After the Charlottesville riots we learned that we have many options to sanitize history other than toppling statues, sandblasting Stone Mountain, jackhammering Mount Rushmore, removing non-PC street and memorial park signs and tearing down monuments in the middle of the night.
Simply change the names of offensive people and places.
For example: George Washington becomes Booker T. Washington or Denzel Washington. Stonewall Jackson becomes Michael Jackson or Jesse Jackson. Thomas Jefferson becomes George Jefferson (TV show “The Jeffersons”). Jeff Davis County, Georgia becomes Betty Davis Eyes County.
Republican Abraham Lincoln only won 40 percent of the popular vote. The media, many voters, members of Congress and even preachers excoriated him. Foreign and business leaders disparaged Lincoln.
Riots and protests broke out in NYC and elsewhere.
Lincoln funded and proposed that ex-slaves self-deport to Liberia. He said, “It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated” and that blacks who refuse to colonize elsewhere would be “extremely selfish.”
We should not subject ourselves to that kind of incendiary racist language in our history books, especially from an American President!
Perhaps Andrew Lincoln (“The Walking Dead”) can take his place?
Common Core political correctness is achieved and history is scrubbed clean of any deplorable macro or micro-aggression.
Just Google the irredeemable name and we find a myriad of unimpeachable people to honor and emulate.
One loose end: what do we do with the eight-foot-tall Ralph Kramden (“The Honeymooners”) bronze statue that stands in front of Manhattan’s midtown Port Authority Bus Terminal? Jackie Gleason was cast as a homophobic, misogynistic, racist, xenophobic bigot who made threatening gestures sending his wife Alice “to the moon” when she didn’t buy into one of his hair-brained schemes.
“Be careful what you ask for…”
Michael Velsmid
Peachtree City, Ga.
