Mixed feelings about this. Partly it's sentimental: all the years I lived in D.C. the Jefferson Memorial was one of my favorite places, and I used to ride my bike around the Tidal Basin to hang out there. But, Lucian, when you talk about men of color averting their eyes and stepping aside for you, I think of my decades as a woman navigating city streets. I could never *not* be vigilant, never *not* be careful about accidentally catching some guy's eye (while at the same time trying to come across as forthright but not challenging), about who else was around at the bus stop (especially after rush hour), etc. After a while I came to expect that *most* of the men whose books and/or music I like, whose ideas I admire, were assholes and worse. So I'm playing "take what you like and leave the rest," but I never stop being mindful of what "the rest" consists of. I feel somewhat the same way about the country, and the founders. Many of them are due respect for what they accomplished. None of them deserve worship, and they aren't responsible for what we've made of their legacy either. (Fwiw, I'm a descendant of Custises and Lees on one side and a collateral descendant of Robert Gould Shaw on the other, so I do feel a personal connection to all this.)
Perhaps no icons at all should be our goal. Maya Lin’s Vietnam Memorial makes the others feel so trite, and dated. Surely there has to be a way to memorialize the brave ideals of the founders without their images plastered all over the place.
Seeing the names on the Vietnam Memorial made a huge impression on me, though I knew no one who had fought there. Perhaps it arose from watching people take rubbings of a name, all that they had left of the person. These names were not of famous people who had "led" our country but a symbol of the unknowns who have fought our wars . Two were called "police action" and "advisory action." Perhaps the man I met in the wheel chair at a VA Hospital will come to that memorial. He didn't have a long duty in Vietnam. Two weeks, in fact, before he stepped on a land mine that blew off his legs. I agree there's no need to have images everywhere of the founders. A greater need is to uphold their ideals. In a society impressed with "the elite," those elite who gain power today pretend to condemn elites in favor of "the common man." The Vietnam Memorial shows that all men are created equal . They should be revered for duty to our country, even or especially in a war that never should have taken place.
I am a Hemings descendant and am genetically tied to the Wayles, Eppes, Jefferson, and Randolph families, and so am Lucian's cousin. And I have been spending the better part of 25 years attempting to discover the identities of privileged white men of yore, who impregnated my black and enslaved women ancestors. These were white men who ironically also gave me my white privilege (in part). I do not know what these historical relationships were built upon (whether there was love or even affection, or if they were simply transactional and/or coerced and built upon exploitation), but they happened, and I am relieved they did because they allow me to reflect on the essential fact that one cannot help who they are, the how and why of their origins.
I cannot help being a white Hemings, just as Lucian cannot help being a white Randolph-Jefferson.
The recent encounters with folks that did not stop to say hello to Lucian are to their misfortune. They missed the opportunity for a memorable conversation by a master storyteller with a good heart. Lucian has been standing up for invisible people all his life. And he and I are the same in that we love to talk to strangers. For once you talk to a stranger, they are no longer a stranger. Jefferson opened up his White House to strangers. Average people came in off the street and he greeted them in his slouchy attire of old fashioned breeches and ancient shoes. He never felt a president should be a god or a king. And I will always love this about him, even if I must admit he probably seemed very much like a god to my great-great-great grandparents. But his approach to the office in this way was opposite of he-who-shall-not-be-named. And if for the sole reason I would want as a permanent response to the legacy of that last Republican (big R) president, I would say: yes, keep Jefferson's statue. For Thomas Jefferson was a real president. Flawed, for sure, but very real. It is because of his presidency that we doubled our geography and so added to the complicated gumbo that is us.
When I separate out my family's history of enslavement, influenced by such immense fashion by Jefferson's presence, I am left thinking about what is it that falls away, the timeless, republican (small r) ideas he advanced into the world, and what these have meant for so many millions and millions of people over time, from every country in the world, and what they have and still do mean for me as a believer in and lover of our very strange and complicated country.
My family passed as white and severed their ties to black family. This is a Jeffersonian legacy, and one that is a blessing and curse. Curse, historically, because of the obvious: being ostracized, and by both sides of the color line, not being black enough, and then also being rejected by the gatekeeping set of our American caste system for being permanently lower class, marked by our illegitimate origins. Blessing, because in my lifetime I did find a strange and wonderful and thoroughly American community of people, who don't make me feel quite so isolated in the world, a fabulous gathering of people that Jefferson also helped engineer, even if unwittingly. I felt very hopeful about our prospects, because of that gathering, because it never would have happened even during my mother's time. I met Lucian because of it. He is one of a kind. That's something to celebrate in my mind. Thanks, Mr. Jefferson.
