How ironic that just a week after my last article appeared in the Long Island Business News calling for a removal of the Confederate statues, while preserving our founding fathers, one of our major academic institutions on Long Island, Hofstra University, took the heartbreaking and nauseating step of removing a Thomas Jefferson statue from its public square and hiding it elsewhere.
If a majority of its students felt the desire to disparage one of the greatest thinkers of the millennium, then it’s a sad commentary on what’s being taught at our universities. If it was just a small segment of the school that felt offended, how offensive that the school itself bowed to the mob.
My last article reflected upon how taken aback I was when visiting southern cities and seeing confederate traitors who sought to preserve slavery put up on pedestals. I imagined how distraught I would be as an African-American parent having to explain this to my children.
But I also distinguished this from our founding fathers, even those who might have been slave owners. No one can condone slavery today, or in any era. But we also have to be cognizant that the norms of today will someday be perceived as repugnant to future generations. That’s why we have to look at an individual’s entire record in context of the times before casting judgment.
Take, for instance, former President Barack Obama. There are many communities looking to name schools and highways after him. But wait a minute – didn’t he oppose gay marriage? I assume Rev. Martin Luther King also opposed gay unions. Perhaps one day, that will be a disqualifying trait.
And what about FDR – considered one of our greatest presidents – who is enshrined in a statue in the Washington mall? He interned Japanese-Americans and turned Jewish refugees on a boat back to the gas chambers in Germany.
What about Winston Churchill, who helped save the free world from the Nazis, yet also was an advocate of British colonialism?
What about Gandhi, an icon held up as a model of peace and liberation, who also had made numerous racially insensitive remarks?
How can we honor any iconic figure prior to 1920, if they put up with a system that denied women the right to vote?
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August 6, 2020Levy: Hofstra surrenders to the mob by moving Jefferson statue
By: Opinion, Steve Levy August 3, 2020
How ironic that just a week after my last article appeared in the Long Island Business News calling for a removal of the Confederate statues, while preserving our founding fathers, one of our major academic institutions on Long Island, Hofstra University, took the heartbreaking and nauseating step of removing a Thomas Jefferson statue from its public square and hiding it elsewhere.
If a majority of its students felt the desire to disparage one of the greatest thinkers of the millennium, then it’s a sad commentary on what’s being taught at our universities. If it was just a small segment of the school that felt offended, how offensive that the school itself bowed to the mob.
My last article reflected upon how taken aback I was when visiting southern cities and seeing confederate traitors who sought to preserve slavery put up on pedestals. I imagined how distraught I would be as an African-American parent having to explain this to my children.
But I also distinguished this from our founding fathers, even those who might have been slave owners. No one can condone slavery today, or in any era. But we also have to be cognizant that the norms of today will someday be perceived as repugnant to future generations. That’s why we have to look at an individual’s entire record in context of the times before casting judgment.
Take, for instance, former President Barack Obama. There are many communities looking to name schools and highways after him. But wait a minute – didn’t he oppose gay marriage? I assume Rev. Martin Luther King also opposed gay unions. Perhaps one day, that will be a disqualifying trait.
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And what about FDR – considered one of our greatest presidents – who is enshrined in a statue in the Washington mall? He interned Japanese-Americans and turned Jewish refugees on a boat back to the gas chambers in Germany.
What about Winston Churchill, who helped save the free world from the Nazis, yet also was an advocate of British colonialism?
What about Gandhi, an icon held up as a model of peace and liberation, who also had made numerous racially insensitive remarks?
How can we honor any iconic figure prior to 1920, if they put up with a system that denied women the right to vote?
Steve Levy
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