“Monument: a structure erected to
commemorate persons or events.” Seems harmless enough, I mean, after all, who
wouldn’t want to honor something or someone for a good job? On the other end of
the spectrum, what if something or someone was so terrible that you couldn’t
help but put a monument up so that others would never, ever forget? Such is the
transcendence of monuments. Monuments can stir up emotions, cause outbursts of
feeling…but can it also cause ingroup bias? I think so, in fact, it’s been subtly
happening for years.
The Holocaust
Museum: Poignant, startling,
unsettling. Can anyone say that they’ve been happy to go to that particular
museum? I’m not saying that you can have a good time at that museum, but every
time I went and had fun (I’m not saying it was a party time, but I enjoy
learning, therefore museums bring pleasure to me), I always felt guilty
afterwards. I also felt a great sense of relief after the museum was out of
view and I was back on the bus or in the car. In fact, the first thing I often
thought was, “Thank goodness we’re not like the Nazis. We know better.” Out of
those ten words, I’ve identified two groups, we Americans and of course, the
Nazis. In those same two groups, I’ve also identified another thing: we’re
good, they’re bad. Ah, from such weak beginnings…
(Now, before I get accused of being
unpatriotic, let me note: I never said it was a bad thing to be partial to America;
after all, everyone’s partial to where they came from, no matter how good or
bad. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming already in progress)
Of course, the Holocaust was a horrific
event, a bloodstain that no amount of atoning can ever cleanse. I should feel
blessed to have been born here in America,
where we accept
everyone and honor every aspect of our history whether good or bad, right? Once
again, I’m afraid that’s wrong.
Let’s look at the government’s views about
the massacre at Wounded Knee. In fact, until 1990, the
massacre was called the Battle of Wounded
Knee…a “battle” in which over three hundred Native American men,
women, and children were shot by United States
soldiers. The Indians in this “battle” received death; the U.S.
soldiers received twenty Congressional Medals of Honor. Of course, I never said
that there wasn’t a monument at Wounded Knee. There’s
one dedicated to the twenty-five soldiers who died there; there is still a
Native American monument in progress, but the Lakota tribe is asking for
donations to help construct the memorial…long story short, it’s not done yet.
My question is,”Where is the U.S.
government’s help in all of this?” As Americans, is our lack of support a sign
of ignorance? Or is it a sign of ingroup bias, a sign that America
thinks that it is right in honoring the lost soldiers who lost their lives in
that “battle?”
For more recent monument/memorial
building, let’s have a peek of the Slavery Memorial that is in the process of
being built. This memorial should have begun a long time ago, but better late
than never, I say. If this memorial is being created as a conciliatory gesture
as I’ve heard certain people say (wonder who that could be…) then does this
mean that the government has apologized for its treatment of African Americans
during the 18th and 19th century? Besides President
Clinton’s apology to the people of Uganda
for America’s
role in the slave trade (note: he apologized, not to America’s
own citizens, but to the Ugandans), there has never been an official government
apology. There was a resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives
(H. Con. Res. 356.) on June 19th, 2000 to have the United
States apologize, but as far as I know, it
never got past the House. So I must ask aloud, how can you attempt to heal the
hurt caused by centuries of oppression without apologizing? Is America
so sure of its path that it feels that it can go forth with this memorial to
slavery without acknowledging its own part?
In conclusion, monuments…are they what
they appear to be? Or is there something lurking within them that we silently
know is leading America
to put itself on a pedestal? To be truthful, monuments scare me almost as much
as the events they commemorate. I feel that by having monuments and memorials,
we may (not always, just sometimes) run the risk of becoming complacent. By thinking
that just because we have seen the memorial, or that we watched the special on
TV, or that we read the book, we are suddenly absolved of responsibility to any
other moral or emotional connection of events like the Holocaust or the Trail
of Tears or Slavery scares me because I see it happening with myself and my
friends. My biggest fear is that someday perhaps all anyone will get out of the
Holocaust Memorial is the horrifying thought that, “It will never happen here
because Americans are better than the evil Nazis. Americans would never treat
an ethnic/racial/religious group like that.”
Because then
the message of the suffering of millions of people will be completely for
nothing.