In the main I think we must work together for that open society we have long wanted for everyone, one where we don't make fast and easy assumptions about anyone, ever, where all people of every stripe can move through our American communities safely. And so to move forward together.
Much of how we relate to one another and how we see one another at a glance have to do with how this country values its people. Right now, this country doesn't value the majority of us. We know this because the very pillars of the democracy we want and must have as our basic rights are crumbling: public schools, free elections, free presses. Fear, resentment, and divisions spring from inequalities, and it's in our plutocratic overlords' best interest to keep us fighting amongst themselves so they can merrily go and take bloated trips to space on the backs of underpaid, angry, workers who can't afford this American life. Fighting demands an enemy. So we create them, even when and where they don't exist. Creating the common enemy, whether it's the immigrant, the African American, or the heterosexual white male who needs to 'check his privilege', or the elderly Asian walking down a New York or California street, alike, creating the common enemy is the greatest danger to our future. Prejudgment threatens the democratic experiment in the most critical way; and it leads to war.
We need to work together and reform the very system that creates wealth privilege and class distinctions, which not only pose an existential threat to our democracy, but foment those knee jerk prejudices based on ignorance and resentment from perceived differences between us.
As to whether or not to tear down Jefferson's statue, perhaps it should be left up to a national referendum (once we also reform and elevate our corrupt elections system out of developing world status). I also think that's what Mr. Jefferson would have wanted: let we, the people, decide what the legacy would be. If modern Americans decide he stands solely as a hypocrite slave owner, take the statue down. If he stands yet for religious freedom and freedom of expression and of the presses; of equality, of checks and balances, separation of church and state, if these are ideas that transcend the highly problematic image, the people can vote to keep his statue/s (and we can provide information that he was a slave owner and was indeed a co-author of once popular and indefensible racist attitudes towards native and people of color that must at last be relegated to the waste bin of history).
But I think it's vital not to erase history, and to give people the whole truth and nothing but.
My opinion only. I can well imagine there are those who would disagree with me. But I welcome debate, for I always feel the need to swap ideas and so to learn from others, and evolve, and I hope this may be done in a respectful and safe forum, without threats of censorship, cancellation, and violence. E pluribus unum. And many thanks, Lucian.
One of your best! Those of us who are white and enjoy -- unthinkingly -- a certain privilege just by dint of our skin color, must constantly remind ourselves that terrible injustices were done -- and are still being perpetrated -- again people of color. Statues, cultural expressions, museums that honor and celebrate marginalized people are a vitally important start, but we also need a true and deep reckoning that evens the scales of economic and social power not just for exceptional people of color but for all people of color. Recognition is important, but we need more: truth and reconciliation commissions? Reparations?
I agree with you almost 100% ...but is being a slave-owner all there is to Jefferson? He was a champion of democracy, he did help get us -- everyone of us -- to where we are today. He seems to have sincerely believed the sentiments he expressed in the Declaration, and to his very minimal credit, he recognized and castigated himself for his own hypocrisy in owning people, even his own children. Lincoln was not a slave owner, but he certainly equivocated about slavery until 1863; are we going to take him from the Lincoln Memorial and turn it into the MLK Memorial? And then we will be reminded about how MLK regarded women, and used them, and we'll have to re-name it yet again. Every figure in history is a product of his or her own times; how far back can we go in judging those who came before us?
We cannot ignore the fact of slavery in this country. What Lucien was illustrating with his comment was the long lasting effect that slavery has on our culture, our inability to truly be we. I could care less about the “good” that Jefferson did. Look where we are today. We’re on the brink of a fascist autocracy and the remnants of slavery are just as strong today as they were in Jefferson’s time. Screw Jefferson’s legacy.
If the Trumpers who invaded the Capitol on Jan. 6 knew anything about Jefferson, they'd probably agree with you. OK, maybe they'd like the slave-owning part, but for the rest of it he'd be just another snowflake.
I would not for a minute suggest that we ignore it, or cease to deplore it. It is a stain on our history and, I agree, has deep and powerful consequences to this day. I simply submit that there is more to our history as a nation, and a society, than slavery, just as I believe that there is more to Jefferson.
As far as the impending fascist autocracy that you reference, I believe that Jefferson's legacy would do more to oppose and combat that trend than to support and nurture it.
