Huh?

Amidst all the noise this week of the most recent edition of American Nazis in the News, I thought (at first) I'd only imagined a story about the Governor of Arizona publicly stating his state's Confederate statues would NOT be removed (as the one of Robert E. Lee was slated to be in Charlottesville, Virginia, before all those brave Aryan warriors took to the street). Like so many (POTUS 45, I'm looking at you) public officials, he offered no explanation. And didn't need to.

As I said, I thought I'd imagined it because Arizona was hardly more than a territory much less a state at the time of the Civil War (I didn't think it was much of anything) but I hadn't. Seriously. So the state song has lyrics like "I wish I was in the land of cactus, where our cowboys don't need no practice. look away, look away, look away, et cet era?" Actually, nope, not at all.

I pictured Rhett telling Scarlett, "Frankly, I don't have any chaps, or spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle, as I go antebelluming along" but that's NOT how Arizona came by its Sons of the Confederacy club membership, sadly. Turns out, for an area west of the Mason-Dixon line, Arizona has a bunch of Confederate memorials and I can't claim to have a peaceful heart as to why.

I appreciate Curt Tipton's reaction, quoted in that story, to taking the memorials down since, without putting too fine a point on all of this, Arizona was on the wrong side of that history. I lived a long time in Germany and don't recall any parts of the autobahn being named for the Linz Lunatic from the more recent German past, but the list of US public spaces dedicated to the Confederacy is lengthy.

I certainly hope that assertive desire to preserve and remember "our past" means the Equal Justice Institute can count on the generosity of hearts as well as wallets as its project continues. After all, history never looks like history when you are living through it.
-bill kenny