Put It All in One Big Museum

Never ones to let a good crisis go to waste, Democrats made overtures on gun control. But after being unable to articulate a single proposed law that would’ve prevented the attack, they moved to plan B: the Confederate battle flag.

How removing a piece of cloth from the grounds of the capitol building in South Carolina has anything to do with a mass killing remains as much a mystery to me as why anyone would want to fly it in the first place. But this is where we are now. Rather than dealing with mental illness or speaking frankly about racism, we’re talking about textiles.

Gov. Nikki Haley is correct. The flag does not belong on public grounds – only the US flag and state flags do. The Confederate flag shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

But the Confederate flag was there in the first place. Just as it’s important to remove it now, it’s important to remember why it was there. So let us take Gov. Haley’s suggestion, which is also President Obama’s suggestion, and put it all in a museum.

We can call the museum The Progressive Museum Of Democratic Party History. The Confederate flag from South Carolina can be on full display with a placard telling the story of how Democratic Gov. “Fritz” Hollings and his fellow Democrats raised it above the statehouse as a thumb in the eye of the civil rights movement.

But this would be a small, boring museum if that was all it contained. Luckily the Democratic Party has a long history of racism we can use to fill this museum.

In addition to the South Carolina artifacts, the museum can proudly display then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton’s signed copy of “Act 116” in which he decreed, “The blue star above the word “Arkansas” (on the state’s flag) is to commemorate the Confederate States of America.” It exists, it’s right here.

We also can add a sign from Nathan Bedford Forrest State Park in Tennessee. Named for the Confederate general and first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, it “began as a local park constructed by the Works Progress Administration, a Depression-era work recovery program.” The WPA was one of Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s signature programs, and the park was established during the tenure of Democratic Gov. Henry Hollis Horton.

There could be a segregation wing explaining how Democratic Party lawmakers in the south conceived and implemented separate facilities for white and black people. Add on a voter suppression wing that shows how in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, black Americans were elected throughout the South as Republicans, but when reconstruction ended, Democrats erected barriers for non-whites to vote, beginning the segregation and Klan era.

The Klan floor would be chock full of pictures of prominent Democrats from its founding right up until the 21st century with twice-elected Democratic Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate Robert Byrd. They could even have the video of Byrd dropping N-bombs on live TV on a loop.

Actually, given the intermingling of the Democratic Party and racism, and just how much history of it there is, one museum may not be large enough to house it all. Perhaps each state’s Democratic Party headquarters could offer up some space and the artifacts can be rotated to a new state annually. Democrats could charge admission and then, since their forefathers were both the architects and beneficiaries of this vile strain of hatred, match the money raised from their campaign contributors and that money could be distributed as reparations.

There are statues galore of Democratic Party racists that could be used to fill the grounds, so each museum could have an outside area for quiet reflection. Why not do it?

You can’t blame Democrats for their willingness to wipe away racist symbols and perpetrators of that evil from our collective consciousness because it’s their history and they don’t want people to know that. George Wallace and Bull Connor weren’t just horrible human beings, they were leaders in the Democratic Party. If the nation is to have an honest discussion about race it should start with an honest discussion about the racists one party has unleashed on this country since its founding.

Of course, that’s exactly why we aren’t having that conversation and why we’re talking about a flag.