It's amusing to hear some of our betters talk about how we need to "come to grips" with our nation's past, as they vote to rid us of all reminders of it. That is, when they bother to put something to a vote at all. Sometimes the mob gets its overheated way, democracy being too slow for its tastes.
Statues and street signs and markers are coming down all across the nation, proving that, no, we certainly do not have to come to grips with our nation's past. We, as flawed Americans and flawed Southerners, can ignore our history completely. All it takes is some spackling paste, maybe a heavy truck for the monuments, and more pure souls who only want the history books to tell stories about Betsy Ross, Model T Fords and the moon landing, complete with color graphics and entertaining sidebars to keep the kids' interest. Having reminders of the United States' full history around here might interfere with digestion. Such things as slavery, The War, Jim Crow, Dred Scott and the Missouri Compromise are best left to dusty academics in their even dustier libraries. There they can safely explain our past. Should anybody really want to know.
But, according to the paper Sunday, folks in Arkansas are having none of it. As people all across the nation are getting rid of names such as Lee and Jackson and Pike--renaming streets, schools and maybe even towns--folks in Arkansas are keeping their heads. And their history. According to our reports, very few have complained about the handful of Robert E. Lee Elementary schools in this state.
When contacted by a reporter and asked if anybody's suggested changing the name of his town, Mayor Larry Bryant of Forrest City laughed and said: "I'm not getting into that one." And noted that would be the extent of his comments on the matter.
Our considered editorial opinion: Smart man.
Some people will demand to get rid of the images of these men and the horses they rode in on. They'd give to their children a narrative-free history of the United States.
Others, including it seems most Arkansans, will object. Pushing things down the memory hole is too Orwellian for some of us.
Editorial on 09/07/2017