Very enlightening and at the same time sad that those encountered that day felt themselves to be inferior. Sometimes the most lowly among us are the greatest. In today's political environment there are those that consider themselves superior that have nothing in their character to justify it. So many of the so-called lower classes like the immigrants from south of the border are the hardest working and most honest among us.
I read John Adams biography some years ago and remember that he never owned slaves: He was a lifelong friend of Jefferson and they corresponded all their lives, although they disagreed from time to time, . I can't remember if any discussion took place between them on slavery although I'm sure it must have. I came across a copy of a letter from John Adams to Robert J. Evans (my name coincidentally) but no relation that I know of. Here is the letter:
Letter to Robert J. Evans
John Adams
Quincy, June 8, 1819
. . . The turpitude, the inhumanity, the cruelty, and the infamy of the African commerce in slaves have been so impressively represented to the public by the highest powers of eloquence that nothing that I can say would increase the just odium in which it is and ought to be held. Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States. If, however, humanity dictates the duty of adopting the most prudent measures for accomplishing so excellent a purpose, the same humanity requires that we should not inflict severer calamities on the objects of our commiseration than those which they at present endure, by reducing them to despair, or the necessity of robbery, plunder, assassination, and massacre, to preserve their lives, some provision for furnishing them employment, or some means of supplying them with the necessary comforts of life. The same humanity requires that we should not by any rash or violent measures expose the lives and property of those of our fellow-citizens who are so unfortunate as to be surrounded with these fellow-creatures by hereditary descent, or by any other means without their own fault. I have, through my whole life, held the practice of slavery in such abhorrence that I have never owned a Negro or any other slave, though I have lived for many years in times when the practice was not disgraceful, when the best men in my vicinity thought it not inconsistent with their character, and when it has cost me thousands of dollars for the labor and subsistence of free men, which I might have saved by the purchase of Negroes at times when they were very cheap. . . .
these types of essays always take me back to Savannah Ga late fifties. I was 8 or 9 walking home from a small library in our community when I saw two white boys throwings rock at a young black girl walking in not her part of town. without a thought I crossed the street and yelled at them to stop. she was almost obsequious in her gratitude for my intervention. I remember being so embarrassed that she felt the need to compliment my looks to express her thanks. that was the first day that I saw the lie of my white lived lie.
Well written and well considered, sir. There is no way I can, as an older white man, understand what it must feel like to walk in the shoes of a person of color in this day, or any age before now. We must, however, continue to try to make this country live up to the ideals under which it was founded. Acknowledging and openly discussing the faults of our founding fathers is a start.
Let me ask some contrarian questions that aren't merely rhetorical: where does this stop? Slavery was universal for most of human history, and it had little or no racial component: if you lost a war, the victors enslaved you. The monuments of classical Greek civilization were built mostly with slave labor-- same with ancient Egypt and Rome. Should we get rid of those monuments, or let them fall to ruin? Strip the artifacts from museums? Stop teaching about them? As for the USA: many of the Founders-- not just Washington and Jefferson-- owned slaves or had some connection with slavery. Should we scour the country for statues of these people and remove them all from public view? As for the leaders of the Confederacy, along with their embrace of slavery, they were out-and-out traitors to the United States; I have no problem with getting rid of their statues on that basis alone.
Why make Christopher Columbus into a whipping boy? We wouldn't be here without his voyages. His views on slavery were no different-- and no worse-- than anyone else's in that era. If you want some REAL villains and enslavers from that time, look no farther than the all too aptly named Conquistadores who followed him. Why not keep Columbus Day and ALSO institute an Indigenous Peoples Day?
What about anti-Semitism? Should we stop listening to Wagner's music because he was both a virulent anti-Semite and an all-around SOB? Daniel Barenboim doesn't think so; he insisted on performing Wagner's music in Israel, over the objections of many Israelis, because, he said, Wagner was a great musical genius, whatever his objectionable personal qualities. How about Mozart? If you read a complete edition of his letters (which I've done) you'll find the occasional mildly negative remark about Jews. So-- should we label him an anti-Semite and stop listening to his music? The list of prominent anti-Semites of the virulent kind-- just confining ourselves to the USA (never mind Europe)-- in the arts, business and just about everywhere, is FAR longer than the list of slave-holders. Should we hunt them all down and black-ball them?
And SEXISTS!!! Where would one even begin to rid the country of the statues and other commemorations of THOSE men? As I said: where does all this end?
