical. Unfortunately, Democrats' demented dogma has recently shuttered the windows of a national religious landmark.

Last Tuesday evening—after a two-year debate—the cathedral's governing board voted to remove two 4-by-6 foot stain glass panels. Related to church windows, what do parishioners typically see other than emanations of color and beautiful designs? Still, the fact that they depict two important Confederate generals, Lee and Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, now means they must be purged. Per Church officials, this sudden “eyesore” is “a barrier to our important work on racial justice and racial reconciliation.” A convenient excuse of the self-righteous to perpetrate retribution against demonized, and defenseless, targets. Flawed as they may have been, weren't these American soldiers also Christians? Thus, to utilize Scripture as a guide:

“Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, 'Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother [Confederates] who sins against me? Up to seven times?' Jesus answered, 'I tell you, not just seven times, but seventy-seven times!'” (Matthew 18:21-2)

As their religion's prime directive is forgiveness, why have these church elders sown dissension instead?

Hence, their brief deconsecration service that followed Thursday was a farce. A hypocritical effort to mask scorn via a “respectful” ritual toward disparaged subjects. Yet, liberals' self-serving perpetuation of an ancient grievance has no relevance, for example, to Lee's post-war actions. In this matter, their ire is a bizarre and destructive (often violently expressed) mind-set. Thus, as the acknowledged face of the Confederacy, Gen. Lee is a scapegoat for Democrats' own existential crisis of conscience. In short, they use his image to inflame today's political landscape. Their groundless accusations—as their unfounded rage—have no bearing on him, then as now.

Neither do their baseless claims of his influence have any connection to race relations in America of 2017. Our widespread celebration of diversity—as demonstrated by commonplace interracial marriage—is a case in point. Those needing a more blatant example of societal evolution need only consider the last occupant of the Oval Office. What greater honor can be bestowed upon anyone to represent all Americans then electing that person to helm the country?

Speaking of obvious truths, the Cathedral Chapter's unfortunate determination is actually an insult to the gift, and the legacy, of the completely blameless United Daughters of the Confederacy (and a private benefactor). After all, they raised the funds and donated the windows to the church. Thus, for 64 years the Daughters' intention was to honor the past, not justify its mistakes. This fact was even acknowledged by religious progressive Gary Hall, the former dean of the cathedral, who stated in 2015 that the prominently placed panels signified a desire to “foster reconciliation between parts of the nation that had been divided by the Civil War.” Historically, that means the Confederacy’s descendants commissioned the windows as an act of contrition: to promote unity, and healing. In other words, precisely what Lee did during the Reconstruction Era. Therefore, what reflective message could be more appropriate in a hallowed space than that one? To the well-informed, removing the windows only abets ignorance of the past. Quite an “enlightened” decision in this topsy-turvy political climate!

Tragically such visual beauty has also become a Rorschach test for polarizing partisans in the MSM. For example, The Washington Post's Colbert King misconstrued:

“The solemn truth was inescapable: The windows honored a system that rested upon black subjugation and white supremacy. They were a stain on the cathedral and were, as the chapter’s removal resolution stated, 'inconsistent with [the church’s] current mission to serve as a house of prayer for all people'. ... They had to go.”

Interestingly, this columnist's spouse, Gwen, is a member of the Cathedral Chapter. She voted to strip the nave of these “offensive” artifacts, too. Given the Kings' collective advocacy of vanquishing the National Cathedral's “silent symbols of a bloody war fought to uphold a traitorous Confederacy rooted in slavery,” perhaps they should complain about the open display of crucifixes next? After all, didn't the Ku Klux Klan (read: the militant arm of Southern Democrats) habitually burn crosses to terrorize minorities? Aren't these archaic instruments of Roman torture as off-putting to the delicate sensibilities of their flock as their newly condemned windows?

As followers of Christ, what would Jesus do?

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What Triggers the Mob

How can the removal (or destruction) of any external object purge the human psyche of a disgraceful mind-set like racism?

Recall that all history is a series of discrete events locked in time: unchanging and unalterable. Therefore, today's revisionist fervor directed at America's antebellum past is misguided. Like amber dating back 100 million years to the mid-Cretaceous period (proving Tyrannosaurus rex had bird-like feathers), would it be right to destroy a specimen simply because the subject could evoke some existential human dread of prehistoric monsters? An absurd example that makes an important point: Confederate statuary, like dinosaur bones, only demonstrate the existence of a thing. Yet, meaning is inherently fluid: applied in the now by the living.

