DAVID MARCUS: Bring back the Redskins, and everything else torn down by wokeness
It was back in 2020, a year of abject and bizarre societal madness, that the Redskins became the Washington Football Team, and eventually the Commanders, out of concern that "Redskin" is an offensive term. Never mind that poll after poll shows actual American Indians do not object to it.
It wasn't just the Redskins. In the wake of the woke madness of 2020, statues were toppled all over the country. Of course, it started with Confederate monuments, which were low-hanging fruit, but soon statues of Christopher Columbus and Teddy Roosevelt were also falling.
Perhaps the best, or worst, example was the removal of the Emancipation Memorial in Boston. This was a statue of Abraham Lincoln freeing a slave, erected in 1879, the design of which was literally paid for by freed slaves.
The intergalactic hubris of the officials in Boston, who thought they knew better how to celebrate the end of slavery than actual slaves, shows exactly why the memorials and names excised by wokeness must all return.
The Left believes firmly that the arc of history bends towards their preferences, and that "social justice" is a one-way ratchet, that their victories cannot be undone. But in fact, there is no reason we have to accept that.
What 2020 showed us was that the iconoclastic impulse to destroy the images and symbols of a society is insatiable. No sooner do they ruin one sacred idol than they move onto the next one and the next one, until mothers are called birthing people.
Had there been any kind of rational process in 2020 to determine what monuments should stay or go, we might have been able to reach considered compromises on the most questionable: The Cleveland Indians and Nathan Bedford Forrest are not the same.
But that didn't happen. Instead, we saw mass hysteria, from the mob, the state, and corporations. Pull down the statues first, ask questions never, was the order of the day.
This is why, for Americans to truly heal from the wound that was 2020, not just its avalanche of wokeness, but also the draconian COVID lockdowns that accompanied it, we need to hit the reset button and bring back what we so carelessly destroyed.
Five years from now, on a chilly Sunday, with their team losing to the Eagles, Washington fans should be able to say, "Remember how we stopped calling them the Redskins? That was stupid," and know that a wrong has been righted.
Likewise, if on a spring day in Gotham, New Yorkers can once again tip their hat to the once-toppled Teddy Roosevelt statue, then they too will know that we are the makers of history, not just passengers along for the inevitable Marxist ride.
The urge to destroy monuments and names is nothing new. In Ancient Egypt we call it damnatio memoriae when one Pharoah scratched off the name of a predecessor. In the Middle Ages, we call it Iconoclasm, and it tore apart the Christian faith.
Troves of knowledge and artistic treasure have been destroyed by well-intentioned people of the past, who just knew deep down, that they had to protect not just their contemporaries, but all of humanity to come, by destroying what they saw as offensive.
Today, we have a choice. 2020 was only 5 years ago. We can still restore what was lost, yes, even the General Lee statue in Richmond, and then, perhaps, enter into some rational process to decide what, if any, history we wish to deprive future generations of.
The message needs to be clear that when mistakes are made, our society can and will go back. Just as we went back from the "progressive" policy of letting men play in women's sports, we can go back to a time when we respected the past, instead of abhorring and eviscerating it.
2020 was a year of almost unfathomable destruction, loss of life, loss of liberty, and loss of historical monuments and names, but often, out of destruction grows renewal, and the owners of, as Trump currently puts it, the Washington Whatevers have a chance to bring that renewal to fruition.
So Hail to the Redskins, and the Roosevelts and Lincolns too. Hail to Columbus and his oceans blue. This is our history, and it is time for us to reclaim it.
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