Darrin Bell is an African-American cartoonist. He has been awarded the 2015 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, as well as the 2016 Clifford K. & James T. Berryman Award for Editorial Cartoons. Several collections of his cartoons have been published. His Candorville cartoon works heavily with both African-American and Latino characters and is often placed in the inner city. He has incisive commentary and a streak of basic honesty in his commentary that is well worth emulating.
In the cartoon above he brings up a basic question. At what point does some belief held by a well-known and honored historical person make it impossible to continue honoring that person for their accomplishments? Mr. Bell was wise enough to go back to a time about 2,400 years ago and his target is Aristotle. I suspect that part of the reason that he went back that far is that it was probably the only way in which he could draw such a cartoon without immediate accusations against him. Sadly, that is a damning commentary about our current social and political debates.
It turns out that Aristotle believed that there were such things as natural slaves. “[I]f their work is the use of the body, and if this is the best that can come from them—are slaves by nature. For them, it is better to be ruled in accordance with this sort of rule …” This part of Aristotle’s writings was even used, in part, by some in the 1500s to support enslaving the New World Native Americans. Though Mr. Bell’s target is Aristotle, one can see through the veil and perceive the arguments that have taken place all over this country about honoring those who had slaves or who supported the idea of slavery.
At one extreme are those who claim that it does not matter what a person’s achievements were, we cannot honor any of their achievements if they ever owned slaves or supported slavery. Under this rubric, you have the offended parents who insist that schools named George Washington or Thomas Jefferson must be renamed and that it is wrong for our children to be taught too much about them. As Mr. Bell points out in his comic, under this rubric, we would have to stop honoring Aristotle, one of the pillars of much of Western philosophy, law, etc.
At the other extreme are those who fail to perceive any problem whatsoever. The statues that are already up in various parts of this country need to be left up because they simply reflect a historical person who deserves to be honored for any of several accomplishments. That the person being honored either owned slaves and/or fought for the Confederacy and/or pushed Jim Crow laws is not relevant. They were otherwise honorable men and otherwise accomplished great tasks. Often, people at this extreme conveniently ignore how many of those statues were erected in the 1920s or during times of heavy KKK involvement and the passing of extreme Jim Crow laws.
Each side makes certain good arguments. Mr. Bell’s comic recognizes the difficulty in going to the extreme of failing to honor the great achievements of some who were mistaken in one or another belief. Thus, we could not honor Aristotle under the no-honor rule. The same man who developed the Nazi V1 and V2 rockets, and was a member of the Nazi party, Wernher von Braun, is also the person who developed the American Saturn rocket that took us to the moon. Yet, we must recognize that there really is an argument to be made that we must be careful not to honor those who espoused some horrible ideas. If in honoring them, we give the impression that all their ideas were good, we could end up giving a false impression on what it is we are honoring about them.
At the same time, it is all too true that many of those who are arguing for keeping the statues are arguing for keeping every statue, even if the person has no great achievement other than having been the local hero who fought on the side of the Confederacy. Given that many of those statues were not erected until the Jim Crow and KKK era, there is quite a good argument to be made that those wishing to keep those statues are simply engaging in hidden racism and not merely wishing to preserve history. Interestingly enough, lately there has been the argument rising up that all statues should be kept in order to use them as teaching tools for our children so that they may come to realize how deeply entrenched pro-slavery feeling was. I think that argument is little more than yet another attempt to keep up the statues, etc., of some who have nothing else for which to be honored.
Mr. Bell does not have an answer in his comic. He only poses the question. I do not have an easy answer either. As an inveterate moderate, I suspect that the answer is somewhere in the middle. There are some, such as Aristotle, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, whose other accomplishments are so great that we should honor them for those accomplishments even while we carefully say that there are parts of their lives of which we do not approve. There are others who, in reality, have no accomplishments of which to speak. Given their involvement in inappropriate actions, there is no need whatsoever to honor them in any way.
Nevertheless, I must admit that there is no easy answer as Mr. Bell points out in his comic.
Well this is certainly something we are dealing with and not in the abstract. This is an area where moderation seems to be the most honest and fair track. Lyndon Johnson was a notorious racist, using the n word on a regular basis yet he lobbied for and signed the Civil Rights Act knowing it would change the Democratic Party forever.
Dr. Northam, whom I personally know and respect, has done many good things for the POC in Va as well as been a caring doctor for the children in our area regardless of color. He is not the flaming racist the national media or the Democratic Party leaders want to make him out to be for their agenda. I have said under several different circumstances this zero tolerance will not work-for me too or for racial healing. I hope all of these missteps and outrage politics will someday lead to better communication and interactions.