It's not about taking down masterpieces that were built by slaves. Leaving them there honors their existence and their labor at least. It's about not paying homage to those who owned slaves. I honor Monticello not because Jefferson owned it but because slaves built every inch of it. It is their masterpiece not his.
Amidst all of your "What aboutism..." I missed what your main point is. You ask, "Where does it all end?" It doesn't end. We must assume responsibility for our own realm of reality, in time and place. Today, we struggle with our nation's history of slavery and how that history informs our present conditions. And we struggle with how the vestiges of slavery are still rampant throughout our citizenry. It is good that we struggle with these realities.
I thought I delineated the issue clearly: At what point do we stop taking down monuments because the people to whom those monuments are dedicated fail to meet our exacting 21st-century standards of moral rectitude? I don't know the answer to that question-- that's why I asked it. Moving certain statues to a different venue is definitely a possible solution, especially when it involves placing the statue in a museum setting where historical context can be more fully described.
Jefferson failed to meet the standards of moral rectitude of the 18th and 19th centuries. Just ask his friend and political rival John Adams who had a few rather negative opinions about Jefferson’s ownership of slaves and support of slavery.
Which is why the solution of lending the 7’ (greater than the man himself by 10 inches!) Jefferson to the New York Historical Society provides an elegant solution. Re-contextualising existing monuments with information on-site can have its merits, too. Taking down all statues of white men will not change what took place on their watch for so many centuries, and sometimes feels a little Soviet to me. However, I laud Lucian for his clear-eyed response and for the result it produced.
So, Lucian, I just looked in my headline list and the statue will be removed. Good for you. And thank you. I am not black but boy, do I get it. Same sentiments from Alabama/Georgia/Louisiana.
Thank you, Lucian, for your steadfastness. From where I sit, a true patriot.
As a side note, it is worth mentioning that the Founders developed their notions of a republic via their study of Greek and Roman institutions, Jefferson in particular. One aspect of these ancient civilizations, especially Greek, was their belief that not all people were "fully" human, and thus as Aristotle observed, slaves were by nature slaves and not therefoe "fully" human. To the extent that the Founders absorbed this midset, they, too, believd that not all people were fully human. Indeed, the key was "rationality", and women, African slaves and Native Americans lacked the most critical charateristic: reason. Who was endowed with this defining human characteristic? British men of property, such as the Founders themselves, The "all men are created equal" clause thus applied only to those who were the "fully" human Englishmen of property. They had the most "resaon" and thus only they had those rights so necessary to live a free life. Indeed, it was their responsibility to control the less than "fully" human for their own sake. Those who resisted what would later be labelled by Kipling as the "white man's burden" and were exiled, similar to what the Greeks did to those they considered less than human. Paternalism at its worst!
Idk…do we dismantle the White House because it was built by slaves? Jefferson was a founding father, doing what, unfortunately, was done at the time. Where do we draw the line?
I draw it at America’s Second Awakening when Abolitionists were able to raise the moral questions & awareness . I draw the line at sedition and civil war—the confederate traitors knew damn well what they were doing: Attempting to destroy this democracy.
I really loved this, Lucian. Very moving, and so painful. Particularly because I was at a dinner I couldn't get out of the other night and one of the guests was saying these truly racist things and didn't even know it. I tried to stand up for what I believe and (fairly) calmly to make my point. I did this several times. Even her jokes were racist. But she was 80 years old, a white lady who has had a very limited life. And you're so right, we must try to put ourselves in the shoes of those we've oppressed for generations, or we will never be a "we."
First, we have to accept responsibility. And that is very, very hard to do. Especially for most old, white men. :-)
Here in Tennessee there are a number of museums featuring the history of the Holocaust in Germany; even in Germany, one can visit Holocaust museums. Furthermore, there are museums featuring places throughout Tennessee and several other states, places that played a prominent role in slavery. These are civilized efforts to acknowledge the atrocities of our nation's past. It is good that we struggle with the truths about our history as a nation. It is in that ongoing struggle that perhaps we become ever more determined not to let history repeat itself.
I have been reading about the various states that are beginning to mandate what is taught in the public schools, which almost always includes prohibitions on teaching about slavery, racism, etc. Despite your column being spot on, it would not make the cut. What a travesty. I am so glad that I am no longer teaching history.
