Honoring the Evil Among Us
Throughout history, it always seems as if the bad guys get the most glory, doesn’t it? Well, if you don’t think so, the author of the article “As Confederate Flags Fall, Columbus Statues Stand Tall”, Michael I. Niman would hold a very opposing opinion to yours. Niman expresses his extreme distaste for the culture of honoring those who engaged in the genocide, enslavement, and other vicious atrocities throughout this writing. He uses several vivid examples of horrific acts committed by men that are commonly honored in American culture, such as Christopher Columbus and Confederate Generals. He also goes over acts of vandalism committed today against these monuments with appreciation for the vandal, radicalizing his aforementioned point to the reader. The author’s stance on the matter is clear, there is a problem and he is fed up!
The main point of this article is to educate the reader on the insanity of erecting statues and monuments to idolize the most evil among us. He helps paint a picture by elaborating on the atrocities committed by the memorialized men such as Columbus and Colón, along with their European settlers, specifically atrocities directed towards the native Americans, such as abduction, slave trade, and executions. He uses this historical context to encapsulate how ridiculous it is to memorialize such heinous acts and ignore the impact it has on the descendants of the victims, and encourages the reader to think “what if this happened to you?” The author then gives several instances of the media’s coverage and how it will sometimes pander to the atrocity deniers among us by covering events from an extreme bias, for instance, a vandalized statue? They focus more on the vile words like ‘rape’ and call the vandalizers criminals, instead of the other words and phrases like ‘ecca vestra exponuntur’ which means “your sins are exposed” and really understanding the point of why the people vandalize in the first place. People don’t just cause this sort of disruption because “they feel like it”, it’s ridiculous!
Mr. Niman uses a range of strategies to get through to the reader, ensuring that everyone in his audience is accounted for. The primary strategy the author uses is emotion. The author expresses his feelings constantly with strong criticisms of peoples’ objectively poor judgments in honoring the most horrible of the fallen among us. A good example is “The fact that news producers chose to broadcast this embarrassing idiocy speaks volumes not only about the crisis of journalism but about the epidemic of ignorance regarding issues of racism.” (Niman, As Confederate Flags Fall, Columbus Statues Stand Tall). He uses words like ‘embarrassing’ and ‘idiocy’ to name-call and shame the opposition for their objectively atrocious stance on an issue not even directly affecting them. Although emotion is a great portion of his writing, his methods don’t solely rely on feelings for emphasis. There are many instances of the author detailing information from popular news sources in the New England area to show how the media’s coverage of the outrage against the memorials will oftentimes be extremely dismissive and pander to the majority, further stripping the oppressed minority of their voice. When covering a topic like this, I believe that giving the facts in an emotional manner like the author does can be very effective to the empathetic people among us, but to someone who is set in their ways and unwilling to change it might come off as just whining. Personally, I love the way the author speaks. I feel his passion and it makes me inadvertently adopt passion for his cause as well, but holistically I think a lot of readers that actually need to absorb this information will be initially turned off by that, ultimately dampening the impact of his message.
My personal beliefs are that atrocities happen, and they shouldn’t happen upon deaf ears. On one hand, one might argue we don’t have all the power to save everyone in the world, all the hungry children, all the sick people and the struggling people, but I believe this mindset is extremely myopic, limiting, and is a weak mindset. I strive to be strong, not strong to impose my will on others, but strong to protect myself, the ones I love, and strong to make a positive difference to the people in the world, and that strength won’t be possible if I tell myself fallacies like “well I wasn’t there when it happened, so I shouldn’t be responsible!” Yes, I’m not responsible, but no, that does not mean I engage in these manners without empathy for the victims. People don’t just complain about statues because they don’t like them, or because they’re sensitive people, especially if it’s a group of people telling us as a society “hey guys, this is actually extremely horrible!” I think most people in America’s notion of a strong man is one that stomps their opponents, imposes their will on others and silences the opposition, I don’t think this is strength. It’s the opposite. I think strength is exactly what the author portrayed in this article, the ability to use your privilege for good, to shed light on atrocities even if it does not directly benefit your race, creed or religion, because we are all human in this world and we need to put aside our stinking prejudices and genuinely care and look out for each other.
In conclusion, what a world, what a world! The author holds a firm stance against the oppressors of the world, which in my opinion, should be the case for everybody. He presented several excellent points to show that there are a lot of invalidating pieces on the news towards Native Americans, invalidating actual genocides and atrocities that occurred. This is absolutely not acceptable by any means in the modern world, yet it’s done every day just under our noses with the withholding of some evidence and the over-emphasis on others to make any counter-culture actions seem as if they originated from mentally ill zealots as opposed to people who are heartbroken over the rape, abduction, and murder of their ancestors. This sort of invalidation cannot stand, I don’t want to live in a world where it does, and reading this article Mr. Numan produced gives me hope that I’m not alone, and if we all fight hard enough, we can all create a better world for our children and theirs.