by John
Stevenson
The
movement to tear down monuments and to rename buildings, schools, and streets
seems to have hit an orgasmic crescendo.
And it has gone well beyond symbols of the Confederacy. It reaches out now to all symbols of white
supremacy, white privilege, whiteness, Western Civilization…and all things Caucasian
and therefore now thought to be at the heart of all evil.
When
you and I were going to school, Christopher Columbus was an explorer,
adventurer, sailor. A pretty gutsy guy
for risking it all on the belief that the Earth was round, not flat. Columbus sailed under the auspices and financial
backing of the Spanish crown. He sailed
forth to spread Christianity, claim lands for Spain, and return with gold. That’s what explorers did in the Age of Exploration. That was his job.
“In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus
sailed the ocean blue.” Remember that
one?
For
some five centuries most folks believed this was a great achievement. It was taught in school. It was history. But suddenly it’s no longer true! Columbus is now called a racist and an
exploiter of indigenous people.
The
natives would have been better off if Europeans had never appeared on their
shores. They would have invented the
wheel, the alphabet, vaccines, electric power, flush toilets, television, and
the Apollo space program all by themselves and without having to suffer the
presence of white folks and the industrial revolution.
So statues
of Columbus are being defaced, decapitated, splattered with paint, and torn
down by vandals. But, if the vandals
don’t get to them first, these symbols of the birth of our American
civilization are being covered up or removed by city councils and other local
jurisdictions.
Well,
enough about Columbus. Being a West
Coast guy, my sympathies go with another occupant of the endangered species
list---Father Junipero Serra. In the
1700s, Father Serra established the California missions. He was canonized by Pope Francis in
2015. He brought Christianity to the California
natives. Of course, he is now accused of
also bringing them exploitation and slavery.
I grew
up in a small town on the California coast.
A key feature of our town was one of Father Serra’s missions. Established in 1770, the mission is still
functioning today and is Father Serra’s burial place. When I was in school, the
Catholic kids all went through grammar school at the mission, and the rest of
us went to the public grammar school. Then
we all ended up together at the public high school.
Now
three points:
→Our
public high school’s mascot was named for (of course) Father Serra: The Padres.
→Each State
is represented in the U.S. Capitol by statues of two of its most important historical
figures. Of the two who represent California
in Statuary Hall, one is Father Serra.
→In my
home town a life-size and beautifully maintained statue of Father Serra on a
high pedestal presides over the intersection of Camino del Monte and Serra
Drive.
I’m
sure it will be only a matter of time that my Padres are renamed, Father Serra
is ousted from Statuary Hall, and his statue at Camino del Monte and Serra
Drive is vandalized, destroyed, or banished.
The
movement to erase American historical figures, or to re-cast them as villains,
marches on.