Mixed feelings about this. Partly it's sentimental: all the years I lived in D.C. the Jefferson Memorial was one of my favorite places, and I used to ride my bike around the Tidal Basin to hang out there. But, Lucian, when you talk about men of color averting their eyes and stepping aside for you, I think of my decades as a woman navigating city streets. I could never *not* be vigilant, never *not* be careful about accidentally catching some guy's eye (while at the same time trying to come across as forthright but not challenging), about who else was around at the bus stop (especially after rush hour), etc. After a while I came to expect that *most* of the men whose books and/or music I like, whose ideas I admire, were assholes and worse. So I'm playing "take what you like and leave the rest," but I never stop being mindful of what "the rest" consists of. I feel somewhat the same way about the country, and the founders. Many of them are due respect for what they accomplished. None of them deserve worship, and they aren't responsible for what we've made of their legacy either. (Fwiw, I'm a descendant of Custises and Lees on one side and a collateral descendant of Robert Gould Shaw on the other, so I do feel a personal connection to all this.)
Perhaps no icons at all should be our goal. Maya Lin’s Vietnam Memorial makes the others feel so trite, and dated. Surely there has to be a way to memorialize the brave ideals of the founders without their images plastered all over the place.
Seeing the names on the Vietnam Memorial made a huge impression on me, though I knew no one who had fought there. Perhaps it arose from watching people take rubbings of a name, all that they had left of the person. These names were not of famous people who had "led" our country but a symbol of the unknowns who have fought our wars . Two were called "police action" and "advisory action." Perhaps the man I met in the wheel chair at a VA Hospital will come to that memorial. He didn't have a long duty in Vietnam. Two weeks, in fact, before he stepped on a land mine that blew off his legs. I agree there's no need to have images everywhere of the founders. A greater need is to uphold their ideals. In a society impressed with "the elite," those elite who gain power today pretend to condemn elites in favor of "the common man." The Vietnam Memorial shows that all men are created equal . They should be revered for duty to our country, even or especially in a war that never should have taken place.
I am a Hemings descendant and am genetically tied to the Wayles, Eppes, Jefferson, and Randolph families, and so am Lucian's cousin. And I have been spending the better part of 25 years attempting to discover the identities of privileged white men of yore, who impregnated my black and enslaved women ancestors. These were white men who ironically also gave me my white privilege (in part). I do not know what these historical relationships were built upon (whether there was love or even affection, or if they were simply transactional and/or coerced and built upon exploitation), but they happened, and I am relieved they did because they allow me to reflect on the essential fact that one cannot help who they are, the how and why of their origins.
I cannot help being a white Hemings, just as Lucian cannot help being a white Randolph-Jefferson.
The recent encounters with folks that did not stop to say hello to Lucian are to their misfortune. They missed the opportunity for a memorable conversation by a master storyteller with a good heart. Lucian has been standing up for invisible people all his life. And he and I are the same in that we love to talk to strangers. For once you talk to a stranger, they are no longer a stranger. Jefferson opened up his White House to strangers. Average people came in off the street and he greeted them in his slouchy attire of old fashioned breeches and ancient shoes. He never felt a president should be a god or a king. And I will always love this about him, even if I must admit he probably seemed very much like a god to my great-great-great grandparents. But his approach to the office in this way was opposite of he-who-shall-not-be-named. And if for the sole reason I would want as a permanent response to the legacy of that last Republican (big R) president, I would say: yes, keep Jefferson's statue. For Thomas Jefferson was a real president. Flawed, for sure, but very real. It is because of his presidency that we doubled our geography and so added to the complicated gumbo that is us.
When I separate out my family's history of enslavement, influenced by such immense fashion by Jefferson's presence, I am left thinking about what is it that falls away, the timeless, republican (small r) ideas he advanced into the world, and what these have meant for so many millions and millions of people over time, from every country in the world, and what they have and still do mean for me as a believer in and lover of our very strange and complicated country.
My family passed as white and severed their ties to black family. This is a Jeffersonian legacy, and one that is a blessing and curse. Curse, historically, because of the obvious: being ostracized, and by both sides of the color line, not being black enough, and then also being rejected by the gatekeeping set of our American caste system for being permanently lower class, marked by our illegitimate origins. Blessing, because in my lifetime I did find a strange and wonderful and thoroughly American community of people, who don't make me feel quite so isolated in the world, a fabulous gathering of people that Jefferson also helped engineer, even if unwittingly. I felt very hopeful about our prospects, because of that gathering, because it never would have happened even during my mother's time. I met Lucian because of it. He is one of a kind. That's something to celebrate in my mind. Thanks, Mr. Jefferson.
