Lin Manuel Miranda told interviewer Lulu Garcia-Navarro we are "living in revolutionary times."
The creator of Hamilton was on NPR reflecting on the film release of his award winning, historically successful Broadway smash.
He hit upon a truth.
Our American upheaval and reckoning on race is more deeply nuanced than black and white. If I may suggest, a California accent in these days of change bears witness to deep complexity and leads us into a journey of discovery that should bring clarifying discovery to almost every point of view.
LA Times Photo
In unpacking that process we get a tighter view of the history of institutional or systemic racism.
In 1875 Richard Field, a confederate lieutenant, named a tree after Lee in the Kings Canyon area before the breathtaking land along the King's River was a park.
It wasn't until 1901 that a tree in Sequoia National Park got tagged the General Lee. John Broder, then the park concessionaire, gave it the name. Broder had confederate leanings and in 1937 formally dedicated the tree in a ceremony sponsored by the Daughters of the Confederacy.
There was no good reason to name California trees for confederate rebels. There were no Civil War battles in California and the state provided gold to support the Union. California troops battled the confederacy in the New Mexico territory, built forts and military compounds to stop the rebels, and many California men went east to join the Union army.
Like all things in history, it gets more complicated.
California was anti confederacy, anti slavery and anti-secessionist.
Here is where the notion of good guys and bad guys gets educated by fact. California Volunteers, regiments of infantry and cavalry, massacred native peoples in California, Oregon, New Mexico and other western regions to "secure" the land for the Union.
This brings us back to a reality, that though it is a companion to Black Lives Matter, the genocide of native citizens is the United States' original and continuing sin.
The treatment of the sovereign residents is a story of genocide more than 500 years long. It was first practiced by Europeans colonizing the new world. As the American nation rose up, it too engaged in genocide. Millions of native citizens were murdered, killed in battles, slaughtered, poisoned, shoved off their lands, lied to by the government and abused since the age of discovery.
The treatment of the sovereign residents is a story of genocide more than 500 years long. It was first practiced by Europeans colonizing the new world. As the American nation rose up, it too engaged in genocide. Millions of native citizens were murdered, killed in battles, slaughtered, poisoned, shoved off their lands, lied to by the government and abused since the age of discovery.
As slavers stole human beings from Africa and the Caribbean, and forced them into labor, western expansionists, settlers, land developers, and then later, the US Army, railroad developers, and the full federal government continued to deny life, citizenship, and human dignity to first citizens of this land.
So we circle back the grievance of other skin hues who see this moment in US history to tell the full backstory, and to seek validation and support.
The Mission at San Luis Obispo sent the men in orange shirts and sunglasses to move Junipero Serra to the basement. At a time when monuments, statues, memorials and public icons are under attack, the Catholic Church moved the Serra statue for safekeeping because his record and that of the church provides fuel for ire.
Serra led the 18th century effort of the Catholic Church to build Missions and "convert" Native Americans to Catholicism. The Natives were abused, their own faith systems were banned, customs they had practiced for centuries were stopped, and many died. It was the practice of the Catholic Church where ever they "Missonized."
The Mission at San Luis Obispo sent the men in orange shirts and sunglasses to move Junipero Serra to the basement. At a time when monuments, statues, memorials and public icons are under attack, the Catholic Church moved the Serra statue for safekeeping because his record and that of the church provides fuel for ire.
Serra led the 18th century effort of the Catholic Church to build Missions and "convert" Native Americans to Catholicism. The Natives were abused, their own faith systems were banned, customs they had practiced for centuries were stopped, and many died. It was the practice of the Catholic Church where ever they "Missonized."
The first grievance this nation should address is our atrocious, criminal and barbaric treatment of those who resided here first.
I suspect most US citizens today are as ignorant as were our ancestors who participated in the murder and abuse of natives centuries ago, that we owe our form of government to the Iroquois. In 1754 Benjamin Franklin, depicted above, began suggesting that the Colonies adopt principles of the Iroquois Confederacy. At the time Iroquois nations came together to form a government based on peace, equity and the power of the "good minds." Franklin persisted over the years and the Constitution we have owes its birth to the oldest North American system-the Iroquois Confederacy.
The Cherokee could also have taught us a lesson. They were a matrilineal society and their men were equal. They governed by use of Council Houses, where men and women had equal voice.
It is hard not to be outraged when one considers the brute force that devastated the first citizens was fueled by the spawn of European Court Society, Trading Companies, and the arrogance of wealth seeking more wealth, usually practiced by white men, insensitive to all views but their own and most certainly ignorant to the value of the cultures they maliciously and deceitfully destroyed.
The anger being released now is simple to understand but some of the destruction and vandalism we witness is reminiscent of the Taliban or Isis.
And there is this-Lana's perspective. She is an artist and when she sees a statue tumble, no matter how nefarious or political was the motive of the creation, she sees a work of art, the effort and creativity of an artisan being destroyed. Rage destroying creativity.
I see no reason for a statue to a confederate anywhere on public display, but I think those that have been built can be brought down and used as tools of education. They can be retitled, new messaged, repurposed. Perhaps they belong in a museum where the truth is told and where they are not "celebrated." I like to think how the curators of the National Museum of African American history might be able to repurpose them.
There is value in memorials, even if we elevate and
celebrate other mere mortals, men and women who, as the saying goes, have "feet of clay." No one is without fault, but some have lived lives of historic value.
There is a point at which we need to think. Before we become like the Taliban, we need reason and rationality of how to proceed.
Some are now trying to get the John Wayne Airport renamed! Really. Aren't there real battles to fight?
What if some unimaginable disruptive change delivers society to the point where violence and war is so disparaged that it was tantamount to being outlawed and banned? Would we-could we, then begin to target other memorials.
All decent and thinking people need to yell STOP when the legitimate movement of protest and outrage turns from being an assembly for the redress of grievances to mindless and mob driven, hysteric acts of violence or destruction. Good causes can be excessive.
We depart from the light when passion overtakes reason. Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities wove a warning when the cries of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" became a dreadful cheer of bloodlust and beheadings.
There can be no untouchable, PC protected, hands off, "sacred" aspect of our history, or person, group, movement or politics in this time of reckoning. No one has privilege. All voices should be heard. Grievances need be protested.
We will not change our history, but we need to know it honestly, all of it, so we can make a future more honest, fair and equitable than our past.
When Lin Manuel Miranda spoke with Lulu Garcia-Navarro it was a snap shot of the best of who we can be; young American citizens, children of immigrants, bright, creative, exploring the realm of ideas and embracing the American dream.
"...in this moment right now, what I'm seeing is the language of revolution everywhere. And so the language of revolution present in this show from 244 years ago is being felt again in this different way by the Black and Brown future of this country reckoning with what we want the future of this country to be going forward."
Lin Manuel Miranda to Lulu Garcia-Navarro on NPR June 28, 2020
Stay safe, take care of each other.
See you down the trail.
