The odd couple's day off
Sex and Violence
Greg Karber
Issue date: 1/23/09 Section: Opinion
Ah, the end of another great four-day week! There's nothing I like more than a four-day week, especially when the fifth day was skipped for a good reason, and not because I had a triple-digit fever or was vomiting. This last Monday was for a good reason, you might argue: to honor Martin Luther King Jr. Certainly, I would agree with you. MLK Jr. was a great man who fought for the rights of others and was killed doing what he believed was right.
Except we didn't get off on Monday for the good doctor alone.
No, in the state of Arkansas, since the 1980s, the third Monday in January is Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert E. Lee Day. So, congratulations, Arkansans. We're celebrating both a man who fought for the rights of African Americans and a man who fought for the right to enslave African Americans.
Now, I know I'm going to get a lot of hate letters from people who drape their cars in Confederate flags and tote pistols in their glove compartments, and I don't want to have to have a musket ball pulled out of my torso in the emergency room, but don't you think this is a little - I don't know - obviously and intentionally obnoxiously racist?
Let's examine the facts.
Lee was a man who fought against the United States. Now, I've been told (by Wikipedia) that he didn't want to do it, but that when Virginia seceded, he felt compelled to join up and was quickly promoted to top dog. OK, so he loved Virginia. Privately, however (again, according to Wikipedia), he felt that secession was revolution, and that it went directly against the intentions of the founding fathers.
OK, so maybe Virginia would want to give him a day. But why Arkansas? He didn't join the Confederacy to fight for Arkansas' freedom (it seems that had Virginia not seceded, but Arkansas still had, he might have even fought for the Union), but yet we still give him a day.
But I'll even skip over that part of the issue, because giving Lee a day isn't the real problem (though it's certainly part of it).
Except we didn't get off on Monday for the good doctor alone.
No, in the state of Arkansas, since the 1980s, the third Monday in January is Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert E. Lee Day. So, congratulations, Arkansans. We're celebrating both a man who fought for the rights of African Americans and a man who fought for the right to enslave African Americans.
Now, I know I'm going to get a lot of hate letters from people who drape their cars in Confederate flags and tote pistols in their glove compartments, and I don't want to have to have a musket ball pulled out of my torso in the emergency room, but don't you think this is a little - I don't know - obviously and intentionally obnoxiously racist?
Let's examine the facts.
Lee was a man who fought against the United States. Now, I've been told (by Wikipedia) that he didn't want to do it, but that when Virginia seceded, he felt compelled to join up and was quickly promoted to top dog. OK, so he loved Virginia. Privately, however (again, according to Wikipedia), he felt that secession was revolution, and that it went directly against the intentions of the founding fathers.
OK, so maybe Virginia would want to give him a day. But why Arkansas? He didn't join the Confederacy to fight for Arkansas' freedom (it seems that had Virginia not seceded, but Arkansas still had, he might have even fought for the Union), but yet we still give him a day.
But I'll even skip over that part of the issue, because giving Lee a day isn't the real problem (though it's certainly part of it).
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