In the main I think we must work together for that open society we have long wanted for everyone, one where we don't make fast and easy assumptions about anyone, ever, where all people of every stripe can move through our American communities safely. And so to move forward together.
Much of how we relate to one another and how we see one another at a glance have to do with how this country values its people. Right now, this country doesn't value the majority of us. We know this because the very pillars of the democracy we want and must have as our basic rights are crumbling: public schools, free elections, free presses. Fear, resentment, and divisions spring from inequalities, and it's in our plutocratic overlords' best interest to keep us fighting amongst themselves so they can merrily go and take bloated trips to space on the backs of underpaid, angry, workers who can't afford this American life. Fighting demands an enemy. So we create them, even when and where they don't exist. Creating the common enemy, whether it's the immigrant, the African American, or the heterosexual white male who needs to 'check his privilege', or the elderly Asian walking down a New York or California street, alike, creating the common enemy is the greatest danger to our future. Prejudgment threatens the democratic experiment in the most critical way; and it leads to war.
We need to work together and reform the very system that creates wealth privilege and class distinctions, which not only pose an existential threat to our democracy, but foment those knee jerk prejudices based on ignorance and resentment from perceived differences between us.
As to whether or not to tear down Jefferson's statue, perhaps it should be left up to a national referendum (once we also reform and elevate our corrupt elections system out of developing world status). I also think that's what Mr. Jefferson would have wanted: let we, the people, decide what the legacy would be. If modern Americans decide he stands solely as a hypocrite slave owner, take the statue down. If he stands yet for religious freedom and freedom of expression and of the presses; of equality, of checks and balances, separation of church and state, if these are ideas that transcend the highly problematic image, the people can vote to keep his statue/s (and we can provide information that he was a slave owner and was indeed a co-author of once popular and indefensible racist attitudes towards native and people of color that must at last be relegated to the waste bin of history).
But I think it's vital not to erase history, and to give people the whole truth and nothing but.
My opinion only. I can well imagine there are those who would disagree with me. But I welcome debate, for I always feel the need to swap ideas and so to learn from others, and evolve, and I hope this may be done in a respectful and safe forum, without threats of censorship, cancellation, and violence. E pluribus unum. And many thanks, Lucian.
And I meant to add: that the gathering I described above was in fact engineered by Lucian.
Jill, I hope I can meet you someday as I’m also a Lucien cousin, but have kept my distance from the Monticello group.
Thank you, I hope to meet you, too. Jill
Even though I spelled His name wrong:(
One of your best! Those of us who are white and enjoy -- unthinkingly -- a certain privilege just by dint of our skin color, must constantly remind ourselves that terrible injustices were done -- and are still being perpetrated -- again people of color. Statues, cultural expressions, museums that honor and celebrate marginalized people are a vitally important start, but we also need a true and deep reckoning that evens the scales of economic and social power not just for exceptional people of color but for all people of color. Recognition is important, but we need more: truth and reconciliation commissions? Reparations?
Lovely, moving piece. Thank you.
I agree with you almost 100% ...but is being a slave-owner all there is to Jefferson? He was a champion of democracy, he did help get us -- everyone of us -- to where we are today. He seems to have sincerely believed the sentiments he expressed in the Declaration, and to his very minimal credit, he recognized and castigated himself for his own hypocrisy in owning people, even his own children. Lincoln was not a slave owner, but he certainly equivocated about slavery until 1863; are we going to take him from the Lincoln Memorial and turn it into the MLK Memorial? And then we will be reminded about how MLK regarded women, and used them, and we'll have to re-name it yet again. Every figure in history is a product of his or her own times; how far back can we go in judging those who came before us?
We cannot ignore the fact of slavery in this country. What Lucien was illustrating with his comment was the long lasting effect that slavery has on our culture, our inability to truly be we. I could care less about the “good” that Jefferson did. Look where we are today. We’re on the brink of a fascist autocracy and the remnants of slavery are just as strong today as they were in Jefferson’s time. Screw Jefferson’s legacy.
If the Trumpers who invaded the Capitol on Jan. 6 knew anything about Jefferson, they'd probably agree with you. OK, maybe they'd like the slave-owning part, but for the rest of it he'd be just another snowflake.
I would not for a minute suggest that we ignore it, or cease to deplore it. It is a stain on our history and, I agree, has deep and powerful consequences to this day. I simply submit that there is more to our history as a nation, and a society, than slavery, just as I believe that there is more to Jefferson.
