Jesus said, Matthew 7:2, "For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." He also said, "Let him without sin cast the first stone."
You and I are products of our times. We are the sum total of our thoughts; our spiritual life--whether we maintain a relationship with God or do not; our actions; our entertainment and how we either think about it or simply absorb it without thinking about it; our influences from friends, teachers, parents, colleagues etc. and our society. We cannot get away from that entirely. We are products of our times.
The same holds true for people of different eras. The Conquistadors, the Confederates, the Founding Fathers, the Presidents, the actors and actresses, the politicians, the intellectuals and educators, the Indians, the US Cavalry--whoever--they were all products of their times. And if we sit in judgment of them we would do well to remember we too shall be judged. We give no quarter to George Washington or Thomas Jefferson for moving their society forward a giant leap toward "liberty and justice for all," no. Their statues must be removed. Oh we say we won't erase history from the books, but in the next breath amend the movie "Gone with the Wind," and ban "To Kill a Mockingbird." We will give no quarter to General Lee who faced a series of difficult decisions none of us will ever have to face because we live in a different time and place and almost cannot even imagine his life, his world, his thoughts, his reasons, his rationales for the things he chose, yet the Union army including the Union foot soldiers admired and loved General Lee. We do not ask why they felt that way. No. His statue must be removed. We do not ask why someone thought Theodore Roosevelt should be memorialized in statues and on Mount Rushmore. No, because someone said he was cruel to indigenous people, he must be removed. Onate, the Spanish Conquistador--we do not ask what good he did or how he came to choose what he chose--no, his statue must be removed. We remove these statues because these imperfect figures of the past do not mirror the values and righteousness we hold dear.
And what values and righteousnesses do we hold dear? What will future generations conclude?
What will future generations make of a society that rampages and destroys entire city blocks because a bad cop killed a black man? Will they admire us? What will they think when they see that the city blocks weren't even near the killer's house, but were in the same neighborhood where the murder happened--the black neighborhood where the rioters live and work and shop? Many of the businesses owned by their black neighbors. What will they think of us having screamed, "Black Lives Matter," when in Baltimore and Chicago black men gunned down other black men every weekend year after year? Or when they read how black women marched into abortion clinics and aborted their babies? Or when they read how black fathers did not live in the home with their children, but instead spread their seed far and wide fathering offspring they did not raise? How will future generations judge that? Will they view the beloved black leaders of our age with the same lens many of us do? Will they see the rioting in close proximity to others in the time of Corona Virus as justified as we do, but the simultaneous prohibitions on attending church, eating in restaurants, shopping small businesses, attending political rallies etc. were also justified? Will they see the logic of that?
Whatever decisions persons of the past have made they made them based on the information, training and mores of their times--just as we do. Each person must be judged, not by a future time's measuring stick, but by the measuring stick of the days in which they lived. That is why statues of those people were erected, because these people overcame and did something people of their time admired. We would do well to see those people through the lens of their times as well as our lens. We can learn from these figures of the past, perhaps even achieve better, do more, go further, but if we desecrate their memories we will fail to do that. Having failed to learn from our past, we will be judged by the future, for by the measure we use to judge, we shall also be judged. What will future peoples think of us?
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