To eradicate historical artifacts in the name of progressives' “progress” is jackbooted fascism. It's the real-life manifestation of George Orwell's “1984”. Specifically, Big Brother is the identity politics-obsessed Democratic Party. Their creature is the violently inflamed street mob: faceless, mindless and everywhere. One prominent example is Black Lives Matter who on August 29, 2015 publicly proclaimed, “Pigs [cops] in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon.” On CNN, this lawless group was praised by Georgetown University sociology professor Michael Eric Dyson who said Wednesday, “The people that we claim, Black Lives Matter, the antifa movement, and so on, are interested in preserving the fabric of America.” So, exactly how does a cop-killing advocacy group “preserve” American society?

Democrats demonize today’s law enforcement officers—simply for wearing a uniform (and perhaps carrying a gun)—as indiscriminately as long-dead American icons. Telling examples are found in the murder capital of Chicago. Instead of spotlighting the skyrocketing death toll, the aggrieved and clueless like Bishop James Dukes, pastor of the Liberation Christian Center, has asked the mayor's office to remove monuments to two U.S. presidents including Founding Father George Washington. Even worse, a Chicagoean malcontent has vandalized a giant bust of Abraham Lincoln—our slavery-abolishing 16^th president—with a flammable spray. Thusly, President Trump's Thursday Tweet is prescient, “Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson—who's next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish.” What's foolish is in the name of “tolerance”, the intolerant constantly attack the undeserving, then as now, as “racist” bogeymen.

Anti-American anarchists populating the left thrive by causing chaos and disruption. Their whack-a-mole strategy is based on a fundamental flaw of reasoning: that the inanimate—especially what they label triggering symbols—can be blamed for flawed human choices that constantly mold society. Hence, their fascist impulses to prohibit what's objectionable only to them: guns, cops or Confederate figures. Yet, none of these groupings automatically cause problems. In truth, almost anything physical can be weaponized. For instance, would Virginia be wise to ban all cars because one crazed individual, James Alex Fields Jr., 20, killed Charlottesville resident Heather Heyer, 32, with his silver Dodge Challenger?

What plagues our culture are Democrats who exploit various tragedies for their own divisive political ends. They don't see the evolved reality of the melting pot that is 21^st century America. For them and their followers, individual responsibility is nonexistent. Instead, liberals promote victimhood narratives—eagerly embraced by those easily manipulated by fictional offenses—to incite actual violence.

Simply as a record, history deserves to be protected because all men are fallible, and wrongdoers exist in every age. The mistake our generation is making is focusing on them instead of their hateful modern-day equivalents.

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Exorcising Democrats' Confederate History

Why are progressives clamoring to remove many of America's mementos dedicated to the Old South? Generations later, can remnants of Civil War Democrats cause active psychological “harm”? That seems highly unlikely. However, what's real is the targeting of Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart and Jefferson Davis. If that's the liberal standard for destroying their icons, who has caused more recent and lasting damage than Barack Obama? Therefore, isn't it logical for them to purge both ancient root and modern branch? Yet, fear not, President Obama's safe from their revisionist historical pruning. It's only his antebellum counterparts who find themselves on the chopping block.

Let's pull some contextual threads from this spidery progressive web, shall we? Reportedly, Democrats in Alexandria, Virginia want to rename a main thoroughfare, Jefferson Davis Highway. Also, they want to move a statue on State Route 400 of a Confederate soldier, “Appomattox,” to the comparable obscurity of a nearby museum. Erected in 1889, is the presence of this unarmed Southerner—like the street named for the Confederacy's president—suddenly noxious to the average commuter? Do they trigger so much daily trauma that they're right to nix them? Not to be outshone, Fairfax County is embroiled in a two-year debate to strip Confederate General Stuart's name from one of its most racially diverse high schools. Their dragnet is not local however, it's a monstrosity cast widely across state lines as far as Louisiana.