As far as the impending fascist autocracy that you reference, I believe that Jefferson's legacy would do more to oppose and combat that trend than to support and nurture it.
Very enlightening and at the same time sad that those encountered that day felt themselves to be inferior. Sometimes the most lowly among us are the greatest. In today's political environment there are those that consider themselves superior that have nothing in their character to justify it. So many of the so-called lower classes like the immigrants from south of the border are the hardest working and most honest among us.
I read John Adams biography some years ago and remember that he never owned slaves: He was a lifelong friend of Jefferson and they corresponded all their lives, although they disagreed from time to time, . I can't remember if any discussion took place between them on slavery although I'm sure it must have. I came across a copy of a letter from John Adams to Robert J. Evans (my name coincidentally) but no relation that I know of. Here is the letter:
Letter to Robert J. Evans
John Adams
Quincy, June 8, 1819
. . . The turpitude, the inhumanity, the cruelty, and the infamy of the African commerce in slaves have been so impressively represented to the public by the highest powers of eloquence that nothing that I can say would increase the just odium in which it is and ought to be held. Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States. If, however, humanity dictates the duty of adopting the most prudent measures for accomplishing so excellent a purpose, the same humanity requires that we should not inflict severer calamities on the objects of our commiseration than those which they at present endure, by reducing them to despair, or the necessity of robbery, plunder, assassination, and massacre, to preserve their lives, some provision for furnishing them employment, or some means of supplying them with the necessary comforts of life. The same humanity requires that we should not by any rash or violent measures expose the lives and property of those of our fellow-citizens who are so unfortunate as to be surrounded with these fellow-creatures by hereditary descent, or by any other means without their own fault. I have, through my whole life, held the practice of slavery in such abhorrence that I have never owned a Negro or any other slave, though I have lived for many years in times when the practice was not disgraceful, when the best men in my vicinity thought it not inconsistent with their character, and when it has cost me thousands of dollars for the labor and subsistence of free men, which I might have saved by the purchase of Negroes at times when they were very cheap. . . .
these types of essays always take me back to Savannah Ga late fifties. I was 8 or 9 walking home from a small library in our community when I saw two white boys throwings rock at a young black girl walking in not her part of town. without a thought I crossed the street and yelled at them to stop. she was almost obsequious in her gratitude for my intervention. I remember being so embarrassed that she felt the need to compliment my looks to express her thanks. that was the first day that I saw the lie of my white lived lie.
Well written and well considered, sir. There is no way I can, as an older white man, understand what it must feel like to walk in the shoes of a person of color in this day, or any age before now. We must, however, continue to try to make this country live up to the ideals under which it was founded. Acknowledging and openly discussing the faults of our founding fathers is a start.
Let me ask some contrarian questions that aren't merely rhetorical: where does this stop? Slavery was universal for most of human history, and it had little or no racial component: if you lost a war, the victors enslaved you. The monuments of classical Greek civilization were built mostly with slave labor-- same with ancient Egypt and Rome. Should we get rid of those monuments, or let them fall to ruin? Strip the artifacts from museums? Stop teaching about them? As for the USA: many of the Founders-- not just Washington and Jefferson-- owned slaves or had some connection with slavery. Should we scour the country for statues of these people and remove them all from public view? As for the leaders of the Confederacy, along with their embrace of slavery, they were out-and-out traitors to the United States; I have no problem with getting rid of their statues on that basis alone.
Why make Christopher Columbus into a whipping boy? We wouldn't be here without his voyages. His views on slavery were no different-- and no worse-- than anyone else's in that era. If you want some REAL villains and enslavers from that time, look no farther than the all too aptly named Conquistadores who followed him. Why not keep Columbus Day and ALSO institute an Indigenous Peoples Day?
What about anti-Semitism? Should we stop listening to Wagner's music because he was both a virulent anti-Semite and an all-around SOB? Daniel Barenboim doesn't think so; he insisted on performing Wagner's music in Israel, over the objections of many Israelis, because, he said, Wagner was a great musical genius, whatever his objectionable personal qualities. How about Mozart? If you read a complete edition of his letters (which I've done) you'll find the occasional mildly negative remark about Jews. So-- should we label him an anti-Semite and stop listening to his music? The list of prominent anti-Semites of the virulent kind-- just confining ourselves to the USA (never mind Europe)-- in the arts, business and just about everywhere, is FAR longer than the list of slave-holders. Should we hunt them all down and black-ball them?
