The Fredericksburg Slave Block
For those who don't know, I live in Fredericksburg, Virginia. It's a historic city due to being a Civil War battleground in what was the heart of the confederacy. Something that's always made me ill-at-ease. I hate seeing the confederate flag. It represents not only one of the most shameful things about my great country's history, but it represents a nation which, for the entirety of its existence, was at war with The United States. And I urge anyone who still thinks that the civil war wasn't primarily about slaver to read The Cornerstone Speech, written by Alexander H. Stephens one of the founding fathers of the confederacy, who served as its vice-president for the entirety of its existence.
With that out of the way, I am extremely disappointed in something that I recognize as being done with the best of misguided intentions. For as long as Fredericksburg has existed, up until just last week, one thing has been the center of more controversy than anything else. A platform - at this point just a stump, really - with a sign explaining that it was once used for an auctioneer to sell slaves. It was the most uncomfortable thing I've ever seen. It was a horrible reminder of what went on in our little town. There has been debate for years over whether or not it should be removed and put in the local museum. And with the current protests and riots, that's exactly what happened.
And I think that's a step backwards. Many people compared the stump to confederate statues; which, for the record, I 100% support tearing down. But there was a crucial difference. Those statues were erected to honor confederates and the confederacy. To glorify those men and the things they did. The stump was simply a somber reminder that slavery wasn't just some fictional horror story. It wasn't something awful that happened in a far-off land. This was something that occurred right here, in our town. People were uncomfortable because it reminded them of that, and I say good. People should be reminded of what happened, and it should make them uncomfortable. That's the greatest safe-guard we have against something like that ever happening again.
Consider Auschwitz. A monument to the greatest evil of the 20th century. But people visit it. Jews visit it. Germans visit it. Students visit it. It's a horribly uncomfortable experience - as well it should be - but is there any serious debate about tearing it down? Of course not. Because reminding people of the truth, in a world where somehow some people still deny the Holocaust happened, is important. And it's just as important that in a region where southerners are told romanticized stories of their forefathers and how slavery wasn't a factor in the war that they be reminded that it was a scourge in this region.