VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS : Symbolism, racism, and the inability to think
Posted on Thursday, November 20, 2008
The story broke last week that a couple owning a motel in Huntsville, Ark., had taken down the Stars and Stripes and replaced it with the flag of the Confederacy. The resulting backlash came almost immediately.
Many who saw the changing of the colors wondered what it could have meant. While the owners took pains to explain, in a carefully worded statement to the media, was that it wasn’t about racism, but about our president-elect being of the Marxist persuasion, his perceived hatred of the Constitution, and his vow (?) of taking guns away from the average citizen. We can, and should look with a skeptical eye towards any pronouncement such as this, to see what is really been said.
The statement released by the owners of the inn was clearly a cut and paste job courtesy of the Fixed News channel, Rush Limbaugh, and a smattering of our white sheeted friends. As the vast majority of Americans expressed their opinions on Nov. 4 there can be seen another division that has served to place us in the predicament we are in globally, economically and societal. The present situation has driven a wedge between those Americans who are racist and those who want, desperately, to move past the bridge in Selma, the fire hoses in Montgomery, and the U. S. Army Airborne walking students to class at Little Rock Central High School.
In one respect, this may be what we all needed to finally sever ourselves from bigotry and hate. Now we are seeing, with distinction, who the haters are and what the bigots say thus drawing them out so we can, once and for all, eliminate creed. The symbolism of the motel, the “ Faubus ” Motel, and its current owners is striking. Gov. Faubus proclaimed he wasn’t a racist when denying admission to African-American students in 1957. Then, as now, the Confederate flag flew.
This is America and as many have said, people are entitled to their opinions, however wrong. Yet, if they knew their history, and had once visited the great repository of knowledge, the library, they may not have wanted to align the Faubus Motel with the Confederate flag while denigrating Barack Obama. I suspect the owners of the motel voted against education millage increases for Madison County schools, three times.
------Steve Foster has a degree in criminal justice. He works as a social worker in Northwest Arkansas.
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