I want to thank Brownsville City Commissioner Ben Neece for his efforts to get the city moving again, after a long delay, on resolving the question of what to do with the Jefferson Davis memorial. But I take exception to his description of the Davis memorial as "neutral." It is anything but.
The Jefferson Davis memorial was placed in Brownsville as part of an active campaign by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to promote white supremacy in the South and the myth of the "Lost Cause," an attempt (largely successful) to rewrite history to obscure the fact that the Southern states seceded to protect the institution of slavery. The reason it was placed here was not neutral, and neither has been its effect.
The memorial itself is not neutral because it refers to Jefferson Davis, a traitor to his country, as a "martyr." There are two major problems with this. The first is that martyrdom is used to describe people who die for their cause. In fact, after the war Davis spent many years touring the country giving speeches promoting the Lost Cause and white supremacy, and he died of an illness 25 years after the end of the war. So he cannot be said to have given his life for his cause, as a martyr would.
But what prevents the memorial from being neutral is that martyrdom is associated with fighting for justice. For the memorial to say that Davis was a martyr is to imply that the cause for which he was "martyred," the cause of the South, the defense of slavery, was just. Referring to Davis as a martyr perpetuates an ideology that says that some people are better than others because of the color of their skin. This is the same ideology that labels Mexicans "rapists" and "murderers" and considers it reasonable to separate kids from their parents and put them in cages. This is not "neutral" and the cause that Davis pursued was anything but just.
The memorial needs to be removed from the public eye and put in a museum, and used to educate people about the way white supremacy has been used to oppress and degrade our community. If we are to honor history — to really honor history — we must tell the full story, not promote myths and lies.
Mark J. Kaswan
Brownsville