As the left's revisionist hysteria is never satisfied, Stuart's famous contemporary General Robert E. Lee is targeted in both places. Atop a pillar since 1884, his towering figure was removed from its New Orleans perch last Friday after 133 years. (His was not the first to fall. On May 11th, the powers that be removed a statue from the Jefferson Davis memorial there. On Saturday, a display—the word “LOVE”—was found on its vacated platform.) Only time will tell if his Virginia likeness—mutely astride his majestic horse in Lee Park since 1924—will suffer the same “loving” fate. As the land was specifically donated to showcase this Southern soldier, is it right to unseat him after 93 years? What's more horrible here, destroying the vestiges of progressives' 19^th century past or the wasteful expenditure to taxpayers of $300,000 to do it?

Doesn't all history have a worthy place simply because it happened? How can eradicating the lessons that shaped our collective cultural experience ever be the “right” thing to do? Isn't the mind-set to wipe clean the landscape—of old dignitaries' names and harmless inanimate objects—really a fascist desire to ban ideas themselves? (Will these safe space liberal “do-gooders” advocate “Fahrenheit 451”-style book burning next?) Obviously, their predecessors' dual stains of slavery and segregation—never acknowledged or owned by them hereafter—are of lasting shame. Well, frankly, they should be. Hence, their current self-serving agenda to simply airbrush monuments out of existence.

To this end, their go-to narrative is one of distraction and manipulation. To the muddleheaded, the dishonest proclaim often repeated nonsense: America is “secretly racist”! In the same vein as “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” liberals have kind of a politically-motivated hysterical blindness. What of the widespread advancements since the 1950s and 1960s Civil Rights movements? A prominent trend—the “black is beautiful” paradigm shift of the '60s and '70s—doesn't matter? Heck, these naysayers don't even acknowledge the cultural significance of the former occupant of the White House! So, concrete facts of societal progression are meaningless to them. Only their deluded aim to erase transgenerational political sins.

Seriously, it's been 152 years since the end of the Civil War! Only misguided spendthrifts waste today's public funds to “purify” the past. Obviously, historical footnotes—like the name of a road or a school, or four statues—have no magical power to corrupt anything of the now. What relevance to the day-to-day life experience of Americans do they really have? Very little, if any. In fact, their only intrinsic value are as markers showing where America has been—and how truly tolerant she has become!

Despite these ridiculous assertions, racism is not infused in the bronze edifices resembling long-dead Southerners. Likewise, it's not found in the hearts of persons striving to preserve them either. Interestingly, only Democrats' self-hatred persists with the passage of time. That liberal malady is seen in their psychological projection of guilt upon the rest us whose ancestors never owned a slave. Clearly, that's a problem better suited to the analyst's couch then the political realm. (On a related note, can our country be correctly viewed as innately “sexist” as Hillary Clinton is the latest nominee of her party—and the winner of the popular vote?) All elements described above encapsulate the schizophrenic thinking pervading every level of the Democratic Party.

In truth, tangible proof of America's well-established—and ever-expanding—pattern of embracing and celebrating diversity is everywhere! What of commonplace interracial marriage or the recent legalization of gay marriage? So, is it fair to automatically demonize a Republican simply for expressing a history-protecting impulse? Virginia's firebrand GOP gubernatorial hopeful Corey Stewart recently said:

“There’s all kinds of things that offend people, but that [removal] doesn’t make it right. That doesn’t make it so [fix the past]. This [the statue of Robert E. Lee] is a part of our history; if you don’t like our history, that’s too damn bad.”

Well, precisely. What's crystal clear is the Democrats have a cringeworthy history. Understandably, they're desperate to annihilate any reminders of the irrefutable and indefensible. Chief among them is their sole ownership of two infamous institutions: Virginia's antebellum past (read: slaveholding) and white supremacy (read: creating the Ku Klux Klan). As Abraham Lincoln preserved the Union, his party has a duty to safeguard the other side's artifacts for posterity. Without them as silent witnesses, falsely tarring conservatives with their own ongoing record of misdeeds becomes easy. If successful, all that would remain is a nebulous war of words for progressives to dominate. As George Santayana wisely advised: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Ironically, destroying America's Confederate past also diminishes her freedom-loving future.

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Busted “Hero” Barry Bronzed

“If ever I become entirely respectable I shall be quite sure that I have outlived myself.” – Eugene V. Debs

Apparently, that's true of the late Marion Barry: a half-century fixture of local D.C. government. While the American political landscape is chock full of colorful characters—some lovable scoundrels, others not so much—perhaps none fit this category better than the one nicknamed “Mayor for Life”. In that role Barry served for four terms as the district fell into corruption and insolvency. In 1989, at a D.C. budget hearing, then-Sen. John C. Danforth (R-Mo.) publicly chastised his mismanagement:

“Some governments are corrupt but are known for their competency in running the city. Others are incompetent but considered clean. [Washington's] government is scandalously corrupt and hopelessly incompetent.”

