Jim Webb’s defense of the indefensible
Let me just preface this post by stating categorically that I am not a historian. One does not have to be a historian to know right from wrong. One thing I do know is that if one creates or supports a policy that one should be aware would cause thousands of death, that person is evil.
Jim Webb’s defense of keeping Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill in his WP op-ed titled “We can celebrate Harriet Tubman without disparaging Andrew Jackson” shows an insensitivity to the acknowledgment of reality we now have freedom to express. He does not mind giving recognition to Harriet Tubman, a former slave and a liberator of slaves as long as the slave owner and promoter of genocide is not demeaned. So why would Webb get into a debate he cannot win on moral or factual grounds? He expresses it perfectly in one paragraph in the article.
This dismissive characterization of one of our great presidents is not occurring in a vacuum. Any white person whose ancestral relations trace to the American South now risks being characterized as having roots based on bigotry and undeserved privilege. Meanwhile, race relations are at their worst point in decades.
In other words, he wants to protect the false image of any American from the past who have accumulated wealth and greatness through the pilferage, enslavement, and murder of other human beings. Those on the receiving end of these evils care little about political correctness, acquiescing to fallacies, or giving the evils affected even by our founders a pass.
One of the reasons many countries are disdainful of our advice on morality and democracy is that we are selective in the definition, enforcement, and acknowledgement of both. We cannot refuse to speak about or tone for the bad deeds of many of our own while at the same time being absolutist in defining the evil affected by the Sadam Hussein and Idi Amin’s of the world.
Eugene Robinson said it best in his op-ed titled “It matters who’s on the money, and Harriet Tubman fits the bill.”
Unceasing struggle has expanded the meaning of “we the people,” once reserved for white men only. As our understanding of freedom and equality has changed, so has our reading of the nation’s history. In fighting for the rights of African Americans and women, Tubman risked her life for the highest of American ideals. Her example ennobles us all.
By definition, the study of history requires interpretation and assessment. The many vital contributions made by black people, women and other “outsiders” were long overlooked or undervalued. We are now able to see Tubman through a sharper lens, and she was magnificent.
As for Jackson, history has been less kind. He was a major slave owner, of course, like so many of our early presidents. If that alone were enough to get a president booted from our money, we’d have no dollar bills, no nickels and no quarters. Of course we should keep George Washington and Thomas Jefferson around, understanding their flaws while celebrating their greatness.
America morphed into a great country as we became more liberal. We became a more moral country as we recognized the value and equality of all humans.