I Must Speak

            President Trump decided to pardon former sheriff Joe Arpaio in accordance with his constitutional authority. Though he acted well within his authority, He acted recklessly and in a fashion deleterious to the well being of our society. As a sheriff Arpaio fostered a command climate in which those of color, particularly Hispanics, suffered immense deprivations of their constitutionally guaranteed rights. In this toxic environment many innocent suffered and, in a distressing number of cases, lost their lives. Eventually justice caught up with the sheriff and he found himself convicted of criminal contempt. President Trump stepped in, before the judges assigned sentence, and pardoned the Sheriff. This pardon adds fuel to an already volatile situation. It clearly communicates to those of color where our President, and those who support him, stand and how far we must travel as a nation before we live up to the words found in our Declaration of Independence which read, “…all men are created equal.” Some may wonder why I feel compelled to add to the volume already penned on this subject. Some friends in quiet communications have wondered why I might take such action.

            Long ago, 1981 to be exact, I took an oath to “protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same.” That oath did not contain an expiration date or time limit. It remains in effect. So I must speak out. I must remain true to those stirring words that frame our government. And though the Declaration and the Constitution are two separate documents, they echo each other. I was trained by SSG Williams and SFC Io; both later attained the rank of CSM. They taught me the fundamentals of soldiering. They remain men I look up to and seek to emulate in my daily life. They happen to be men of color. I served with COL Bill Aquino and COL Pat Crowder. Both of these men helped me through a particularly dark time in Iraq. They stood by me and, as we say in the Army, had my “6.” Again, they are both happen to be men of color. The list could stretch on. Suffice it to say, I cannot now turn my back on all of these men and women who served with me, ensuring my physical safety and professional success. They did so with no thought of my race. Their only concern was that I was a fellow soldier. Upon my breast, over my heart, it read, “U.S. Army.” So today, I stand with them. I stand with my oath. I stand with the founding documents of our nation. And as a Christian, I stand with the Bible where it says, “There is neither Jew, nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus,” Galatians 3:28. So I must speak. I must cry out against injustice. And I must live up to my oath. I can do nothing else.

Why Monuments Must Go

As a Christian, as a soldier that took an oath to “protect and defend the Constitution,” as a man that has stood at Dachau’s charnel ovens, and a vast unmarked grave in Northeast Baghdad watching family members scrabble through mounds of desiccated remains desperately seeking some link to a loved one, I am compelled to speak out concerning those sad monuments to our darker past. It is one thing to soberly view historical items in a museum, learning of our, all to frequent, descents into community madness and an entirely different thing to glorify the perpetrators of the near destruction of our nation and supporters of the shackling of Black people into bondage through large public monuments. Participation in these two intrinsically different events sends two divergent and incompatible messages.

We erect monuments to those men and women that exemplify those noble character traits our culture lifts up; individuals who sacrifice for the betterment of all. Those monuments that glorify leaders of the Confederacy do not point to our better, brighter moments. Instead they remind us of a darker, baser past, one that should cause us to hang our heads in shame. Washington, Jefferson, and others, while not perfect men, point toward a higher place, toward those noble ideals framed in our key and founding documents. While we must not forget those forays into shameful, deviant behavior; we do not want to lift them up as examples to emulate. They should come down from those public spaces they currently occupy. They were erected to remind certain segments of our society to keep their heads down and to remember their place on the bottom rungs of the societal ladder. Relegate such memorials to the past and to those museums dedicated to education and illumination. We must move out of that dark phase of our history into the light.

We remember men and women like Washington, Adams, Roosevelt, Tubman, and others that expended their energies and take risks to forward the cause of human freedom and liberty. They risked all to serve others and deserve public recognition and remembrance. Lee, Hood, and others while men of military prowess, chose to expend their energies, personal fortune, and military skills in a cause determined to savagely curtail liberties for some, to expand the borders of slave territory, and trample the Constitution all while destroying our nation. When faced with a crucial choice they chose poorly. And while they remain a critical portion of our history, they do not deserve adulation and honor. The time has long passed for us to swallow our pride and remove these constant reminders of a dark and failed past.