In the Shadow of Statues a White Southerner Confronts History Review
In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History — Mitch Landrieu
An honorable memoir in many ways that still fails in its execution
In 2016, I followed from dwelling as the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution for all "brothers and sisters in Christ to discontinue the display of the Confederate boxing flag". The give-and-take "Southern" in the SBC's name makes that resolution all the more uplifting. Many of the "messengers" (a distinctly Baptist term) to the convention were descendants of Confederate soldiers, yet they were eager to repudiate the Confederate flag, equally the text says "as a sign of solidarity of the whole body of Christ, including our African American brothers and sisters". Here is James Merritt's speech in back up of the resolution and in condemnation of the Confederate flag.
In case you couldn't lookout man it at the moment, here is the most important part:
All the confederate flags in the world are not worth ane soul of any race.
I was both stunned and filled with joy. Earlier that twelvemonth, I had read Ta-Nehisi Coates' amazing Between the Globe and Me. From there, God started working in me on racial reconciliation and has continued through the books I read, the podcasts I mind to, and the people I meet.
So you lot could say I was primed to read Mitch Landrieu's new book In the Shadow of Statues (available in bookstores everywhere). Written by the mayor of New Orleans, information technology is a book most Landrieu'due south experiences with race as a white political leader from Louisiana (D), and it gets its title from his decision to take down four Amalgamated monuments (of Robert E. Lee, PGT Beauregard, Jefferson Davis, and the and so-called "Liberty Place" monument put up past the White League). I'g personally very supportive of this activeness, and we'll get to that in a infinitesimal, merely I had high hopes for Landrieu's account. I was disappointed. I fifty-fifty actively disliked it at times. But, to employ a maxim I use frequently in my life, sometimes you take to take the meat and spit out the bones. In that location is still a lot of meat here.
In the introduction, Landrieu seems to lay out the setting for the book. In 2015, he resolved to exercise everything in his power to remove the iv confederate statues from the streets of New Orleans. That began a two-and-a-half-twelvemonth struggle that included death threats, car bombs (aimed at the contractors who were supposed to carry out the activeness), and the similar: acts of terror perpetrated by American citizens. Landrieu puts it in context:
Can you imagine? In the second decade of the twenty-first century, tactics every bit former as called-for crosses or social exclusion, just dressed up a little bit, were being used to terminate what was now an official act authorized by the authorities in the legislative, judicial, and executive branches.
Racial reconciliation is necessary. Even for those of us who do not blow up cars in the proper name of white identity. That much is clear. I've realized this for a while, but it still hits me hard every time I meet more than proof of this fact. I am the descendant of Amalgamated soldiers equally well. Simply whether it is a Confederate flag or a monument to a Confederate soldier, to paraphrase James Merritt, they are non worth 1 soul of any race. And souls have been lost considering of the myth of the Lost Cause.
I tin can't turn this volume review into a clarification of the myth of the Lost Cause (a myth which many Southerners, even ones I am close to, believe), because others have done that and Landrieu fairly describes information technology himself, so I'll halfheartedly assume y'all're with me on that statement and let Landrieu (who went deep into historical research before moving forward with the monument decision) describe what this means for those historical works of art:
The statues were not honoring history, or heroes. They were created every bit political weapons, parts of an effort to hibernate the truth, which is that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity … And the misuse of history is inflamed by the anger burning through demonstrations today, anger fueled past white supremacists and neo-Nazis who take stolen the meaning of Southern heritage from many white who abhor their ideology but still hold hard to a rose-colored nostalgia for the past. It is a view of history that I, respectfully, do not share; but I sympathise where they are coming from, and why many people feel as they do.
He understands because he was there. While his parents were also pioneers of racial reconciliation in the 1960s and 70s, Landrieu admits that the Confederate statues didn't carp him until recently. I'll quote him one more than time to give an idea of where he is coming from, because I think this is where a lot of united states of america are right at present.
This is what I have come up to phone call transformative awareness. We are all capable of information technology; merely nosotros come kicking and screaming to a sudden shift in thinking well-nigh the past. To get there we have to admit that we were inattentive, insensitive, myopic, or God forbid, hateful in our earlier view. This is one of the hardest things for homo beings to do, especially when someone calls u.s.a. on a belief.