In fact, at his death, he was still in office representing Ward 8, having collectively amassed 16 years on the city council.

On the first anniversary of his demise, current D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser established a 13-member D.C. Commission to "Commemorate and Recognize the Honorable Marion S. Barry Jr". During a ceremony last week at the Wilson Building, a mock-up of the proposed life-sized statue was unveiled. (Reportedly, his fourth wife Cora Masters Barry, hated the hat: a fedora obscuring Barry's famous receding hairline. Well, D.C. Commission on the Arts Director Arthur Espinoza, manager of the project, should get that right!) The anticipated cost—to be raised through both public and private sources—is between $350,000 and $400,000.

This eventuality begs the question: with such a checkered past, does this particular individual warrant a grand commemoration?

First and foremost, Marion Barry was a survivor. Notably, last Thursday, March 9th, marks the 40th anniversary of the “Hanafi siege”, a little-remembered act of terror in the spring of 1977. (Hanafi Muslims were a radicalized, breakaway sect of the Nation of Islam.) These black men armed with swords and shotguns took hostages at three locations: a Jewish organization, a rival mosque and the government building where Barry worked. At 41, he was then a fledgling council member who suffered a chest wound above his heart. He recovered, but a reporter was killed and a security guard later suffered a fatal heart attack.

Another turning point in the then-mayor's life was January 18, 1990. At the Vista International Hotel—groping former girlfriend Hazel Diane “Rasheeda” Moore—the married Mayor was arrested in an FBI sting for smoking crack cocaine. Videotaped during the encounter and arrest, a muttering Barry blamed Moore: “Bitch set me up . . . . I shouldn't have come up here . . . goddamn bitch.” In the digital age, that event has been recorded on the internet for posterity. In the future, how exactly does a silent bronze statue speak louder about Barry's character than his own potty mouth?

For that utterance he became a popular punch line on late-night talk shows. Likewise, he was famous for the remark, “Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.” (For three consecutive years, D.C. homicides increased to record-breaking levels, reaching 474 in 1990. The nation's capital was then called the “murder capital”.) Still, as a survivor of gun violence, Barry was lucky to escape a second life-threatening fate that felled so many of his constituents: drug overdose. (Ironically, cocaine use killed his son—and namesake—Marion C. Barry, 36, on August 14, 2016.) Unlike those unfortunates, the older Barry lived a long life, expiring from cardiac arrest on November 23, 2014.

Indeed, this politician had a long history of running afoul of the law. Even in the waning two years of his life, Marion Barry racked up $2,800 in fees from 21 unpaid parking and speeding tickets. In spite of these violations, he caused a car accident after driving down the wrong way of a street into opposing traffic. True to form, this time the elder statesman blamed a “hypoglycemic attack” for his behavior. However, there is no good explanation for a 78-year-old Jaguar-driving community leader not to have car insurance and current tags.

Undoubtedly, the statue is intended to sanitize Marion Barry's reputation to future generations as a “champion of the downtrodden”. In the late 60s, he co-founded a group called Pride Inc. intended to help black men find employment. Later, as mayor, he expanded government to accomplish that goal. Yet, who remembers that compared to his decades-long embarrassing escapades of repeatedly flouting the law? For starters, he spent six months in prison for the “Rasheeda” Moore incident. Put aside his local popularity and visible job titles for a moment. His rap-sheet reads like a hardened criminal's: arrests for drug incidents (1990, 2002), incarceration (1991-1992), income tax evasion (2005), stalking (2009), corruption (2010), public exposure (2011), and political censure for taking kickbacks and accepting bribes (2010, 2013) et cetera.

Marion Barry's backers can superficially immortalize his likeness—but nothing will expunge his lengthy track record of wrongdoing. Even his outspoken supporters would likely acknowledge a deeply flawed human being. In the final analysis, the man's shameless and often illegal antics obscure any do-gooder residue gained early as a civil rights activist. Therefore, perhaps it's kinder to leave Marion Barry's “legacy” unbronzed: a well forgotten, but colorful footnote in local D.C. affairs.

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