And SEXISTS!!! Where would one even begin to rid the country of the statues and other commemorations of THOSE men? As I said: where does all this end?
It's not about taking down masterpieces that were built by slaves. Leaving them there honors their existence and their labor at least. It's about not paying homage to those who owned slaves. I honor Monticello not because Jefferson owned it but because slaves built every inch of it. It is their masterpiece not his.
Amidst all of your "What aboutism..." I missed what your main point is. You ask, "Where does it all end?" It doesn't end. We must assume responsibility for our own realm of reality, in time and place. Today, we struggle with our nation's history of slavery and how that history informs our present conditions. And we struggle with how the vestiges of slavery are still rampant throughout our citizenry. It is good that we struggle with these realities.
I thought I delineated the issue clearly: At what point do we stop taking down monuments because the people to whom those monuments are dedicated fail to meet our exacting 21st-century standards of moral rectitude? I don't know the answer to that question-- that's why I asked it. Moving certain statues to a different venue is definitely a possible solution, especially when it involves placing the statue in a museum setting where historical context can be more fully described.
Jefferson failed to meet the standards of moral rectitude of the 18th and 19th centuries. Just ask his friend and political rival John Adams who had a few rather negative opinions about Jefferson’s ownership of slaves and support of slavery.
Which is why the solution of lending the 7’ (greater than the man himself by 10 inches!) Jefferson to the New York Historical Society provides an elegant solution. Re-contextualising existing monuments with information on-site can have its merits, too. Taking down all statues of white men will not change what took place on their watch for so many centuries, and sometimes feels a little Soviet to me. However, I laud Lucian for his clear-eyed response and for the result it produced.
So, Lucian, I just looked in my headline list and the statue will be removed. Good for you. And thank you. I am not black but boy, do I get it. Same sentiments from Alabama/Georgia/Louisiana.
Thank you, Lucian, for your steadfastness. From where I sit, a true patriot.
As a side note, it is worth mentioning that the Founders developed their notions of a republic via their study of Greek and Roman institutions, Jefferson in particular. One aspect of these ancient civilizations, especially Greek, was their belief that not all people were "fully" human, and thus as Aristotle observed, slaves were by nature slaves and not therefoe "fully" human. To the extent that the Founders absorbed this midset, they, too, believd that not all people were fully human. Indeed, the key was "rationality", and women, African slaves and Native Americans lacked the most critical charateristic: reason. Who was endowed with this defining human characteristic? British men of property, such as the Founders themselves, The "all men are created equal" clause thus applied only to those who were the "fully" human Englishmen of property. They had the most "resaon" and thus only they had those rights so necessary to live a free life. Indeed, it was their responsibility to control the less than "fully" human for their own sake. Those who resisted what would later be labelled by Kipling as the "white man's burden" and were exiled, similar to what the Greeks did to those they considered less than human. Paternalism at its worst!
Idk…do we dismantle the White House because it was built by slaves? Jefferson was a founding father, doing what, unfortunately, was done at the time. Where do we draw the line?
I draw it at America’s Second Awakening when Abolitionists were able to raise the moral questions & awareness . I draw the line at sedition and civil war—the confederate traitors knew damn well what they were doing: Attempting to destroy this democracy.
I really loved this, Lucian. Very moving, and so painful. Particularly because I was at a dinner I couldn't get out of the other night and one of the guests was saying these truly racist things and didn't even know it. I tried to stand up for what I believe and (fairly) calmly to make my point. I did this several times. Even her jokes were racist. But she was 80 years old, a white lady who has had a very limited life. And you're so right, we must try to put ourselves in the shoes of those we've oppressed for generations, or we will never be a "we."
First, we have to accept responsibility. And that is very, very hard to do. Especially for most old, white men. :-)
Here in Tennessee there are a number of museums featuring the history of the Holocaust in Germany; even in Germany, one can visit Holocaust museums. Furthermore, there are museums featuring places throughout Tennessee and several other states, places that played a prominent role in slavery. These are civilized efforts to acknowledge the atrocities of our nation's past. It is good that we struggle with the truths about our history as a nation. It is in that ongoing struggle that perhaps we become ever more determined not to let history repeat itself.
I have been reading about the various states that are beginning to mandate what is taught in the public schools, which almost always includes prohibitions on teaching about slavery, racism, etc. Despite your column being spot on, it would not make the cut. What a travesty. I am so glad that I am no longer teaching history.