My teaching came tardily, but it caught up in a hurry … We can exist proud of our ancestors who served the Confederacy as men who fought courageously for a cause greater than themselves. Nosotros tin can also recognize that in the context of history they were wrong. Which is to say they were human.
I recollect this is a proficient way to retrieve about our Confederate heritage every bit Southerners. My ancestors were wrong, but I'thousand sure there was much more they were incorrect about likewise. This is just the one thing that's apparent from our current perspective.
Landrieu is able to bring this fresh perspective to other portions of the book too, on occasion. His ideas and vague outline of policy on curbing gun violence (a policy which includes the novel idea of non incarcerating then many Blackness men) is needed in our moment. I wish this voice could have been so consistently thoughtful throughout the rest of the volume.
Betwixt the introduction and the final affiliate, In the Shadow of Statues is definitely not about statues. To Landrieu'south credit, it stays in the vein of race relations with chapters on David Knuckles, Hurricane Katrina (which quickly became a story with racial tension), the rebuilding of New Orleans, and inner-metropolis violence. The idea is to show that all of this happened "in the shadow of statues". I don't retrieve that was made clear throughout the volume (Landrieu says those exact words once and might allude to it another time or 2), simply even if it had been, in that location is something else at play that supersedes the narrative. Right now Landrieu is budgeted the end of his term every bit governor, and everything he writes about is something he has personal experience with during his political career. I could be wrong, but it really feels similar he's line-fishing to run for something. And it seems that is the hidden bulletin of the bulk of the book.
Accept for case, the chapter on David Duke. He perpetually makes connections between David Duke and Donald Trump to make a more contemporary parallel, but David Duke is both contempo enough history and discussed plenty in political culture that there is no parallel needed in guild to relate information technology to the current climate. While Donald Trump and David Duke practise take some political similarities (for instance, both accept policies that are or were actively bad for their core supporters: poor whites), I idea that Landreiu'south chapter-long comparison of the two was more political soapbox-shouting than anything else. Although in that location is relevant information almost Duke'south political career, no one's listen is being changed by this comparison. You lot're simply preaching to the admittedly-large choir. He does, however, manage to write possibly the nicest thing I accept seen anyone from the reverse party say of the President:
"Donald Trump is not a Nazi."
I empathise that all politicians do this. If Mitch Landrieu is truly running for President on the Autonomous side in 2020 (which he says he isn't), writing a book is nigh as necessary as filing the official documents. Mayhap he's hoping to be Vice President, which would also virtually require a book. Either way, I sympathise. But I was expecting a thoughtful examination of the history of these monuments (which was sort of promised in the introduction just only partially delivered) and a case for all such monuments to exist removed. What I received was a personal story of a man'due south encounters with racial issues, which I mostly enjoyed, just also a political polemic. Polemics don't persuade. People exercise. And Mitch Landrieu was almost there but as well so far away.
There is a sense in our guild that a white man cannot speak on racial reconciliation, only I vehemently disagree. This by Midweek, I was sitting in a DVD Bible study from Tony Evans, the pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas. His lesson was not virtually racial reconciliation but about the story of Joseph and its relation to forgiveness. He divers the divergence between unilateral forgiveness and transactional forgiveness. Unilateral forgiveness is when you determine to forgive someone contained of their repentance. We are capable of this kind of forgiveness, and this is what God asks of us because this is what He provides to us. But transactional forgiveness is a separate type of forgiveness that is capable of restoring the human relationship between ii people. In the context of racial reconciliation, this is ii large groups of people (at least): Black and white. In gild for that reconciliation, that forgiveness, to occur, there has to be a large corporeality of work involved. Tony Evans says transactional forgiveness starts with a private conversation, not a public brandish.
Landrieu'southward volume felt like a public brandish, but I recall it did provide some necessary background and ideas for private conversation. I programme to take these private conversations as often as possible, and there are many possibilities in the world in which we detect ourselves. If we can talk about racial reconciliation without falling back on polemics, mayhap we can see all the statues and flags come down. Perhaps at some point it volition happen without threats and violence.
In The Shadow of Statues is available in bookstores everywhere. You tin can also buy it hither.
I received this book as an eARC courtesy of Viking Books and NetGalley, simply my opinions are my own.
Source: https://medium.com/park-recommendations/in-the-shadow-of-statues-a-white-southerner-confronts-history-c426a6abf625
Post a Comment for "In the Shadow of Statues a White Southerner Confronts History Review"