Macbeth, act 5, scene 5:
I have walked among the concrete coffins meant to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. Nestled in the heart of Berlin, within walking distance of both the Brandenberg Gate and the rebuilt Reichstag--the building whose burning gifted Germany to Hitler and set history's course for genocide, nuclear devastation, and more--I shivered as much from the weather as from the location. There is a specter that haunts Berlin: One of regret, of shame, of unwillingness to forget but also one of determination to create a new definition of what it means to be German. Berlin struck me as a place that had woken up from a nightmare that she didn't know was real, and then resolved to heal those broken parts of herself. To remember and to improve--never to justify or defend her atrocities.
In the American South, monuments and flags--symbols of a history steeped in blood and slavery--are common. They are part of state flags. They purposefully evoke the racism that agreed with, encouraged, and empowered the Original Sin of America. The continued veneration of Southern rebels and slave owners, of an entire system developed, designed, and defended in order to subjugate human beings, is a perpetuation of the war that the South lost.
Now, I have studied the Civil War. I've taught it. I'm aware that there are many different currents and eddies within history, and the swirl of events can have many unintended and unexpected consequences. I know it's not a "simple" matter--until you look at the quintessence of the conflict. The slavery issue is always the deepest, most crucial piece of the equation. The South fought for "states' rights", sure, but it was the "right" to steal a human and force him to work in a field for no pay. That isn't actually a right the state has. "It was economic anxiety" is another lie I hear people use to rationalize institutionalized, legalized slavery. Sure--the economy that was built on the backs of slavery. A person is more valuable than money, and if that is something that you find controversial, I don't know what to say to you.
My point is, slavery is America's Holocaust, and we fight to excuse it. Berlin has a museum, built on the same place where the SS headquarters were during the Third Reich's power. The museum is called "The Topography of Terror", and it documents the distressing details of how Germany slid into fascism. The day I was there was steel gray, biting cold, and the ground frosted with a smattering of snow. As we trudged toward the museum--which didn't charge for entrance, because it's that important--I saw the underground cells that survived the bombing of Berlin. I walked past places where humans--"enemies" of the state--had been incarcerated without trial and tortured to death.
In Charlottesville, the general who fought to preserve human slavery stands in their city, bestride a horse, memorialized and commemorated. Symbols mean things; this statue does not mean, "I'm sorry."
The violence, chaos, Nazi-era chants, and the striking reality of racial animus and naked white supremacy of this weekend inspired the Shakespearean line. Having just returned from the Utah Shakespeare Festival, Shax is more on my mind than usual, and his analyses, dramatizations, and warnings about tyranny (in Macbeth, certainly, but in Coriolanus, Hamlet, and Julius Caesar, too) speak to me from the dust. I think of the mobs of 2 Henry VI (4.2) and their famous invective against lawyers. I think of the fickleness of the people in both Coriolanus and Julius Caesar. I think of the dangers of a capricious ruler, such as in King Lear. Shakespeare knew what it was to work and survive in turbulent times. He crafted art out of wind--the words of his inventions--and bravely (if subtly) critiqued and attacked abuses of power. He allowed women to have a voice, spoke of the concerns of the common man, and pointed out the foibles and flaws of the ruling class. In his own way, he drew lines around racism and plumbed the depths of regret, despair, fear, hope, and love.
Shakespeare was alive during the largest attempted terrorist attack in history, the Gunpowder Plot. He saw intense state abuses of power in the aftermath of a non-attack. He continued to put out prodigious and powerful work--indeed, with King Lear coming after the Gunpowder Plot, some argue that he produced his most powerful work. His commitment to his art, his business, his craft, his stage was not intimidated by the whirling controversies about him. (And, if he were intimidated, it doesn't show in his work.)
I take courage in that. I have to hope that we will wake up from our racial nightmares and, like Berlin, recognize we had done more than dream of such hatred--and reject it. Being awake, we might "banish hence these abject lowly dreams" (Taming of the Shrew Induction) and gain new sight, new context, and a broader view.
That's the hope I have in the midst of our national horrors.
I have supped full with horrors.Heather Heyer has become a martyr, killed by domestic terrorism, though it ought to be noted that the hatred on display in Charlottesville has claimed many lives. The heritage that the neo-Nazis and white supremacists claim to be defending is one of barbarism, slavery, mutilation, rape, and death.
I have walked among the concrete coffins meant to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. Nestled in the heart of Berlin, within walking distance of both the Brandenberg Gate and the rebuilt Reichstag--the building whose burning gifted Germany to Hitler and set history's course for genocide, nuclear devastation, and more--I shivered as much from the weather as from the location. There is a specter that haunts Berlin: One of regret, of shame, of unwillingness to forget but also one of determination to create a new definition of what it means to be German. Berlin struck me as a place that had woken up from a nightmare that she didn't know was real, and then resolved to heal those broken parts of herself. To remember and to improve--never to justify or defend her atrocities.
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| I took this picture in January 2017. |
Now, I have studied the Civil War. I've taught it. I'm aware that there are many different currents and eddies within history, and the swirl of events can have many unintended and unexpected consequences. I know it's not a "simple" matter--until you look at the quintessence of the conflict. The slavery issue is always the deepest, most crucial piece of the equation. The South fought for "states' rights", sure, but it was the "right" to steal a human and force him to work in a field for no pay. That isn't actually a right the state has. "It was economic anxiety" is another lie I hear people use to rationalize institutionalized, legalized slavery. Sure--the economy that was built on the backs of slavery. A person is more valuable than money, and if that is something that you find controversial, I don't know what to say to you.
My point is, slavery is America's Holocaust, and we fight to excuse it. Berlin has a museum, built on the same place where the SS headquarters were during the Third Reich's power. The museum is called "The Topography of Terror", and it documents the distressing details of how Germany slid into fascism. The day I was there was steel gray, biting cold, and the ground frosted with a smattering of snow. As we trudged toward the museum--which didn't charge for entrance, because it's that important--I saw the underground cells that survived the bombing of Berlin. I walked past places where humans--"enemies" of the state--had been incarcerated without trial and tortured to death.
In Charlottesville, the general who fought to preserve human slavery stands in their city, bestride a horse, memorialized and commemorated. Symbols mean things; this statue does not mean, "I'm sorry."
 |
| You can still see "Black Lives Matter" tattooed at the base. (Source) |
Shakespeare was alive during the largest attempted terrorist attack in history, the Gunpowder Plot. He saw intense state abuses of power in the aftermath of a non-attack. He continued to put out prodigious and powerful work--indeed, with King Lear coming after the Gunpowder Plot, some argue that he produced his most powerful work. His commitment to his art, his business, his craft, his stage was not intimidated by the whirling controversies about him. (And, if he were intimidated, it doesn't show in his work.)
I take courage in that. I have to hope that we will wake up from our racial nightmares and, like Berlin, recognize we had done more than dream of such hatred--and reject it. Being awake, we might "banish hence these abject lowly dreams" (Taming of the Shrew Induction) and gain new sight, new context, and a broader view.
That's the hope I have in the midst of our national horrors.